Well, after the weekend, we had a bank holiday, and I spent most of that with friends. I went out for lunch with a few, and then went to buy a map with one of them. I then got to buy a book in Waterstones, which came as a bit of a surprise to me. I hadn't had that in mind, but clearly God had other ideas. On the Tuesday, I got a bit of a surprising text, telling me we were back on street teams that week, which was a week earlier than I was expecting. I don't remember anything much about the Wednesday, but on the Thursday, I decided I should go out with street teams; which turned out to be a really good idea. It appeared that they were unsure if they would be able to get people together to go out until October; but it turned out that the next two weeks were fine if they could get someone to collect the food from Soho. So I offered to do that.
And on the Friday, I was invited to a friend's housewarming party.Well, I'd actually been invited a couple of weeks before, but had forgotten when it was-I thought it was the Saturday. Thankfully, my housemate reminded me in time, and I wandered along. And that was a brilliant occasion. There were loads of people I knew there, not just Becky and Glen, who had invited me. People I hadn't seen for ages, and people I don't spend much time with. I even met a couple of new people, which is always good. there was plenty of laughter, conversation, and fun-and a general good time was had by all. And the thought of arranging to see some films with Dapo, at some point. That was my experience of it, anyway. May there be many more like that, as many as possible. And on the actual Saturday, it was back to work as usual, except, slightly unusually, Jess was back from maternity leave-sort of. Apparently, it is a legal requirement to offer something called 'keeping in touch days' so the new mum can continue to work a few days during the year. It was nice to have her back, anyway.
And then, the Sunday was the first of September, so technically also the first day of autumn. I had a very relaxing Sunday-a friend came round for a bit in the afternoon, and then I went to church in the evening. And again, a good time was had by all-that being my experience, anyway. The Monday was also relaxing, as I had that day off, which is unusual; but I had been asked to work my normal day off in the Gloucester shop. Which was fine, as a change is always interesting, and I did get a day off, being two days in a row. And Wednesday was a bit up in the air. I had been trying to sort out going round a friend's house with a couple of friends to watch a film, but that didn't happen, so I felt it was right to go to my cluster social after all. Which, again, was fun-this spending time with people appears to be quite good. I think I like it. And Thursday was memorable for a totally unexpected reason.
I was on the bus going home from working in Gloucester quite happily reading (the book I'd bought Bank Holiday Monday actually), when a girl got on the bus and sat beside me. Nothing unusual there, except for the fact that God said 'tell her she's beautiful'. You know, NOT the sort of thing you want to hear on a perfectly ordinary bus journey. Well, I sat there, at first trying to ignore it, and then arguing with God, trying to persuade Him that it really wasn't a good idea for me to do so; and then He said, 'also, tell her don't worry'. I had picked up that she was getting off the bus in Cheltenham, same as me; so I knew I had plenty of time, so I carried on trying to avoid it. Eventually, it got to a point where I said 'do I really have to?'; and He answered ' no, but if you don't, it's not you who'll miss out'. And I couldn't really argue with that; I just had to figure out how to do it. Well, as we were geting into town, she turned to me to ask me something about where the bus would stop, and I took the opportunity, and said 'you may think this is a bit weird, but...' I explained that I'm a Christian and God sometimes speaks to me, and He'd said 'don't worry' (that seemed the easier one to say). She smiled and thanked me, in quite a matter of fact way, so I got enough courage to say what He had said first-at which point, she smiled even more, if that were possible, and thanked me again. And said that she does often worry about all sorts of things. We chatted for a few minutes, and then the bus pulled up, so she got off the bus still smiling, and thanked me again. And that was that. To be honest, I was a bit exhausted, so I sat there for a few minutes before I pulled myself together and got off the bus-off to get the food for street teams.
So, I went out with street teams a bit later, which was still a bit quiet, and then later went to Hungry for God (a weekly prayer meeting). We got together to pray a one point about where we wanted the Kingdom of God to particularly break in, and I felt that one important thing was this blog. So we prayed about that.
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