Richardsons Aren't The Only Ones To Get Results

Sweaty palms, heavy heart beats and the shakes. I've been refreshing this page all morning. All week in fact, and still there is no change.

I’m waiting for my final semesters results, and indeed my degree classification. The climax of five years of my life is at stake here..

It doesn’t help that I'm at work right now, constantly looking over my shoulder lest someone should see what I'm actually looking up, and start asking me questions about it. If I have failed, or even fallen short of the mark, I probably want to be able to save face for at least a while until I've come to terms with the result in my own head.. But everyone will find out sooner or later.

[REFRESH]

Still nothing. I can vaguely remember sitting the exams.

[REFRESH]

I had worked myself into a relatively strong position after Februarys exams - I was sitting on my target of a decent 2.1, with the chance of getting a first only really available by an Act of God.
But I can remember not really trying at all in the second semester. In fact, I am currently entertaining thoughts that I don't really even deserve my target grade. Maybe I haven't done enough. Maybe my project is going to bring me down. Maybe I've failed something.

Maybe seems to be the word which defines this situation pretty well. Maybe, but Maybe Not.

My stomach is twisted into a couple of well formed knots- it feels like it could reject the toast and orange juice which I force fed myself an hour and a half ago.

[REFRESH]

Still nothing.. well wait.. it didn't quite look like this the last time That button wasn’t there.. in fact there is more stuff here.. More numbers. Not as many as I was expecting, but this is it. The moment of truth.. And there it is, right at the top of the page, 2.1. All of sudden I've got a smile across my face which would make Dwight Yorke jealous. What was all that worrying for?!

Perspective time. Looking back on the other morning, I can see that that grade, whilst a good reward for five years of hard slog doesn’t matter.

If I hadn’t got it, I probably would have been gutted because I have put so much into the last year of my life, but whatever those two little numbers are, you can't take away the journey I’ve had.

You can’t take away the people I’ve met. You can’t take away the things that I’ve done, and the things that have been done to me. Those two little numbers are going to serve me very well on a CV for the future, but I would swap this for anything.

Its been emotional..

Love Is A Four Letter Word

My language leads a lot to be desired. Its just something I've never been truly able to get a hold of since I became a Christian, and now those ugly four letter words, so good at emphasizing a joke, tend to slip into my everyday vocabulary too easily.

For me, the thing about four letter words is that as soon as they’ve been said, I instantly regret them. And you can’t take them back.

The dictionary will probably disagree, but I think that ‘swearing’ is whenever you use a word outside of its actual meaning. The problem with this is when a word is misused with any great frequency, it just becomes filler in a sentence – it loses all meaning, and it’s the meaning that’s important.

It not just ‘cuss’ words we do this with either - there are other important examples, and one I want to talk about is the L word.

L-O-V-E.

Love. One syllable encapsulating a concept worthy of the redemption of the human race. In 1 Corinthians 13 it says..

Love (Agape) is patient, love (Agape) is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love (Agape) does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

The above description doesn’t really answer the question of what love is, however it tells me that love is something that isn’t generally found in our nature.

All of the negative attributes listed.. envy, pride, selfishness, grudges are the default for us as human beings, and so I think that Love is when we care about a person so much that we try to become more. We override self to draw close to someone, sacrificing ourselves for their benefit.

I believe that this four letter word is one that has been sullied by too many episodes of soaps, and misused by too many American school girls (stereotyping I know...) to be of any real use...

The real meaning has been lost in the ether, in the static of 21^st century people trying to reconcile what love actually is with the distorted world views pushed upon them.

I think that its time for a change. A revamp and a facelift on the whole concept.

In the bible Love is translated in many places from a Greek word ‘Agape’, which defines a specific type of love which we need to aspire to. Matthew 22:37-41 would read:

‘Agape the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Agape your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

We need to reclaim the positive nature of this statement, to ‘Agape’ all of those around us.

That way at least one word in my vocabulary will be right and true.