That guilty sorta feeling

Hello you wonderfully blessed person reading this,

I don't know about you, but sometimes I look around at my life, and see all I have.
I've had a pretty awesome education,  I have a comfortable bed to sleep in, I am a first year university student who is studying what I want. The list could probably go on for years, with all the 'stuff' and opportunities I have been given.

Then, instead of feeling an  immense joy, I feel guilt. Guilty that I've been given, freely, all these things. I don't deserve it, I think to myself. Why am I blessed enough to be given these chances to do things, so many other people don't have!?

These thoughts rattle around in my brain and I end up not appreciating what I have because I feel too guilty to.

That feeling has been crushing me a bit lately,  and I want to tell you how I get out of that rut.

My thoughts are, yes, I am blessed. Really, I want for nothing. I have gifts, talents,  opportunities and much more. These are things I have been given to me, now I need to use these gifts, and opportunities to give back. I need to use them in a constructive way that will ultimately end up helping someone else at some point.

This means, I try not to waste my time, and full my day with learning, studying,  and good use of the hours I've been given.  I need to take advantage and fully appreciate the life I have been given. I need to not take for granted the diverse deck of cards I've been delt.
Then I feel like I'm not wasting my gifts or opportunities.

I don't know if anyone else ever feels like this, but for me, if I have a appreciative attitude towards my life, I become a happier person.

X Andrea Claire

Bloom

Hello You Beautiful Person,

I hope this stunning music to this video inspires you to do something creative and special.

Enjoy and if you watch it, thank you so much

xxx
Andrea Claire

Just a Thought...

Hello there Lovely peoples,

I just want to write, like super quickly, about a thought that came to me.

Its based on a scripture in the bible, forgive me as I cannot for the life of me remember which book or verse is belongs to, but it goes like this:

FOR ME, TO LIVE IS CHRIST AND TO DIE IS GAIN.

Basically what it is trying to say is, you should live your life for Jesus, and if you were to die, which *spoiler alert* you are, then your death would be a gain because you died believing the God is the Creator of all, and Jesus died to save us.
And please don't misunderstand me, I totally 100% believe this, but I feel like sometimes, we read this wrong.

We need to live for something. We need to have a purpose in life, other wise our lives, our opportunity to live, would be worthless. We need to ask God for forgiveness,  and ask Jesus into our hearts,  but it can't end there. You've made the first step, now take another. Pray, fimd out where you can help, be useful, and (I hate to go all Nike on you but) do it!

Don't think it end there. Don't think your job is over because you're now a Christian,  you've been saved, nows the time to live like Christ. To try copy Christ's actions, and follow His word, His truth.

Remember though that there is no ladder to climb up into Heaven. But you can't just sit around living the life you lead before. You need to go out there, spread the Word of God (no bible bashing please). Whats important to keep in mind though is that these 'good works' aren't going to move you up on the metaphorical ladder into Heaven. You can't think, ohh help an old lady across the street, ding ding, up you go, resd your bible, ding ding, up again. We are sinners, we sin, we lie, we cheat, we kill, we speak hate, we get jealous,  so thank goodness God's love for is isn't defined by how far up this 'ladder' we are. Imagine if His love was measured like that. We might spend our whole life trying to win His love, by climbing, up, up... it would never work. Because for every good deed we do, I garentee we do x10 fold bad. Think a bad though, plop plop, down the ladder, read your bible, ping ping, up again, disrespectful to your mom, plop plop, down you go... do you see the pattern?

As Christians, we try to live lives that would please God, we try to follow His word, but we are human. We make mistakes, but if we as for His forgiveness,  His gives it. He wipes the slate clean, every day, over and over. He even sent His one and only Son to carry your sins. Do you know why? Because He loves you so deeply.

So, I believe that we should live for Christ, not only believing, but acting on that faith, and share and teach and help others. Not because its going to earn us 'brownie points' in Heaven, but because we want to live like Christ did and tell others of what He has done and is doing.

To LIVE IS CHRIST, AND TO DIE IS GAIN...

XAnni

On a more 'Serious' note

So on Tuesday I went to watch a brilliant movie with my friend Christen (hi Christen, I know you're reading this... cause I'm psychic... actually its because I've sent you a link to it... I'm not psychic) interesting and irrelevant side note sbout my awesome friend Christen. We met about two years ago at a film class and we had to story board a short film for the next week so we exchanged numbers (like one would do with any potential friend) so she could call me that night to brainstorm. She called me and our conversation went something like this,

*le phone rings* (I contemplate not answering cause me and speaking on the phone is not a good combination)
*finally, I answer*
Me: Hi, Christine ....
Christen (yes Christen not Christine): .......
Me : uh, hello..... Christine are you there....?
Christen: uh hey, Andrea (yeah she remembered my name), my names actually Christen, but ih yeah...
Me:.......
Christen :........

See I told you me + phone = bad idea. Anyway we got past me forgetting her name, and yeah she's pretty awesome. She's also going to be a famous film director one day, so watch out world... you have been warned.

Sorry Christen, I'm going to stop talking about you, you can't take up a whole blog post of mine, what are my other friends going to think? (p.s Christen, invite me over soon, I need to meet your 'Delivery Boy kitten' ;)

Where was I? Oh yes, Christen and I went to watch the brilliant movie, The Imitation Game.
Despite the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightly and Tom the driver/Sybil's husband from Downton Abbey is in it (Allen Leech) (yeah sorry spoiler alert if you haven't watched that far *sob* if you have watched further).

Goodness, back to the movie.

Besides its brilliant cast, it was actually  so vividly wonderful and disturbing at the same time. The way Allen Turner lived, thought and died, was just so saddening but inspiring.  I know this probably makes no sense but to me it does. His whole life no one expected anything of him, he was an outcast, and a loner. But he had this brilliant mind that ended up saving lives and basically inventing the computer (or as he named it Christopher).

I am convinced he had autism. The way he interacted with his fellow workers while trying to crack inigma, hurt my heart. People with autism, amongst other things, take everything literally. So if I say to you 'the dog needs to go for a walk', a person with autism would take you serisouly, and might think you quite stupid for just blurting out these words with no meaning. To them, you are simply stating a fact. You on the other hand are implying the the dog should be taken for a walk. Autistic people struggle with emotional intelligence,  and I'm sure you can imagine how dark and cold the world and people can be if you don't understand how to interact like normal people.

But heres the thing about this man, and possibly any person with autism, the things he did could never have been accomplished by a normal person. This man had a beautiful mind, like everyone else, but his worked differently, he thought differently because of how his brain was wired.

So here's where the serious note comes in (cause you know, that up there about autism was not heavy enough)  ....

Everybody is different. In their own unique way, everyone really is. You could know someone for ten years and they still surprise you. Everybody changes, we're humans,. We make mistakes and we learn. Sometimes we make mistakes and we make them again and again... sometimes someone can be in the same situation as you but they react differently than you. That's because we're all different. We think differently,  we're wired differently and we have all gone through our own struggles that give us a unique perspective on life. What I'm want you to take away from this is that we are all different, and we are going to dissapoint, but we can't judge someone because they are different. You can't bring someone down because they are different. Its wrong and it hurts. Don't do it.
You don't have to agree,  but everyone is entitled to be different, so be different.  Be your own type of different.

I know there are so many faces to The Imitation Game, but these two matters stuck out to me when I was thinking sbout it. I haven't personally been effected by autism,  but I feel it so deeply, I felt I had to write about it to just put some of my scattered feelings into words.

I hope you'll go and watch this movie, and not judge him for his choices,  instead, look at his reasons, why he did the things he did, and be thankful that he was able to accomplish,  despite everything, the mission he was assigned.

XxxThe mess of unfinished thoughts that I am, Andrea Claire