It's pre-exam season, and as much as I hate having to buckle down and actually do work, the prospect of having to retain scares me enough to make me get up and do something about it. I'm pretty fearful only all the time.

the strangest revelations occur in the shower
nothing by our hands is original. It sounds like a disappointment, but think about it for a moment. What is original to us is the product of randomly firing synapses in our heads that merely add a new idea to an existing thought. More than anything, we are adaptors, and our capacity for random thought creates creativity.

But God's the creator. The original creator. He's the original, un-messed-around-with, un-adapted, un-remixed. He's original in everything. Because there was nothing before Him that He could adapt. He's the ultimate creative genius, an exponential infinity of ideas.

And sometimes I wonder why I don't go to Him for help. Maybe another case of God-in-a-box. Too often I forget the guy who made the stuff that made the stuff that made the stuff that made the problems I'm facing, is the same guy who can fix it. Am I making sense? probably. not.

in other news, I hate hate hate pre-exam season for one other reason

it's the darned stress

I'd love to say it isn't there, but it is. It's palpable even in the classroom. Even my crazy, chair-throwing, ball-kicking, random-song-screaming class is starting to do more work during class time. And also: doing more stupid and crazy stuff. It's like the stress is a massive amplifier for whichever emotion of the day we're going through. Suddenly everything's pushed to extremes. And I don't like that.

I don't like that because it makes me vulnerable. Because it makes the temptation to take things easy too clear. To focus on gideon gideon gideon. What gideon feels like doing, what's worrying gideon, what's on gideon's mind. I hate that. I hate being self-centred.

And it's always like facing battlefields. God knows I wish I didn't have to. Heck, who does. But what's necessary is necessary.

Because somehow, through alllllll of this mess that we're dealing with, the stock-up of emotions, the growing stress, there comes those quiet moments. Those moments where the storms fall silent for a spell, and soft, reassuring words remind us of what doesn't change.

And because once you get God in the centre of it all, the winds can blow you any way which they want, it won't move His importance in your life.

We learn to be that He is faithful.

I want to take the word Christianity back to Christ himself, back to that mighty heart whose pulse seems to throb through the world today, that endless fountain of charity... I go back to that great Spirit which contemplated a sacrifice for the whole of humanity. That sacrifice is not one of exclusion, but of an infinite and endless and joyous inclusion. And I thank God for it.
Julia Ward Howe