Satisfaction in Singleness

24 Sept 2018

Let's talk about the 'S' word, not that one, the big one, Singleness. Ugh. Especially now that all of my friends are starting to get into relationships, getting engaged and even getting married, the singleness thing is starting to become more and more just a 'me' thing, Singleness is great and all that but sometimes you just get a yearning for someone to share life with and when you don't have that, it can suck a little bit.

 You know that analogy where there's a big oak tree and it's all on its own in a field so that it's roots can go deep and spread wide without being blocked by anything else in its path of growth, I guess that is singleness right? It's important that you invest in yourself, that you're able to give as much to a relationship as you want to receive, as well as making sure you're right with God and your relationship with Him is in a good place before delving into a relationship with another person, because that's how healthy relationships are born.

 See these are things that I know, I know that seasons of singleness are super important for your development and that people can really flourish in singleness but sometimes the seasons can drag on and on and on and on and are like a never-ending expanse of desert, dry and devoid of affection, love and companionship, you can start to feel unlovable, unwanted and unappreciated. If I'm ready to be in a relationship, why is nobody ready to be in a relationship with me? This is something I do find myself asking more regularly than I'd like to admit but it all comes down to God's timing. God's timing is perfect and when we're going through seasons when our lives aren't turning out the way we always thought they would, we (me included) need to stop blaming God for it and start to trust in His timing. When we complain about our low seasons we're complaining about God's chosen route of breakthrough. Wouldn't you rather take a difficult journey to get to the best view rather than take the shortcut and not quite reach the summit?

 For me, singleness has much more been a way of life rather than a season and if you're also feeling like that, that's okay! Also if you're feeling a little bit alone and unloved right now that's also okay we all need to mope around every now and then but just know that God has never left you alone, He's always there and He's always got your back! Give 'You Say' by Lauren Daigle and 'Here Again' by Elevation Worship a listen and I guarantee you'll feel so loved in seconds! 

 Right now I'm happy enough to take my own Instagram pictures and big myself up for doing those things I do that are little mini-trials for me (like write this blog post *high fives self*), but still be able to trust in God's timing and believe that He's going to bring the right person at the right time and that I'm not in control, He is. 

Shirt: Zara, Shorts: Bershka, Backpack: Madlug

Navigating a Belfast summer with Madlug

13 Aug 2018

Summer in Northern Ireland is a funny old thing, some days it'll be sunny and everyone will be at the beach, running into the sea and then the next day the skies will be grey and it's cold and before you know it you're back into your knits and snuggled up into a blanket. This summer has been especially weird though because we actually had a heatwave, and not just any heatwave, a heatwave that lasted for three whole weeks, with not even a single drop of rain resulting in an illegal hosepipe ban. Only in Northern Ireland hey!

With Summer being holiday time seeing as I'm a student there's so much that I got up to this summer both at home and abroad. With the weather being so changeable it's important that you stay prepared for all situations. That's why I always carry my Madlug bag with me everywhere I go. 

Madlug is a Northern Ireland based social enterprise which I have been supporting since their launch in 2015 and have been fortunate enough to be involved with since May of this year. Madlug work with children in care, giving them value, worth, and dignity. there are over 90000 children in the care system in the UK and Ireland, with a new child get's taken into care every 15 minutes, and most of them don't even have a bag to carry their belongings in and are left to transfer all of their belongings in a bin bag. Madlug wants to change that! When you purchase a bag from Madlug a bag is donated to a child in care who doesn't have a bag! They have so many different styles and colours to choose from and the Classic range are all made in Belfast by another social enterprise company who employ people with learning difficulties allowing them to find work. check out all of their amazing work at www.madlug.com




Sin No More

4 Jul 2018

Now that I've gotten home and gotten a good night's sleep in my own bed, now seemed like a good time to write up about some of the things I learned over the course of the weekend. 

I go to Summer Madness every year with certain expectations. These expectations do tend to vary each year. For example every year we expect the weather to be crap and ordinarily, it is but this year was an exception and we had sun the whole time which honestly was the absolute dream. When I was younger everyone always told me that Summer Madness would be the best week of my summer and sure enough the first year I went I grew so much in my faith and really gained a lot of confidence in Christ and obviously, it made such a big impact on me that I keep going back year after year. However, as I've gotten older these expectations have shifted ever so slightly in a more negative direction. I go to Summer Madness knowing that it's a youth festival, the talks are geared towards young people and I'm not a young person anymore. What could I possibly get out of this and just like with the weather, my expectations were succeeded.

This year the theme of the week was 'Truth to Dare' exploring the importance of truth in the Christian faith as we unpacked stories from the bible in how different characters encountered truth and how it transformed them. This included one of my favourite stories from the Bible, the story of the woman caught in adultery from John 8:1-11. 

It's a funny phrase 'Sin no More'. It's so often depicted as angry, the kind of thing you hear those intense street preachers yelling down their megaphones as they try to terrorise passersby to 'turn from their wicked ways before they burn in hell' or something to that effect. But how far is that from the real meaning of these words. In John 8:11 after the woman caught in adultery has all of her accusers walk away from her unable to condemn her Jesus says the words "Neither do I condemn you, now sin no more". Those words, Sin no more. Was Jesus angry? No, He was probably almost definitely disappointed but Jesus knows that we as humans are incapable of living a life free of sin. Jesus faced all the same temptations as we did because He was fully human but the seemingly contradictory fact that He was also fully God meant that he did not give into that temptation and He lived His life without sin. 

We see sin as the ultimate act of freedom, that by living in the world and all of the temptations that we face that it'll give us more freedom and more satisfaction when in reality it's really doing the opposite, it's constricting us and acting as a stumbling block in us developing our relationship with Jesus. So yes a life without sin would be impossible for us to live but Jesus' call for us to Sin no more was a compassionate cry for help. Jesus see's the sins that tarnish us and it breaks His heart. God loves us just the way we are and He accepts us just the way we are but if He didn't teach us to grow and change the way we live He would have failed as a father. Krish Kandiah put it that God doesn't try and change us because He doesn't love us the way we are but because He loves us too much to leave us that way"

The part that really hit home to me the most, however, was on the final morning when everyone was tired and ready to go home, I didn't even have my notebook out to take notes it was at that stage. But the words resonated load and clear all the same, "Secondhand Christianity", or, living vicariously through other peoples faith encounters without ever really having your own faith encounters. I love hearing how other people are encountering God and what He's doing in their lives, it excites me so much to see young people encountering Jesus and how bright their futures are going to be without really thinking about myself and how God is going to work in me to bring transformation, clarity, and purpose. Just because God hasn't done something in your life yet doesn't mean that He's incapable of doing it. Other people's experiences with Jesus don't define your walk, only your experiences can do that and the only way for that to develop is just to continuously seek His face and put Him first in everything that you do. 

So once again Summer Madness you've snuck up on me with truths that I can take home and try my very hardest to live out but the most important truth of all is that we also have grace and that God's grace is so sufficient that it covers everything. He's removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. That's an immeasurable distance, if you walk north and keep walking north, eventually you're going to end up walking south, but if you keep on walking east you'll never stop walking east, and that is how far our transgressions have been removed from us, our transgressors, or the things leading us to sin cannot condemn us because Jesus hasn't condemned us, instead He has reached out His hand and invited us in truth and grace to sin no more. 

So I'm going to try. 


Rimmel Sun Shimmer Tan Review

1 Jun 2018

It's Summer, my dudes! I'm officially finished with University for the year and now the sun is shining brightly in Northern Ireland, so that means it's time to embrace the summer sun, especially since we've had such a run of insane weather lately (literally 20 degrees may not seem that warm to you but in Northern Ireland it's the equivalent to actually being on the sun) but maybe it's not quite time for the population of Northern Ireland to embrace my pasty white skin! Well, how great is it that there's a cure for that and it comes in the form of self-tanner (what a shock I know). I'm not a big fan of self-tanning but it's mainly just because I'm far too lazy to maintain it because I genuinely do love the self-love and appreciation that comes from looking just a little bit more bronzed and glowy than usual. So that's why I was super excited when Influenster sent me a whole load of self-tanning products from Rimmel London to try-out for free!

I'm blonde, and I'm so blonde that I'm almost ginger so I can't get away with a super dark tan without it looking really off. Here's a funny sorry about that: I was at work and a man I'd never met was trying to explain to someone who didn't speak English that my tan was fake so if that's not a punch in the gut about how pasty and white you're expected to be then I don't know what is! Anyway after that little tangent back to the main reason we're here, Self-tan and particularly the Sunshimmer Self Tan Mousse from Rimmel London. I haven't gotten round to using the other products yet (which are Sunshimmer Self Tan Lotion With Chia Oil and Sunshimmer Instant Tan Matte Water Resistant) but when I love the mousse so much why would I bother! I'm not a serial tanner by any means if and tan and I were a tv show we'd probably be Sherlock, only releasing episodes at special occasions every couple of years, but recently since receiving this tan I've become a little bit obsessed. In fairness the first time I applied it, it was a shoddy job, it definitely wasn't even and my hands were definitely darker than everywhere else on my body but that is no fault of the tan, that's purely me being lazy and not wanting to get a mitt. The second time was much better and I can base this review of that. 

I love the mousse the most because it comes out like a foam and when tanning is such a monotonous task who wouldn't want to inject a little bit of fun into it with foam am I right! It also goes on super smoothly and gives an even coverage (provided you apply it correctly that is oops), It has good colour payoff which s brown as supposed to orange so you're not at risk of looking too much like Donald Trump. It doesn't have the typical fake tan smell either so your noses will be safe as well. I think that just about covers it, I've attached some photos below of my failed first attempt so you can see that even if it doesn't exactly go to plan you won't look awful! Have fun being your best-tanned selves and I also promise to post more in the not so distant future because this has been an embarassingly long break!

Love, Alice


ADVENT: He's in the waiting

22 Dec 2017

Everything around me lately has been crying out about waiting, waiting for new episodes to drop, waiting for grades to be posted and most importantly waiting for Christmas. We're currently, albeit not for much longer, in the season of Advent, commercially known as, the period leading up to Christmas when we get to eat a tiny little chocolate every day for a month, waiting in anticipation for that one day that comes round every year that gives us an excuse to eat too much food and open our own presents as we celebrate someone else's birthday. However, Advent was never supposed to be about just awaiting Christmas but about being in constant expectation for the second coming of Jesus. 


We live in a world of fast food and next day delivery where if we have to wait even slightly longer than normal it's a waste of valuable time but what is waiting an extra ten minutes for some food that has clearly been freshly prepared and tastes a lot better. Yet still, we (me included) are so reluctant to wait on God. We want things instantly but fail to notice that God is in the waiting. The 'not yet' answer to prayer is often the most frustrating because of society telling us we need things right now and we're not willing to wait for God's abundant blessings that He has prepared for us we just need to be willing to wait and put our trust in Him.

In my church during this season, we're looking at the parable of the ten virgins.written in Matthew 23 verses 1-13 (as written below)
Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
It tells of the importance of being prepared for Christ's second coming at all times, the foolish virgins in this parable missed out on an eternity in heaven because although they had been vigilant and ready at one point, when the bridegroom (or Jesus) finally arrived they weren't prepared. It's all well and good giving your life to Christ but if you're not prepared to be fully with him and prepared for him during the waiting, you're not really following Him.

This advent season I've been constantly coming back to the song 'Take Courage" by Kristene Di Marco which proudly proclaims that God is God in the waiting. The bridge of the song cries
And You who hold the stars 
Who call them each by name 
Will surely keep, Your promise to me 
That I will rise, in Your victory
Proclaiming that God will keep his promises, He's promised to prosper us so He will prosper us we just have to be willing to wait for Him to do so. But with the immense blessing that He has for us, more than we are even capable of fathoming, why the heck would we not want to wait!


 Although Advent is the season of waiting, our attitude to waiting in expectation shouldn't be left behind after the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season has died down. No-one knows the day or the hour of Christ's return so we should live our entire lives in expectation, waiting on Him, and being prayerful and expectant of everything that He is going to do in the build-up to His inevitable return.

REBRAND

14 Nov 2017

For a little over a year, I've been grappling with ideas on what to do with this blog, I wanted it to be everything it possibly could be all rolled into one, I was trying to write about what I thought people wanted to hear, rather than what I wanted to say. And while I'm super thankful for that year and the chance to grow it is time to truly decide once and for all what this platform is for and why I should keep it open after all of my attempts at blogging in the past had fizzled out.

Introducing: 
MOM JEANS AND JESUS


Combining my two main loves of fashion (probably some beauty too let's be real) and my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I don't claim to be an expert in either area but is anyone? I want this to be a space where I can share my ideas, thoughts and general advice, whether anyone wants to listen or not. I want this place to be authentic and to truly express me as a person. Currently, I still don't know exactly what that looks like but hopefully, you'll continue to join me on this next chapter. Wherever it leads.


Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )