'sup. part deux.

I promised a bit more clarification about my musings on my faith recently.

I've gotten to a point where I know I'll be making decisions about faith that will effect my life in the next few years; and I know that I've always been a person that has melded with whoever he could to better himself in the eyes of others. And I know it stems from how I was treated in Primary School and High School as a kid. I gave my life to Jesus because it definatley felt like the right thing to do.

But currently, I've been thinking. deeply. Thinking about whether I'm a Christian because of the environment I was in.

The emotional experiences I've had; coming to Jesus was an incredible experience; but it was compounded by the people around me. In a time when I was depressed and needing emotional support. To be lovingly welcomed by an amazing group of people was something I really needed at that time.

The beautiful and wonderful friends I had, the relationships I've created. I could not count the wonderful Christians that have entered into my life; from the very beginning of my journey to now. They have shown me that there isn't a group of people that have to hold grudges or be unforgiving. That selflessness and believing in someone above all else is something to strive for.

I don't know if I would be a Christian if it weren't for that. So I'm taking a break from it all. I'm not renouncing my faith or anything, just taking time to think things over. I'm 22 in a week, and I want to make choices that reflect me; not those who are around me. My life is just beginning, after all.

I believe this will concern at least one person, but don't be worried. I'm an adult and I make my own decisions. I'm not going to pray about this because I don't need God to tell me what I feel; that's not what He's there to do. Please, don't pray for me; just wish me well.

No matter what, I love you. All of those that have touched my life, I love you.

'sup?

As you can see, I've made a few changes to my blog; deleted a couple of posts and edited a few others. I've mostly made changes to alot of the things that go into the category of describing my faith; as I'm finding that as I move on from what I knew in the past to what I'm beginning to learn in the past few months about what I believe in perceptions are changing. I'm taking some time to really think about my faith and what it means to me; how it defines my life and future. More on that later.

Other news, I've recently started to take my health and wellbeing seriously. After a few months of unrest over exactly how healthy my lifestyle was, I finally got the inspiration from my gorgeous friend, Madeleine to take up a healthier eating regime and take up exercise. I've gone for a walk/jog (can't quite jog much yet, need to do some work there :P) every day for the past week and a half. I usually go about 3.2k's in the evening straight after work and before tea. I'm starting to really feel it in my legs though, they hurt a bit; but I know it's part of the growth. I've cut out soft-drinks from my diet (haven't had any coke withdrawals yet, thankfully) and have mostly got a decent diet worked out. I need to put time into planning things a bit, as I've found myself in some situations with only unhealthy choices in which I've had nothing. So I need to work on providing those sorts of situations with choices. I really love the feeling you get after you get home from a nice walk or jog; and I get alot of satisfaction out of knowing that I'm doing something really productive for my body. I can't wait until I look as good as I feel ;-)

For those of you that don't know; which I would assume is a few. I had a car accident last November. I won't go into many details, suffice to say no-one was hurt (apart from my car) but although I've been without it for nearly 2 months, I will be getting it back all shiny and new soonish. I've really missed having that bit of independence, but thankfully I have a really awesome mate called Rafall who works with me and gives me a lift in every day.

I was writing this before, feeling hungry wondering why I'm not having breakfast. So I went and made myself some and just as a sidenote; bananas are awesome in cereal. Gotta try more of that! It's at the over-ripe stage just before it goes to the offish stage; never eaten a banana at that stage before, tastes amazing though! Mmm...

I'll be heading overseas this year to most likely a couple of destinations; predominatley the US in August to see Jamie whom I haven't been able to annoy in person for the better part of 2 years. I never thought getting a passport would be such a pain in the butt. Mum can provide me with my birth certificate; but it's just an extract! So it doesn't have the date of issue on it, and I need that. So I have to go through some unearthly process to get a copy of the original which even involves the police just to get that one date. I'm going to give the Registrar of B, D & M a call on monday morning to see if I can get the information without a copy of my certificate; but I doubt I'll be able to get it without proving who I am. Annoying. I'm so excited that I'll actually have a passport though :-) Fun.

Back soon,

- Hamish

And Jamie, get online more you bum! I miss you...