I would have named this post "Money, money, money" but thats what the last one was called, so this is the best I could do. Sorry.
Point is that I dunno whats going on exactly, but suddenly the floodgates seem to have opened on my finances. A few months ago I helped my old pastor in UK to setup his new website. The site is a free resource for teaching materials for home/cell groups. It's good stuff. We didn't agree any price for my work, and I would have happily done it for free, but at the end he said he wanted to give me a gift for my efforts. I was kinda hoping I would get the money before my trip, as it would have gone toward the tickets, but the money didn't materialise which left me owing someone else for the tickets.
I had a figure in my head of £500 which is really a lot of money for the amount of work which I did - I guess I was just thinking that would be a nice sum. I was also adamant that i wouldn't contact him to ask about the money as its a gift, and I just didn't feel right about it. Yet today I came so close to catching him on Skype to ask. I resisted though, and so I'm glad because just a few hours later I received an email fom him, telling me that he's gonna send me £250 in the next week or so, then another £250 next month. That makes £500! God is just too awesome!
So I'll have a lot of money to pay back loans (as mentioned previously), but I also intend to invest a small amount in my music. My band has been waiting to get a bunch of our songs up on iTunes, but to do that I needed money in my UK account. It costs $10 per song (through an internet based organisation) and we have about three songs which we would want to add right away. The organisation takes no cut of the sales, you pay the $10 fee and thats it, any sales you make are 100% yours, and we only need to sell about 10 copies of each song to make back our money. We feel this is an essential step if we are to get a wider audience for our songs, and for the first time it really opens us up to the big wide world, and who knows what can happen with that...?
When the songs are up, I'll let everyone know - don't doubt that! And I expect you all to buy them... :P
My efforts to save some money also began today with a visit to "Menu" cafe for lunch with V, instead of my regular place. She works about 10 mins walk from where I work, and it made a nice change to lunch with someone. Seems we're both on the same quest to find good cheap places to eat in the city centre. And like me she's trusting God for finances big time, and seeing him do some amazing stuff! Its so cool. So we're gonna go try another place next week I guess.
Tomorow I'll be making the call to get my cable package changed to internet only. Then I can get rid of the TV. I've mentioned this to a few other people (V included), and they're considering doing the same! Very exciting times!
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Over and out (Ghosts Part 4)
Today will go down as one of the most surreal days of my entire life.
Severing communications with someone so dear to you is SO HARD! It was a mutual arrangement and neither of us wanted to do it, but we both knew we had to. One final hour long skype call, and here we are. Deleted one another from friends lists in Facebook and Orkut, deleted all those precious text messages that I had saved on my phone. The 'ghosts' (mentioned in previous blogs) which had become my friends will be given up, some thrown away, some passed on to others, but none will be kept as reminders (Phone numbers and addresses have been kept only in case of an emergency).
Why on earth would anyone in their right mind do this?
Its a question thats been on my mind for over a week since we began discussing it, and I had been struggling to find the answer. These are usually the actions of those who hate one another. Yet we feel quite the opposite for one another.
But actually the answer is actually pretty simple. We want to hear God again...
I had 7 days of pure clarity in hearing God, and that was during 7 days of zero contact between us a couple of months ago. Those seven days were the longest 7 days ever, as being out of contact with one another was just so hard. But God also spoke to me more than I have known in my entire life until that point. That week changed me totally!
Since then however, and more specifically since returning from my trip I have not heard from God at all really, and spending time with him has been a struggle. I have done sporadically, but its not been consistent like it had been in the few months before. My thoughts almost 24/7 have been consumed by one person, and that person was not God. That's not how it should be, and the fact that we are apart geographically and will have to be for so long anyway means that such a situation is just not sustainable for an indefinite period of time.
So... what are we doing? We're giving each other up in favour of God. At the same time we are entrusting one another into God's hands. If i think about that for a moment, I just entrusted to God THE most precious thing I had! Its incredibly scary, but we have to learn to trust God to that level. Nothing is acheived without sacrifice of some sort, and for us the sacrifice had to be one another.
Sting sang "If you love someone, set them free". Though I don't particularly like the song, those words suddenly mean so much.
I'll leave you with a few words of my own though. I wrote these lyrics around this time last year and at the time they were not about any specific situation, but now, one year later they are most poignant. I am noticing more and more how God uses lyrics which I have written, to minister to me. It happens too often for it to be coincedence.
If You say so
If You say, say its true
I believe You
and You can beat me black and blue
and I won't leave You
If You say it's time to go, let's go
If You say it's so, it's so
If You say, say it's so
If I give, give it all
What would You do?
Would You give it back to me
though You don't have to?
Would You listen to my words?
Would You?
Would You make it so it's so?
Would You make it, make it so?
© 2008 wearyourheartout
Severing communications with someone so dear to you is SO HARD! It was a mutual arrangement and neither of us wanted to do it, but we both knew we had to. One final hour long skype call, and here we are. Deleted one another from friends lists in Facebook and Orkut, deleted all those precious text messages that I had saved on my phone. The 'ghosts' (mentioned in previous blogs) which had become my friends will be given up, some thrown away, some passed on to others, but none will be kept as reminders (Phone numbers and addresses have been kept only in case of an emergency).
Why on earth would anyone in their right mind do this?
Its a question thats been on my mind for over a week since we began discussing it, and I had been struggling to find the answer. These are usually the actions of those who hate one another. Yet we feel quite the opposite for one another.
But actually the answer is actually pretty simple. We want to hear God again...
I had 7 days of pure clarity in hearing God, and that was during 7 days of zero contact between us a couple of months ago. Those seven days were the longest 7 days ever, as being out of contact with one another was just so hard. But God also spoke to me more than I have known in my entire life until that point. That week changed me totally!
Since then however, and more specifically since returning from my trip I have not heard from God at all really, and spending time with him has been a struggle. I have done sporadically, but its not been consistent like it had been in the few months before. My thoughts almost 24/7 have been consumed by one person, and that person was not God. That's not how it should be, and the fact that we are apart geographically and will have to be for so long anyway means that such a situation is just not sustainable for an indefinite period of time.
So... what are we doing? We're giving each other up in favour of God. At the same time we are entrusting one another into God's hands. If i think about that for a moment, I just entrusted to God THE most precious thing I had! Its incredibly scary, but we have to learn to trust God to that level. Nothing is acheived without sacrifice of some sort, and for us the sacrifice had to be one another.
Sting sang "If you love someone, set them free". Though I don't particularly like the song, those words suddenly mean so much.
I'll leave you with a few words of my own though. I wrote these lyrics around this time last year and at the time they were not about any specific situation, but now, one year later they are most poignant. I am noticing more and more how God uses lyrics which I have written, to minister to me. It happens too often for it to be coincedence.
If You say so
If You say, say its true
I believe You
and You can beat me black and blue
and I won't leave You
If You say it's time to go, let's go
If You say it's so, it's so
If You say, say it's so
If I give, give it all
What would You do?
Would You give it back to me
though You don't have to?
Would You listen to my words?
Would You?
Would You make it so it's so?
Would You make it, make it so?
© 2008 wearyourheartout
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Billy "no mates"
What's the deal? Its not like I don't have friends - I do. But I get to the weekend after a busy working week, and I'm sat here wondering what to do with my weekend. Nothing was planned, and while that can be nice, right now its the last thing I needed.
I got home friday night and started to work on a web project which I put on the back burner a long time ago, even though its been on my heart to do this since about 2006. In Estonia there's an inherent problem with worship songs and their translations. Typically, the same song can be translated many times by different people. The end result is different churches singing different versions, and people wasting lots of time re-inventing the wheel. Its silly, and it only happens because of poor inter-church communication and a lack of any centralised system or resource.
So I am building a website which mission is:
For anyone interested you can take a look at the test site here.
Feel free to sign up and start contributing, but don't pay too much attention to things not fully working or the lack of content.
I got home friday night and started to work on a web project which I put on the back burner a long time ago, even though its been on my heart to do this since about 2006. In Estonia there's an inherent problem with worship songs and their translations. Typically, the same song can be translated many times by different people. The end result is different churches singing different versions, and people wasting lots of time re-inventing the wheel. Its silly, and it only happens because of poor inter-church communication and a lack of any centralised system or resource.
So I am building a website which mission is:
- To provide a great resource for praise and worship song translations.
- To provide a place for translators to publish their translated songs.
- To stop the same song from being translated many times over.
- To provide a method of developing a standard preferred translation for each song.
- To encourage a greater sharing of resources between churches and denominations.
- To recognise good song translation as a gifted and inspired art, not as a linguistics exercise.
- To promote collaboration as an effective method of developing song translation gifting and talent.
For anyone interested you can take a look at the test site here.
Feel free to sign up and start contributing, but don't pay too much attention to things not fully working or the lack of content.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Hel(l)sinki
Wise man strikes again! Not!
I arrived in Helsinki grabbed my case from baggage reclaim, and headed out of the terminal. Phone is still not working by the way. I quickly changed my remaining $10 into Euros and jumped on the bus into town. I arrived at the central bus station at around 18:00 and started looking for info about where to get a bus to the ferry port. They have signs for an Information Point, and when you get there its closed (useless), and there's little useful information on the walls. So I had no idea where I should have caught the bus from or even what number. So I figured I would walk to the ferry port, after all it didn't look far on the map. Dummy!
The cobbled streets quickly began to take their toll on the wheels of my suitcase and I could feel it becoming harder and harder to pull along. I then realised that one wheel had stopped turning and was rubbing on the case. I bent down to adjust it and almost burned myself it had become so hot. By this time I was also quite lost. I started carrying the case by the handle, but that soon became very tiring as I tried desperately to find a map or some landmark that I might recognise. Then it started to rain... Here was I in jeans and a T-shirt dragging all my luggage in the rain through what kinda started to look like Soho, and I started to feel a little unsafe. I spotted a small slightly scary hotel, went to reception and asked them to call a taxi for me. I finally made it to the port at about 19:30 with my broken wheel and €13,50 less in my pocket. Not good. But I blame Helsinki Station.
Now I'm sitting in the terminal having checked in already, and I have to wait another 1,5hrs before boarding. The terminal is pretty much empty save for a few cleaners and one older couple on the next bench.
I transferred my band's songs to the voice recorder so I can listen to them too now.
I'm officially a zombie. I'm really hungry and I can feel my head starting to spin, and I'm almost falling asleep writing this, even though the bench is really uncomfortable and I sitting totally upright. I'm longing for my bed! But, time to go find food, before I bite someone's head off!
I'm on the ferry, and finally i have internet access!! So here I am adding an entire day's enthusiastic blogging. enjoy.
I arrived in Helsinki grabbed my case from baggage reclaim, and headed out of the terminal. Phone is still not working by the way. I quickly changed my remaining $10 into Euros and jumped on the bus into town. I arrived at the central bus station at around 18:00 and started looking for info about where to get a bus to the ferry port. They have signs for an Information Point, and when you get there its closed (useless), and there's little useful information on the walls. So I had no idea where I should have caught the bus from or even what number. So I figured I would walk to the ferry port, after all it didn't look far on the map. Dummy!
The cobbled streets quickly began to take their toll on the wheels of my suitcase and I could feel it becoming harder and harder to pull along. I then realised that one wheel had stopped turning and was rubbing on the case. I bent down to adjust it and almost burned myself it had become so hot. By this time I was also quite lost. I started carrying the case by the handle, but that soon became very tiring as I tried desperately to find a map or some landmark that I might recognise. Then it started to rain... Here was I in jeans and a T-shirt dragging all my luggage in the rain through what kinda started to look like Soho, and I started to feel a little unsafe. I spotted a small slightly scary hotel, went to reception and asked them to call a taxi for me. I finally made it to the port at about 19:30 with my broken wheel and €13,50 less in my pocket. Not good. But I blame Helsinki Station.
Now I'm sitting in the terminal having checked in already, and I have to wait another 1,5hrs before boarding. The terminal is pretty much empty save for a few cleaners and one older couple on the next bench.
I transferred my band's songs to the voice recorder so I can listen to them too now.
I'm officially a zombie. I'm really hungry and I can feel my head starting to spin, and I'm almost falling asleep writing this, even though the bench is really uncomfortable and I sitting totally upright. I'm longing for my bed! But, time to go find food, before I bite someone's head off!
I'm on the ferry, and finally i have internet access!! So here I am adding an entire day's enthusiastic blogging. enjoy.
Leaving on a jet plane
As I sat at gate 79 waiting for my flight to be called, I flipped open my laptop to begin my first blog. During my stay here I have had the privilege of editing a friend's book. Before this trip we had never met, but during my stay we became good friends. She began blogging a few years back, and her blog is now being turned into a book. Its been exciting getting to know someone just by reading their blog, in her case its almost like reading a personal diary, and I think I got to know her pretty well through it. That's where the inspiration to begin blogging came from. I have thought about it many times before, but I've never felt I had anything to say which I could put into words in any coherent manner and quickly, but that was then and this is now.
I pasted the lyrics to my song 'Inside Out' as a preface to my blog as they explain a lot about me as a person. While I played with the blog I connected my new toy (a voice recorder) to my laptop and began transferring MP3s to it (I can also use my new toy as an MP3 player). The only songs in my laptop were a selection of worship songs which I had copied in a hurry right before I left home, plus my own band's recordings. I transferred the worship songs first. My flight was called and I let the transfer complete its last 30 seconds, but I had no time to transfer the band's songs.
I began boarding and as I waited in the line on the bridge I exchanged a few goodbye text messages. This is a highly-charged emotional departure for me. The trip was the antitheses of everything I wanted, everything I had hoped for and dreamed of. I am not even able to answer "yes" honestly if someone were to ask me did I have a good time. I have already been asked this and I lied. The truth was just too painful at that moment, and would only have caused a bunch of probing questions which I did not want to answer and which would have upset me more. Sorry. In one moment I can be fine and happy, in the next I can be in tears, and I have little control over when and how it happens. With me, unexpected things can trigger an outward display of any kind of emotion. I guess that means I'm "Emo", but I'd rather be fully emotional than to have no emotion or worse, to simply bury them. The only reason I see for burying emotions is if you're trying to hide the real you, lying to yourself and everyone else, but in fact people see through it anyway. Its a bad habit I gave up long ago. There was a time when I really had no emotions, when I didn't really "feel" anything about anything. I know that i prefer who I am now.
I took my seat (15F, a window seat) and made myself comfortable, grabbing the book I am half way through reading, pushed my laptop bag under the seat in front of me, turned off my phone and stuffed it in the front pocket of my jeans along with my new toy. I slid open the two window blinds next to me so I could see out. On short flights I love to look at the land below. The seatbelt light came on and we began taxiing toward the runway. I could hear some music quietly in the background and it seemed to be something I recognised, I tuned my ear into the sound and I heard the words "When you're weak He is strong, He can heal your wounded soul and calm the storm inside." The music was coming from my front pocket. Somehow my new toy had turned itself on, and played to me only the words that I needed to hear at that exact moment in time (Sixpence None the Richer – With every breath). Perfect! There's only one source of perfection on the planet. I quickly turned off my toy and pushed it back into my pocket, and a wide grin came across my face as I realised what had just happened, and the pure poetry of it. I think I may have even laughed out loud. I knew it was no coincidence, and I knew I was not alone in my turmoil. Right away I took out my notepad (since the laptop had to be switched off during take-off) and began writing all about it...
I pasted the lyrics to my song 'Inside Out' as a preface to my blog as they explain a lot about me as a person. While I played with the blog I connected my new toy (a voice recorder) to my laptop and began transferring MP3s to it (I can also use my new toy as an MP3 player). The only songs in my laptop were a selection of worship songs which I had copied in a hurry right before I left home, plus my own band's recordings. I transferred the worship songs first. My flight was called and I let the transfer complete its last 30 seconds, but I had no time to transfer the band's songs.
I began boarding and as I waited in the line on the bridge I exchanged a few goodbye text messages. This is a highly-charged emotional departure for me. The trip was the antitheses of everything I wanted, everything I had hoped for and dreamed of. I am not even able to answer "yes" honestly if someone were to ask me did I have a good time. I have already been asked this and I lied. The truth was just too painful at that moment, and would only have caused a bunch of probing questions which I did not want to answer and which would have upset me more. Sorry. In one moment I can be fine and happy, in the next I can be in tears, and I have little control over when and how it happens. With me, unexpected things can trigger an outward display of any kind of emotion. I guess that means I'm "Emo", but I'd rather be fully emotional than to have no emotion or worse, to simply bury them. The only reason I see for burying emotions is if you're trying to hide the real you, lying to yourself and everyone else, but in fact people see through it anyway. Its a bad habit I gave up long ago. There was a time when I really had no emotions, when I didn't really "feel" anything about anything. I know that i prefer who I am now.
I took my seat (15F, a window seat) and made myself comfortable, grabbing the book I am half way through reading, pushed my laptop bag under the seat in front of me, turned off my phone and stuffed it in the front pocket of my jeans along with my new toy. I slid open the two window blinds next to me so I could see out. On short flights I love to look at the land below. The seatbelt light came on and we began taxiing toward the runway. I could hear some music quietly in the background and it seemed to be something I recognised, I tuned my ear into the sound and I heard the words "When you're weak He is strong, He can heal your wounded soul and calm the storm inside." The music was coming from my front pocket. Somehow my new toy had turned itself on, and played to me only the words that I needed to hear at that exact moment in time (Sixpence None the Richer – With every breath). Perfect! There's only one source of perfection on the planet. I quickly turned off my toy and pushed it back into my pocket, and a wide grin came across my face as I realised what had just happened, and the pure poetry of it. I think I may have even laughed out loud. I knew it was no coincidence, and I knew I was not alone in my turmoil. Right away I took out my notepad (since the laptop had to be switched off during take-off) and began writing all about it...
Inside Out
Always good to be yourself
No matter what it takes
Always good to tell the truth
Honesty is no mistake
Never good to hide away
In closet love, or searing pain
Wear your heart inside out
Live your life inside out
Wear your heart inside out
Wear your heart out
Always try to make things right
Even when you feel you can’t
Always try to be the one
To give a helping hand
Never try to change the world
With empty words, or without love
Wear your heart inside out
Live your life inside out
Wear your heart inside out
Wear your heart out
I wrote this song back in 2005 I think. It sets the tone for this entire blog. Most
people who know me will know that I wear my heart on my sleeve. I do not hide emotions,
I don't know how to any more. I say "any more" because either I used to be very good at
it, or maybe I just had none. A lot has changed in 17 years.
No matter what it takes
Always good to tell the truth
Honesty is no mistake
Never good to hide away
In closet love, or searing pain
Wear your heart inside out
Live your life inside out
Wear your heart inside out
Wear your heart out
Always try to make things right
Even when you feel you can’t
Always try to be the one
To give a helping hand
Never try to change the world
With empty words, or without love
Wear your heart inside out
Live your life inside out
Wear your heart inside out
Wear your heart out
I wrote this song back in 2005 I think. It sets the tone for this entire blog. Most
people who know me will know that I wear my heart on my sleeve. I do not hide emotions,
I don't know how to any more. I say "any more" because either I used to be very good at
it, or maybe I just had none. A lot has changed in 17 years.
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