Church yesterday was unsettling in the extreme. On Friday I’d been to see the lady vicar, who gently told me that I needed to redevelop my idea of God as that of a loving God who isn’t so demanding as I think. However on Sunday, I’m in church and I start feeling like… I’ve got to pray like this, I’ve got to make sure it’s been answered, I mustn’t assume, I mustn’t relax…

And I can’t shake this off. I think I need to accept that I’m confused and that warm words, which I want to believe so much, won’t become real to me at the moment.

It has messed with my plans, though. I had a bad experience on Sunday afternoon. You know my last post? I posted it onto a football ultras website, expecting some negative feedback - after all, I need people to tell me if my ideas are stupid. However, I got the kind of negative feedback that made me feel like those who had read my post would never respect me again. This made me brood - I was annoyed with myself, had once again forgotten that I’m unique and that normal people think my ideas are wrong, had spent too much time on my own daydreaming, and too much time with other students and friends who think I’m great and so have become “yes men”, with the best of intentions.

I made a decision: I was going to get involved with redACTION, the Arsenal fans’ group which aims to increase atmosphere inside the stadium, and try and add my ultraness to the mix. I was aware that instead of trying to change things at Arsenal I’ve moved on a bit, and that if everyone did that we’d just all go to Dinamo Zagreb games once a year and nothing would ever change in the UK.

After church, as I got on the bus feeling a bit better, I had the strongest feeling that a) God didn’t want me to do that and b) God didn’t want me to pray about it, question, or argue at all. This put me off talking to God.

My friend Rachel would say this was therefore not God speaking, because it is discouraging. But the feelings are so strong at the moment that I can’t ignore them. This morning I asked God for permission to explore the redACTION thing, and to physically stop me if I wasn’t allowed. I then felt bad about it on the bus. I always feel spiritually terrible on First buses, perhaps because I know I waste time on them - I could be reading the Bible or praying, and rarely if ever do. Or maybe it was because I felt a little of the feelings I’d had on the 66 last night and felt guilty for ignoring what could have been God’s voice.

So I will see if I get any feedback on this post, and go from there. If you think you have some advice for me, please speak.

God bless, Jenni xx

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