Hayley vs. Gareth

Since you guys are going to have to wait until tomorrow to get the post about the Kanye West gig I thought I would give you all a little fix until then and something to think about

Last night, my Dad was giving me a lift home from work and he asked me whether I was looking forward to Christmas…and do you wanna know the truth?

I’m not.

There isn’t anything that I’m looking forward to about Christmas. This year it really doesn’t bother me at all. I’m looking forward to ending what has been one of the worst years of my life but that’s New Years not Christmas

What is a Christian? This is the subject of Christianity Explored this week (which is running at Chester Uni…Thursday, 7.30 Beswick 001/4)

It’s been a bit of a wake up call for me I suppose, a reminder and a challenge.

To be a Christian…Jesus asks that we give everything to him. That we put him before everything in this world, including ourselves…that we concentrate on him, give him everything and let him be our everything.

He asks us to be prepared to die for him. I wrote down the verse “to live is Christ and to die is gain” the other day, and kind of thought that’s a really cool thing to say. But now I think about it, it’s actually terrifying! Would I be prepared to die for my faith? 1000’s of our brothers and sisters in Christ make that decision everyday when they proclaim their faith in countries where the Christian faith is banned. We have made Christianity sooo safe, and middle class. When really its sooo far from it. I follow a God, who says that the only way to heaven is through him, who says that most of what the world deems as fun is sinful, a God who says that he must be first in everything that I do, a God who says that I must be prepared to die for him. He says we should love everyone! How do we forget this? How is our Christian life ever safe? Why then, should we ever be prepared to live this way? Surely this is way to demanding for anyone to ever consider living…what right has God got to ask us to give up our lives for him?

Well…he gave his life for us! Jesus, died on the cross, in the most amazing act of love that anyone could ever imagine and only him could ever carry out! I am so unworthy of God, I am so horrendous, but because of Jesus I am no longer facing an eternity of being separated from God, cos by his awesome act of love I can live eternally with him. He has forgiven me for everything I have ever done to disgrace him and bring him pain (and that’s a lot to forgive). Giving him my life and putting him first, surely, that’s the very least I can do for my Saviour and my God…

Today I’m off to Sizewell for the 14-18’s residential weekend that CYM run and so there won’t be any blogging action over the weekend from me

But next week, I will be blogging more now that my college deadlines for this term are done! Whoop! Can’t believe I’ve pretty much finished my first term of my second year!

Also, I will be blogging about the little event of me going to see Kanye West last night!!!! Look out on facebook for photos too!

Well bum!

I would say more but it is my blog and I’m trying to be a good Christian and so I won’t swear on here!

But bum!

England sucked last night, I sat and listened to it online as I wrote my essay last night and I was getting glad I didn’t go to the pub and watch as I probably would have cried!

Steve McClaren should be gone (hopefully) by the time you read this

I don’t know what else to say except for ahhh!

The perfect way to end a perfect year! Please God let 2007 end

I am now posting to keep my sanity as I become a super mad essay writing machine! A not very good one, probably only on Windows and 3.1 at that but I’m still a machine!

I advise you all to check out Scouting for Girls’ new video for the song ‘Elvis Ain’t Dead’, I really love the song and it is one of those brilliant songs where the melody and tune are really happy and bouncy but it’s a really morose and depressed song, just like me!

Also, as I walked through town just now, I saw a man outside Debenhams (look at me with my corporate sell out name drops!) playing an electric violin, and I was thinking “he’s quite good” and then someone went to talk to him and he put his bow down and funnily the music kept playing! You lose violin man!

Finally, Mark Walley is 24 years old today…HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

After children in need last night I felt like we were back in the 90’s! I was a HUGE Spice Girls fan back in the day, I had all of the merchandise and even went to see them at Wembley, O yer! I started off slightly disappointed with their new single, however they saved it for me with the old classic ‘Stop’. I still love them, however can’t afford to go and see them in concert…stupid prices! and am slightly disgusted at Geri and Victoria’s lack of clothing in their new video…

Then we get on to Boyzone…ok, so it looked like they has decided to get back together on thursday, so had put together some routines really quickly. This however did not stop us singing along at full volume!

I have been offered a ticket to go and see Boyzone and athough I feel like I’m betraying the Spice Girls by choosing Boyzone over them, I’m rather excited about singing along with the Boys!!

Take That though…kind of beat both hands down, and prove that men get better looking with age!!!

All we need now is S Club 7 to reform…what could be better!??!!?

Because…I have indeed posted…but more than that…The Mighty Boosh series 3 is on the TV right now!

If you haven’t watched the Boosh, where have you been and why are you reading this and not trying to grab a copy right now!??! Love it!

Promise to post more from now on…

I’m exceptionally busy right now with a ‘to do list’ so long it’s unbelievable!

Because of that I won’t have time to blog much in the next two weeks so I apologise to anyone who actually enjoys this blog

You never know, Hayley might blog…if you’re lucky…very lucky…more than lucky

Check this out…you will either love it or hate it (bit like how people either love me or hate me)

Quite often I listen to podcasts when I’m working…usually after the wonderful Jo Whiley has finished her show on Radio 1 and well there are two lots of podcasts that I listen to.

Firstly there is Russell Howard’s podcast, he is a comedian who is probably best known for being on ‘Mock the Week‘ and for being funny. I think he’s hilarious and so listen to his podcast to cheer me up when I need a laugh.

The second lot of podcasts I listen to are Mars Hill Church’s podcasts, my good buddy Phil Green told me ages ago that I should listen to sermon/talk podcasts cos they might be helpful and so as usual I did what he said and do listen to them. They’re most of the time done by their pastor Mark Driscoll who is a cool yet holy guy and his talks are really fantastic, I’ve read his book too (Confessions of a Reformission Rev’) and that’s really cool and definitely worth a read, also his blog is pretty good and worth a read. Well anyway he’s good and sarcastic and so naturally I like that and he says what he thinks and I respect that in people.

I don’t really know why I blogged about this but I thought for those of you who read this blog you might like regular posts so here is one…so go on iTunes and listen to one or both…go on…I dare you