God is good!!

Actually, he's amazing. I would even say indescribably awesome but I guess that would be a contradiction. You get the idea, though. :)

And yes, I'm still alive!! Very much so, actually, although you may not have guessed from my lack of activity on here. I've done a fairly major re-shuffling of my imaginary priority list (it does exist, just not written down), and blogging was one of the first things to move down to the 'low priority' area. 

Another thing that got moved down the list was my rabbit breeding program. While I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and learning so much about biology and genetics (as well as the very small income generated from this hobby), I feel that my rabbits are distracting my from the things that I consider "more important" at this stage of my life. So after a lot of thought and prayer I finally decided to get out of rabbits completely. I've found a buyer for all the rabbits except 2, and have someone interested in those 2 as well. I actually feel surprisingly happy with my decision, and even now don't have any regrets at all about seeing all those years of hard work gone. At least I know their new owners, so I will be able to hear how they're going, and maybe even one day get them back again. 

It's hard to believe this year is nearly over already!! You'd think we'd used to this happening every year, but I'm sure each year goes faster than the one before. I guess now is a good time to reflect on the past year before we get thrown into yet another one! I wonder how many people can remember their New Year's Resolutions. Or how many have achieved them. I can't even remember mine (if I had any?) so I doubt that I achieved any of them.

I remember this time last year I was getting all stressed about how things were going to work out for this year; no matter how much I thought about it or tried to plan the year, I couldn't see how on earth things could possibly work out. (I'll spare you the details of specifically what I was worried about.) But now looking back I can see how this year God has bombarded me with opportunities far beyond anything I would ever have imagined or dreamed of!! Yet at the time I didn't seem to take much notice. Ironic how it's so easy to long for something so much that you don't recognize it when it's staring you in the face. I can't think of a single prayer that God hasn't answered this year - some of them in a far more wonderful way than I expected.

It's so encouraging to know all this, and to have that assurance that no matter what the future may hold, God will be right by our side giving us what He knows is best. I read a quote this morning, "God will never lead you where he cannot care for you." - W. W. Wiersbe.

What has He done for you this year?

May 21... Rapture Day?

Some of you may have heard all the talk about today being the end of the world, some of you may not have. Actually, today wasn't predicted to be the end of the world, but rather the rapture. Supposedly 5 months from today the world will end... If you ask me it's all a big gimmick that has received its popularity almost solely by people who mock at any sort of rapture or end to this world. And it involves buying T-shirts so someone can get rich from this ridiculous scam.... You can read about it - and buy T-shirts from - here: http://judgementday2011.com/.

Now while I am really very cynical about this whole thing, it did arouse some interesting thoughts that had crossed my mind several times recently even before I heard about this. I keep reading from various places in the Bible about how we should be preparing for and anticipating Christ's Second Coming and living our lives as though the rapture were imminent. Then last week in English I had to write a paragraph about how I would live if I knew my life was going to end in exactly one year. What an interesting thought! I'd never spent much time seriously considering that before. But how important it is to live our lives to the fullest while we have the chance! We can never know when our time here will end, and if we go on living the way we are, will we have any regrets when our life suddenly and unexpectedly ends? Is there anything you know ought to do before you leave earth that you have been leaving until "later" or "when I'm more mature/prepared/ready"? I know there are many things I would regret not having done if the rapture had come today.

Another interesting aspect which crossed my mind is time management. I don't know of [m]any people who can honestly say they don't have a busy schedule. On the other hand, there are more people than I can possibly remember who have their weeks completely booked out and live in a state of constant productivity. Which is great, don't get me wrong. It's fantastic to see people work so hard to achieve their maximum potential, and I believe that all of one's time should be spent in a productive and beneficial activity. However I think that a lot of people just like myself have fallen into the trap of thinking, "I'm busy doing productive things. Therefore I am managing my time wisely and don't need to worry." We may be spending our time on good things, but are they the best things? I personally spend a lot of time on various music-related activities; all very productive and beneficial, I can tell you. But I find myself wondering if Jesus wouldn't be living quite differently in my place. I mean, surely I can't honestly believe that Jesus would spend hours practicing for an exam just to get a better mark when there is so much more a Christian can and should be doing. Please don't get me wrong - I do believe that music is God's gift to me and I intend to use it in whatever way possible for His service, but I think I have become too caught up with "getting ready to do God's work" and have actually forgotten that NOW is the time to do God's work. Does anybody else find that? You just keep telling yourself that what you're doing is okay because one day it will enable you to serve God better? But I think God wants us to enter His ministry TODAY. While it is, of course, important to plan ahead and prepare for the future, I need to be especially careful not to LIVE in the future and pass up present opportunities to achieve God's plans for me.

Having said that, another area in which I struggle is in actually just spending time alone with God. I tend to be a Martha, always rushing around doing things that I think will help, when really what I need to do is get to know God as a close friend and spend time with him. If the Second Coming were to come some time soon, I would be very regretful of how little time I have spent alone with Him as a friend.

I apologise if I have offended anyone with some of my controversial views. If you don't believe in the rapture/Second Coming, I'm sorry to have presented my beliefs so forcefully.

So now my challenge is to put all this rambling into practice. How would I live if this day was my last? If I only had one week left to live, what would I be doing?

Some food for thought, anyway...

Answers to prayer

God's been doing a lot in my life lately, and I just thought I'd share about a special blessing I've received recently.

As most of you know, I've been very much hoping to be able to participate in another pre-tertiary music course at the ANU this year. I was fully aware that my chances of being able to do the course were very slim, since apparently only a total of 10 positions would be available this year. Apart from that, there was always the underlying problem of transport, as the bus would leave Canberra 15 minutes before I even started classes, so private transport back to Cooma would have been necessary - and very hard to find.

In spite of that, I believed that God can work miracles and that if He wanted me to do the course, He would open the doors. And He did. Long story short, things seemingly fell into place, and I was very surprised to hear that not only was my audition successful, but I was number one on the list of flautists!!

God's plans are not ours, though, and as usual He had different ideas. (Or maybe I should say I had different ideas to Him...) Just when I was starting to become anxious from all the waiting and not hearing anything, within the space of 2 hours I had received my letter of acceptance into the program AND received a telephone call notifying me that the letter was sent in error and I would not be able to participate in the music program because I am not an ACT resident. '

Of ALL the things I knew could possibly go wrong, I was not expecting this. For some reason I hadn't even considered the possibility. But when I would have expected to be extremely disappointed at the cold reality of things, I was amazed at how at the peace of mind I had about the whole situation. I tried to remember that whatever happened would be because God had a better plan. I just couldn't see it for the life of me...

And then I began to see. My flute teacher (well, I stopped having lessons from her in June but I still consider her my teacher) arranged for me to teach some beginner flute students at the Snowy Mountains Christian School which was indeed an answer to prayer. Not only would I be able to further my musical experience and develop some teaching skills, but I have some sort of an income to help me pay for my own lessons. After meeting with the head music teacher at the school who showed me the ropes of how things were done, I went into town to do a couple of errands. In doing so I came across the local music shop owner who was literally about to ring me to ask if I was interested in taking any students! Of course I said yes and made contact with the 2 people interested in having private lessons with me. Both were keen to start that week, and as I compared the money I would be earning with the expense of my own lessons I found out that I would be earning just enough for my own lessons - down to the last cent!! While I marvelled at God's amazing provision, there was still more happening...

About a week later I got a call from the Administrator of the ANU School of Music. Because they were not able to include me in the Type 1 program, several people had gone to considerable efforts to arrange alternative options for me. I was offered places in the ANU's Music After School (instrumental tuition) program as well as their new Fridays @ ANU (chamber music) program. Most notably, I was granted a discretionary fee subsidy of $250 per semester - a scholarship created just to help me!!! Just another reason why the ANU is the most awesome uni in the country...

So with the help of the amazing ANU staff, I now get to have subsidised flute lessons from Teresa Rabe, who I'm told is a phenomenal flautist and teacher. My only regret was that I had to decline the chamber music program due to transportation issues and the limited time factor. Everything else had worked out perfectly, but while nearly all of the little people in the village inside my head were rejoicing and celebrating, there was that 1 pessimistic and ungrateful person who kept going around reminding the other little people in my head about how important gathering with other like-minded musicians was to me last year. In my opinion, progressing as a musician is kind of like growing corn: while it is possible for the corn plant to grow on its own, the real fruit will only come when it is growing alongside other corn plants. I decided to keep this as a prayer point.

I needn't have worried. The very next day when I was speaking to a very accomplished professional musician who lives in Canberra about conducting our local community ensemble (yet another astounding answer to prayer), when she mentioned that I had been given a position as 2'nd flute in the Canberra Concerto Orchestra!!! This time everybody in the little village in my head rejoiced with one accord and... Yes. Don't worry. I'll spare you the agony of my poetic prose. Suffice it to say that there were celebrations of great magnitude going on in my head that night.

And to think I worried about what I would do this year... Things are always clearer in hindsight, but I was really foolish to think that worrying would make any difference when God had it all planned from the beginning. Hopefully I've learned my lesson for good now - I don't have to be able to see God's plans to know that He's got everything worked out and it will all happen in His timing.

I originally had this post titled "An answer to prayer" but by the time I got around to finishing it weeks later(because I'm so slack at blogging and I have a life) so much had happened that I had to change it to the plural form.

Anyway, that's what has been happening in my life lately. What has God been doing for you?

In His hands

*This post is more for my own benefit to help remind me of something I've been struggling with, but if you happen to find it interesting, even better.

Lately I have been getting so stressed out over 'planning' my future. So many things are starting to happen that could have a significant effect on the rest of my life:

Type 1 is a music scholarship course at the School of Music for Year 11 & 12 students. Participants receive free lessons from top teachers, the opportunity to gain experience in ensembles/orchestras under well-educated tutors, as well as 2 hours of composition & music theory lessons a week. Needless to say, I really want to do the course (if only for the free lessons, which I really 'need') and I've been stressing myself out about it constantly. See, at the moment there is no way I would be able to, because even if I passed the audition (and only 10 people will...) I would be left without a means of being transported back to Cooma. No matter how much I worry about it and try to think of a solution, though, nothing changes.

Then there's the Canberra Concerto Orchestra. On Wednesday a local music teacher who used to teach our family rang me up and told me about this orchestra which was having auditions this week. He spoke very highly of it and said he thought I had a fairly good chance of passing the audition (?!?!), so I booked in an audition, thinking, "Well isn't this a good opportunity! If I don't get to do Type 1 next year, at least I might be able to do this instead." 4 days later, and I still hadn't heard back from the audition manager, and consequently still didn't have copies of the pieces I was required to learn for the audition! These pieces got sent out to everybody else some time last week, giving them all a whole week's practice more than me!! I rang the manager several times during those 4 days, only to be informed that the music was still 'on its way'. It finally arrived on Monday, giving me only 6 days to learn it, as opposed to the 2 weeks everyone else had. Again, I only fretted more as time progressed, and the fretting didn't stop when the music arrived. I now had to worry about how I would get to Canberra for the audition and get back home again. And even if I DID manage to work out all that, how would I be able get there and back every week next year for rehearsals?

As most of you should know, MuST (the music program I'm doing at ANU at the moment) is the highlight of my week. This year has been the highlight of my life for the same reason. I know I must sound obsessed with music (and maybe I am...), but I can't even describe how much this course has meant to me. Anyway, we only have 3 weeks to go, and that will be the last I will ever see of MuST. I know I should be thankful that I actually got to do the course - if I wasn't homeschooled, there wouldn't have been a chance of being able to go to Canberra every Tuesday, and if we'd found out about it one day later the applications would have closed and I would never have even made it to the audition. I also know that I should be treasuring these last few weeks and being glad to have had the opportunity to complete the course, but something inside me just keeps flinging my mind towards that fact that in 3 weeks I will never EVER have another MuST lesson to look forward to. This may sound crazy, but just the thought of no more MuST makes me feel... well, don't worry about that. This must have sounded sickeningly ungratefully pessimistic - and perhaps it is - but I assure you that, while I'm tempted to feel that way, I know I shouldn't and I am trying to get to grips with it. Right now I am really struggling to deal with this battle going on inside me.

I could go on, but you get the idea. I've been trying to work everything by my own power (or lack thereof) and fretting when it doesn't work. Why? To tell the truth, I really don't know. Like most people, deep down I know that the only right way is to let God pull the strings and just be the 'puppet' that he uses to work his plan. What ever He wants to happen WILL HAPPEN!! If He's planned for me to play in an orchestra next year, He will make a way for it to happen without my worrying about it! If he wants me to forget music and do something completely different next year, then none of my 'plans' will work, no matter how hard I try. I should stop and wonder - what is even the point in making my own plans? If they're not His plans, they won't happen.

I heard a quote only this week, "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." So how do we find His plans for us?

"Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." - Jeremiah 33:3

One of my all-time favourite songs...

... is a new piece of music we have called "Bow The Knee." It's a Christian worship song that we are learning to sing in 4-part harmony. At the moment I love it so much I just thought I'd share it with the world. Hopefully when you hear it you'll understand why. (To gain maximum appreciation of it, try to close your eyes, block out distractions, and just focus on the message of the music. Like a lot of songs, this one won't sound amazing unless you allow it to; e.g. don't just have it playing in the background while you do something else, or it won't sound that good.)

Below is an audio track of a professional choir performing it with an orchestra as well as the lyrics, in case you don't catch all the words the first time.

Bow The Knee


There are moments on our journey following the Lord
Where God illumines every step we take.
There are times when circumstances make perfect sense to us,
As we try to understand each move He makes.
When the path grow dim
And our questions have no answers, turn to Him.

Bow the knee; trust the heart of your Father when the answer goes beyond what you can see.
Bow the knee; lift your eyes toward heaven and believe the One who holds eternity.
And when you don't understand the purpose of His plan,
In the presence of the King, bow the knee.

There are days when clouds surround us, and the rain begins to fall,
The cold and lonely winds won't cease to blow.
And there seems to be no reason for the suffering we feel;
We are tempted to believe God does not know.
When the storms arise,
Don't forget we live by faith and not by sight.

Bow the knee; trust the heart of your Father when the answer goes beyond what you can see.

Bow the knee; lift your eyes toward heaven and believe the One who holds eternity.
And when you don't understand the purpose of His plan,
In the presence of the King,

Bow the knee; trust the heart of your Father when the answer goes beyond what you can see.
Bow the knee; lift your eyes toward heaven and blieve the One who holds eternity.
And when you don't understand the purpose of His plan,
In the presence of the King,
Bow the knee.

Wonderfully Orchestrated

What follows this brief introduction is not written by me. It is copied with permission from a blog post by Terry Ferguson from Head-lines. While I prefer to only publish my own work on this blog, I found an exception in this post. The content is something which I can really relate to, and I hope you find you will all enjoy it as much as I did. So here we go; Wonderfully Orchestrated:

Tuesday at work I attended a performance by two of the members of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra during lunchtime.  The music was quite beautiful, a duet between a violin and a bassoon. 


What I found most interesting was the demonstration given by the bassoonist.  He took apart his instrument, and showed how each piece was an individual, integral part of the whole.  If one piece were broken or omitted, the instrument would not function properly...or at all. The science behind the creation of that instrument was fascinating.

That started me thinking... Think of a symphony producing the works of Mozart or Beethoven. It all begins with the individual playing his part. This is much like how our body operates with its 11 systems working in concert. Each part carefully "orchestrated" to work with the other, each having its own unique and integral purpose. If just one part is injured or missing, then the body does not function properly, or at all (death). Example: Hypothalamus gland



It is only the size of the tip of your thumb and weights 4 grams, yet it regulates equilibrium as well as thirst, body temperature, water balance, hunger, and blood pressure. It links the endocrine system with the nervous system. One little part, so vital to the body as a whole.

King David also thought about the intricacies of the human body, and how each part of us is precisely created...he wrote about this in Psalm 139:


"13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Another fascinating aspect of our created being are "laminins." They are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue. Laminins are what hold us together...LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart.

Here is what the structure of laminin looks like...AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it....if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see... (or Google images). Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!!

The glue that holds us together....ALL of us.

'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things HOLD TOGETHER.'

Colossians 1:15-17

Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together ...one cell to another....by the cross.
And that's my thought for the day!

Now You think about it...

An answer to prayer

Okay, well most of you may find this post irrevelevant or even boring (as probably most of my posts are), but something so exciting happened that I have to share it with someone - or everyone.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been praying very hard about how God wants me to spend my life, and what career pathway he has planned for me. I have some of my own ideas based on my own feelings, but I really want to know for sure exactly what He wants me to do with my life. So I've been praying really hard about it for quite some time, but not really getting any answers. In fact, it didn't seem like I was getting any response at all.

But then things started happening. Seemingly out of the blue Mum received an email from a student of the Sydney Conservatorium whom she (Mum) had emailed months before, with no response, whom we had all forgotten about long ago. Apparently she was doing research as part of her PhD into the effects that being homeschooled have on one's music education. She was looking for willing families through which to conduct the research, so of course Mum volunteered us. Months later we received an email back saying she would very much like to come and see our family in the July holidays.

So on Tuesday she came and spent several hours interviewing us and listening to us perform. Nothing special had happened up to this point. Then we got to talking with her and found out that she was homeschooled (which we had kind of guessed already) and had studied a Bachelor of Music Education majoring in Flute. You can imagine how excited I was to have somebody to talk to that has experienced and done exactly what I am interested in doing. It was the most amazing help to be able to ask all these questions I've been wanting to ask someone for YEARS, as well as having the assurance that this person understood exactly where I was coming from, having come from there herself. To me it was a heaven-sent opporunity to find the answers I'd been looking for. Long story short, we (or I) ended up interviewing her more than she did us. Fortunately she didn't mind at all, and I was overjoyed at receiving the guidance I'd been praying for. Not only because I now have a clear idea of what God wants me to do, but also because it was such a blessing to see prayer answered so effectively!

P.S. I didn't take that photo, much as I would like to say I did...

The Brain

As usual, I've been doing random thinking, and the topic of much thought lately has been the brain. It really is an amazing creation! Take a moment to think about the tons of information that are stored in each human brain. If you're anything like I am, your brain does an almost-unbelievable amount of thinking each day - yet less than 2% of neural activity is conscious thought! If I try to measure the conscious thinking I do each day, multiply that by 49, and combine those two sums, the amount of work the brain does is just incredible! As if hard work isn't enough, it never gets any rest! While you're sleeping, your brain is still working hard processing all the information it has acquired over the course of the day, finding connections between the new information and "old" information, and filing away all the new data into suitable categories to be accessed at a later date.

Then take look at the memory. I am just amazed at the way the memory works. Rather than just filing away each separate piece of information into the related category/s like a man-made computer would, the brain searches all previously entered data for related information. It then establishes "connections" between all these pieces of information, forming a complete network so vast that it is incomprehensible. It is because of these "connections" that you find it easier to learn new things that are somehow related to something you know a lot about already. For me, I can read a paper on rabbit genetics and absorb every idea in the first reading, because I already know a lot in the area of rabbit genetics, and my brain can make more connections between the new and existing pieces of information. The more connections the brain has with a piece of information, the more likely you are to remember that bit of information. In the same way, I struggle to remember even very simple concepts of Geometry. Since I have only just started a Geometry course, everything is new to me, and it is taking a while to establish connections between all the pieces of new information and existing mathematical knowledge (of which there is very little, believe me! =P).

On the other hand, the human brain has a unique creative way of thinking. No animal's brain has the ability to process words and form an infinite number of sentences. Because of the superior brains God has given to man, however, even a toddler can create sentences which they have never heard before. Animals simply repeat things the way they were done by their ancestors, and follow the "instinct" that is programmed into them. A canary's song has always been the same, and always will be. Look at how much music has advanced over the ages, though! Not only do we have very complex music, but it is constantly changing, as humans seek to satisfy their urge to be creative and experiment with new things.

The more I learn about the human brain, the less I understand. How is it possible that a piece of flesh can store tons of data so effectively? It has an unlimited capacity for storing knowledge, but it is far from just an information bank. It gives us the ability to devise new ideas and be creative in our ways of doing things. Because of our creative mind, we are able to make and enjoy such artistic things as music that no animal will ever be able to come close to even comprehending.

Some people would have you believe that there is no difference between humans and animals - that we are nothing more than an advanced primate. After learning about the human brain, I ask you to reconsider!! This is but one example of how we are clearly separate beings created with a different purpose. Their purpose - to provide us with resources for survival and comfort. Our purpose? To bring glory to God and worship Him.

All very well to say, huh? Well now I'm going to do something that you may or may not like. I'm going to challenge you to find at least one thing in God's wonderful Creation that you find particularly amazing (come on, it's not that hard, what's not amazing in Creation?!) and tell people about it. Find out as much amazing facts as you can, and share these with people, bringing glory to God's mighty work. You never know, you might just change the course of someone's life.

And finally... if there's anyone that's actually read this post all the way to here, I'd love to hear what you think about all this. Do you have any interesting facts to share? Perhaps you even know some thing/s about the brain that would interest us, while we're on this topic? And yes, you can have a virtual medal for reading this far. I know it's been a difficult post to read, and you deserve it. *Places medal on your shirt.*

Oh, and if you could remember to keep Joseph in your prayers, that'd be great, too. He had his tonsils and adenoids removed in Canberra today, and from what we've been told, it sounds like it didn't go so well... he sounds quite stressed over it. Hopefully he will be feeling better tomorrow morning.

God bless you all, and thanks for bothering to read this!