The Swiftly Tilting Passing of Time | End of the Year Reflections

One of my favourite places at uni is the Great Court 

There is a sense in which it feels like I am taking up my proverbial pen and writing into the void of the internet after taking such a long sabbatical from my blog. Those who follow me on Instagram or Twitter will be more up-to-date with what I have been doing over the past several months, as I have mostly shared and tweeted on those platforms about books, my study-life and the things that I've been pondering of late. Nonetheless, you are here, reading this post--to you I extend very cheerful greeting. Hello, gentle reader! I am back and with an overflow of thoughts and things I wish to write about. I am currently on the summer-break which extended from mid-November and will finish at the end of February, but while I have a lot of time on my hands, I also have a lot of summer projects and commitments that are keeping me busy, so I cannot say how often I will write on this little ol' blog of mine. That said, I have missed writing in this form so much and am excited for all the possibilities and ideas that we can explore.

It is hard to explain but I feel like I have grown so much, almost un-recognisably, from the young girl who started this blog more than six years ago (closer to seven?). My way of thinking, the pace of my life and my experiences, the people I have met and interact with, are widely different then probably what I could have imagined at seventeen or eighteen years of age. How time flies, and with it so many things in our life! So much of what I used to treasure and think so essential to living a successful and happy life have become second place to the things that matter most in my life now. Things that upset me and concerned me so much now seem like all a part of the things that God has allowed to shape my life, the threads both bright and dark, beautiful and painful, strange and awesome that shape God's story for me. At the same time, I look deep and see those little bits of me that have clung on, that have developed and matured but never really left. Just coming out of my second year at university, studying English Literature, both ancient and modern History, and Creative Writing, the learning and the people and experiences I meet at my uni have shaped very much the last few years of my life. In many ways it can often feel like I am living in a bubble of assignments, exams, lectures, hanging out with friends at the uni cafes, and commuting back home to snatch a few hours each day with family before repeating the process (some days sleep is non existent as I pull all-nighters getting some 4 research essays done!). Learning and understandings are things I value a lot, but also people and the simple and precious moments and seconds that pass by, that we can never gain again...

Through those years God has been teaching me some things - like the swiftly tilting passing of time, the preciousness of human life and time spent with people, that each moment matters in God's eyes and it should in ours with how we treat and appreciate them as they pass. I have found this world a dark, dark and horrifying place, sin-sick, cruel and unjust! But I have also seen just how beautiful and glorious and full of God's marvellous grace it can be, overflowing with hope and joy as He takes what is broken and makes it a glorious thing. I've seen the Lord's amazing work of transformation and stirring people's hearts to seek to know Him where least expected, and seen the blatant rejection of Him and what that can look like, breaking my heart. Truth is such a beautiful thing, and Grace so powerful. I believe this more than I ever did in my life and it both humbles me and makes me solemn but also gives me so much desire to be closer to Jesus, to grow in faith in Him and not be satisfied with the cheap baubles that world offers, but to seek that which is higher and better and far, far more beautiful in Christ. This is my prayer for the new year, both for myself, and for you, dear reader. God holds twenty-nineteen in His hands, just as He holds the future of all our lives. I know that my Lord has been so faithful, so good in all the years before - and, by His mercy, He will be again.

My prayer is that I will be able to be faithful too.