Hello everyone! After what I thought would be a brief move to Wordpress for the two months I was in Japan, I must confess that I have decided I would like to hang out there for a bit more! So this is my new address: cherielsays.wordpress.com. To everyone on my f-list: I always, always enjoy reading what you post, and I will continue to come around just so I can read it! 

 Hi guys, I'm in Hokkaido for two months and so I'm blogging mainly on my Hokkaido blog for now! callmekei.wordpress.com/

I'm not going to give any advice unless I'm absolutely sure that it's what God wants to say to that person. As one who has received mountains of well-intentioned but misguided advice in the past few months, I know all too well how frustrating and confusing it can be. It's so easy for us to give advice right off the bat, but what right have we, really, to dispense advice so freely when we have no idea what God's been saying to that person and we haven't taken the time to listen for them? 

Because it's important to watch my words and be a trustworthy person, I'm going to start withholding advice a lot of the time. If you do ask for my advice on any decision, though, you can be sure that I'll think really carefully about it and only say what I hear God saying.

This song is fast becoming my creed:

I'm naturally a rather anxious person, and until about a week ago it took practically all my willpower to keep from having a nervous breakdown at the thought of the A Level results. I'm not exaggerating- I'm talking sense of despair, muscles tensed, difficulty breathing, hysterical urges! I've been having nightmares- taking an exam for a subject I didn't study, writing one of my essays in Chinese and then not even handing it in during the exam, getting a U for History- and if I let myself go far enough I can even remember every single mistake I've found out that I've made so far. It's not that I actually expect to fail, but just that the stakes are very high and any possibility that I might not meet the conditions of my offer was unacceptable to me. (Not that I admitted it, though, I kept telling myself I'd surrendered it) One way or another, I know these results will decide my future.

A few days ago, though, I got a look at this situation from a different point of view. You know how some people say, "Do your best, and let God do the rest" and "God helps those who help themselves"? I don't like those sayings very much because they seem to suggest that the amount of effort we put into something is proportionally related to its outcome. God is a really big god, and to say that we have to work hard in order to accomplish something great just isn't giving him enough credit. As if he needed our hard work to make things happen! I think that the point of hard work is often not to achieve a specific goal, but to discipline us for growth in our lives and our relationships with God and the people around us. In other words, our human effort hardly has any direct bearing on the outcome, which, whether we feel we deserve it or not, is entirely up to God.

( This could be a scary thought, but... )

Zuko: Uncle, you're the only person other than the Avatar who can possibly defeat the Fatherlord.
Toph: You mean the Firelord.
Zuko: That's what I said.

I love this show so much~