On Saturday, however, it was different. This time i had money in my pocket that had no other purpose except to be spent AND the thing i was buying could not only be justified as useful but could also be considered a bit of a bargain.
The money had come from the belly of a yellow spotted elephant i keep on my bedside.In a flashback to the simple days of childhood spending i have been saving my pocket money. Spending was always so much easier when you were a kid, you earned it, you saved it, you spent it. It never entered your head that perhaps this money should be kept on one side in case the boiler broke or the exhaust fell off the car. If you managed to save £25 from your paper round (which believe me was no mean feat round our way.......our paper shop paid a whopping £3.60 a week for a paper round- that was 60p a day for between 50 and 60 papers- an hours worth of delivery- per day- six days a week- i believe we would call that child slave labour these days, in fact, i'm not sure why we didn't back then- it was only the nineties!!!). What was i saying?........Oh yeah so IF you managed to save £25 from your paper round then you had no qualms about blowing it all on that new babyliss product that must surely be the breakthrough you've been waiting for in hairstyling technology, the one that will finally give you the glossy curls you've always dreamed of. I'm afraid i was a bit of a sucker for the promise of the beauty section in the argos catalogue as a youngster, not a birthday or Christmas passed by without the receipt of a much requested and highly anticipated but eventually tragically disappointing electrical beauty product.
Anyway in an effort to rekindle this kind of guilt free spending i have been saving up little scraps of money i get here and there, namely the tips i get in the cafe two days a week and the money i earn from an extremely professional and important ironing service i provide for my sister-in-law. And so, many months of saving later and i have enough to treat myself to a new computer...... one of those cute little miniature ones........i believe the technical term is a 'netbook'. I love it!! It's black and shiny and makes cute little noises when you turn it on. Lindon tells me it's also a very good computer in terms of it's processing power yadayada but i've no idea really, it works........... and it's black and shiny!
The other really great thing about this computer is it's mine! I'm aware that this makes me sound very greedy and selfish but i don't really mean it like that. I just mean it's not the house computer, or the work computer or the uni computer. It's not full of things i don't understand or know how to get the best out of. The desktop is not swimming in icons that dazzle me and prevent me from seeing the only one that i want. It's not that i don't want anyone else to use this computer it's just that i really like that it's tailored to me. In fact, i'm becoming somewhat of a computer nerd now i have one of my own. Suddenly it occurrs to me that all kinds of things could be done on computer.......accounts, sermons, journalling, to do lists, christmas shopping (i've traditionally been quite attached to the old pen and paper).
I also particularly enjoy the miniature aspect of my computer. You can literally take it anywhere with you. I have acquired a new pink pouch in which to carry my shiny new toy and have subsequently taken it shopping with me twice. I have yet to actually USE it out and about but i am full of good intention. The theory, on both the aforementioned trips to the shops, was that i would get my jobs done in town and do a bit of computer work in a cafe and enjoy the change of scenery (not to mention getting to feel all important sitting in the cafe tapping away as if my work was so important that the world could not afford to wait for me to finish my coffee and get back to the office lol).
Many people have grown up with a picture of God that kinda resembles their parents dusty old computer which sits on a giant computer desk taking up the whole study. It's not really their's, and it's not really useful, except in emergencies. The bible paints a different picture of God. It describes a God who is personalised, who knows us and wants us to know him. It describes a God who can and will be involved (and indeed, helpful) in any aspect of life we choose to invite Him into. It describes a God who will go with us anywhere we go, whether we acknowledge Him or not. This miniature, portable netbook that is mine all mine has completely revolutionised my thinking about computers. I wonder if anyone is ready to revolutionise their thinking about God??
