well, the weekend went better than i thought it would, so that was good!
it feels like God has given me some new lenses to see everything through in terms of my dad - ones which, although he did do crap stuff, i can appreciate that he is human and therefore from that point of view i can forgive him and stop expecting him to be perfect.
it means that i can rely on and trust in my perfect father and let dad just do what he does and let it wash over me more.
it also felt like i don't need the big show-down with dad as it won't achieve anything really. God is more than big enough to heal hurts and bind up wounds. as for telling dad some stuff, i think that will happen but don't know how or when. that can be up to God.
thanks for praying!

so, a quick one for all of you praying people out there who want to pray. this weekend is the 'seeing dad' weekend and i'd really appreciate some prayer for it, mainly on Saturday, as it's not going to be easy - i guess simply that i would know so truly that my heavenly father is with me. i don't want to grit my teeth and get through it, i want to learn and grow and forgive and i think some of that has to come from hard things.
thanks lots!

today is our first wedding anniversary - very exciting indeed!

for a special treat, we took ourselves off to the St David hotel in Cardiff for the friday evening. we sat in ncie bubbles intheir spa and then had a nice massage each, ate some lovely food and chilled out in our room. tom had persuaded me to let him book what he wanted and so we ended up on the top floor of the hotel with a corner suite with two huge glass walls, a whopper bed and a bathroom that had speakers in it, so if you needed to go to the loo in the middle of a programme, you could still hear what was going on! (I wasn't overly keen on that - some places really do need to be tv free!).

then on saturday, after a nice sleep and a chilled morning, we headed into Cardiff centre and experienced the city which seems to have the worst puddle on thepath problem i have ever experienced! we did make it across town without drowning though and looked at the rather spendid gallery in the wales museum. this was followed by a short wait and then the Wales vs New Zealand rugby game. it was so exciting to see it live! i did get told off at one point though by tom, when rocokoko (?) was running amazingly to score his try and i got so excited that i jumped int eh air, shouting for him to run faster, forgetting that i was surrounded by gutted welsh people! oh well - i just couldn't quite help my enthusiasm!

it was a very good weekend : )

i had a great day on Saturday - watched morning Tv in my pyjamas, did some gardening, got some surprise flowers delivered from my lovely husband, went to Westonbirt Arboretum, went to watch rugby with some crazy kiwis and went to sing to God. It was great!!

Sunday wasn't so great. i had a rather confrontational phone conversation with my dad over that horrible decision as to who's going to spend Christmas with which parent when. Dad and i have never talked about his affair and break up with mum, due to his mainly being an emotional brick wall. it means that i still have many unresolved things in my head that i desperately need to let out, and he's decided that he needs to move on, without processing as it's in the past now, and that people need to just accept it and kind of fit into it. not really very helpful. BUT it has brought up a whole bunch of stuff i still need to give to God about it which is super-hard. does forgiving someone mean that you condone the situation they are in? what does it look like to forgive someone, when you really don't agree with what they've done and the subsequent situation they are therefore in? i don't know. i think i'm beginning to finally figure out that God knows though and can bring me to 'that place', wherever it might be and whatever it might look like. it's hard to let yourself be justified soley by God and not worry about people thinking they've got the upper hand and winning you over because you have forgiven them...

This is a bit of processing, so forgive the probably incoherance and possible lack of sensitivity.

Yesterday Tom and I went to the funeral of a friend of his from uni who died a week ago last friday of brain cancer. She had been battling it for 3 years or so and it had gone into remisison and come back a few times. Aside from the whole event being a very sad one as she was only 26, it was made sadder for us by the fact that she didn't know Jesus and none of her friends do either. This resulted in us wondering whether or not we could have done more and in them being totally lost as to know what to do or how to react in trying to process it all. We came away feeling like we understood a bit more what Jesus felt when he talked about looking on the crowds and having compassion on them because they were lost like sheep without a shepherd.

i felt quite ruffled by the vicar who led the service too. Having had some training in how to conduct funerals i totally understood how hard it is for those leading when the person who died didn't know Jesus. However what i came away wondering was the role of the minister actually is in that kind of situation. It felt like he was very much at the beck and call of the mourners - to give them what they wanted, rather than really help them in the true sense of showing them Jesus, obviously in a caring, loving, sensitive manner. It felt a little like he compromised himself, which made me sad.

that's it for now - i'm sure there will be more...

This weekend, God taught me quite a profound lesson.

As a group of 'Formettes and their leader', we went away to 'Woodadvent' camping barn in Exmoor, a couple of hours away. It is a big 3 storey stone cottage as part of a big working farm, with a log burner which provided a little bit of warmth (but more smoke) and raised wooden platforms round the edge of each wall to sleep on. The idea of the weekend was to spend some time 'bonding' and doing some stuff with Bill on personality.

The weekend included many humouerous and interesting times including:
· silly games (sheep and sheepong – don't ask, but I never want to hear those two words again!)
· wearing four layers of clothing, hats, rugs and sleeping bags and hot water bottles etc to get through both nights and days. It was a chilly one, but we survived (just).
· Bill getting intensely lost upon his arrival at the farm and ending up off-roading in his ford focus!
· Finding out I’m part of only 2% of the female population in the UK, being a INTP in the Meyers Briggs test.
· writing worship songs together.
· panicking that we were all going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning from the log burner which was kicking out rather a lot of smoke at 1am. Amazing what middle of the night irrational logic can tell you!!!

However through all of this I managed to glean something pretty amazing. For years I have learnt about being a leader. I have been taught (and have taught) every class on 'leadership' under the sun by people who obviously thought they could see 'leadership potential' in me. I thought coming into being the course leader of Form that I would have the perfect opportunity of being able to put it into practice again, now that I was a bit more 'sorted out' than I was when in the same kind of role before.

Interestingly (and perhaps predictably) I have found that all the knowledge in the world can't make your heart and spirit right too! How much have I spent time telling other people that and how much is it true that we are the last to really understand what we spend most of our time telling other people! Last night I had just about reached the end of my tether. I had spent 2 pretty full-on and totally intensive weeks with these 6 lovely people who have given up 9 months of their life to do the course and being a classic introvert I desperately needed space. I got grouchy and resentful and snappy and desperately wanted to run away. I was unreasonable and probably quite unhelpful.

I had spent some time sitting in a field with a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys on the Sunday morning trying to clear my head and asking God what he was saying to me for today and didn't really seem to hear anything. Later on in the evening, however, when tom and I were talking about how the weekend had gone and what we thought God had got in store for these people, tom pointed out how I needed to a) apologise for my behaviour towards them, b) learn to how to get re-energised through these people and through God when I'm with these people. I was pretty cut to the core, because those are such hard things for me to do but also because they are so true. As Tom put on Sheryl Crow's 'No-one said it would be easy' which he thought I needed to listen to (!), I felt God speaking right into my heart and talking to me in his kind, convicting and yet thoroughly serious way about the nature of being a leader. He talked about how it's not about being the bossy one in charge who can organise things and people; that although you can help them become who he's made them to be by putting them through a course and helping them work on what you can prophetically see God pointing out; but instead it is to be the humble one who serves. I reflected on how I'd even kept checking that I was helping with cooking and washing up etc so that I was serving them and that they would therefore pick up on how leaders should serve them. I realised that he was talking so much more about being the servant who lays down their life (comforts, need for sleep and isolation, need to be right, need to be in charge and in control) for those they are leading. I suddenly started to more understand what was going on when Jesus washed his disciples feet and felt God talking about how much he loved and valued these people and their development and that as their 'leader' I was HIS servant, at his beck and call to do everything and anything he asked me to in order to help them grow, even if this meant laying aside my wants and perceived needs when he asked me to. I'm not saying that he wouldn't want me to rest and replenish alone or that I shouldn't take an active role in bossing them around (everyone needs bossing around at some point, it shows where they are proud!!), but when he's calling me to answer a need, in this case, one to be discipled, I need to be prepared to be uncomfortable to do it. This may not sound like a big deal and for those of you reading this who are wisened leaders I can hear you thinking, ah yes, that old chestnut, but it is feeling like a rather fundamental lesson, a deep profound change that needs to be implanted into my heart from God before I can go on. My life is God's and as the old Vineyard adage goes, I really do need to be change in His pocket to be spent as he desires. I am no longer my own, but belong to Him.

Interestingly when we were at Badger House earlier this year with all of the other Form centre leaders, one of the things that spoken prophetically over me was the need to do the things that I felt uncomfortable in, in order to demonstrate to them how to do it. I had presumed that this would be things like going out onto the streets to pray for people (lord, please no!) but I think it's starting at a much more profound level. So now I have the rather humble task ahead of me of apologising to those who I am meant to be leading for not being Godly towards them. It feels so hard but so good.

Needless to say I am thankful that God has showed me this right at the start of this year before I mess the guys up too much. And it feels so good that it's a God-humbling-me thing rather than me thinking I should be doing something different thing. Surely only then, when it comes from the heart and the spirit, can I have any impact on anyone else…

When I was out sitting on my hill this morning, one of the dogs from the farm came up with me and as soon as we hit the big, open, freshly ploughed fields, he went nuts chasing after all of the grouse and other game birds wandering around. It was amazing to watch as he had so much fun and dashed around like a lunatic. Then out of the long storks of some cabbages that hadn't yet been picked, he came shooting out and bounded over with a grouse actually in his mouth, still faintly alive. Now normally this to me would be totally gutting and I would feel really sad for the bird. This time however I could do nothing but stand in admiration of this dog who was so fully living as he was intended to live and doing only what he knew to do. I was in awe (sadly this was slightly broken as he then stood expectantly beside me obviously waiting for me to do something and I wasn't sure if I was meant to pat him on the back and send him on his way with his prize or take the now dead bird from his mouth as his gift to me. Instead I kind of praised him and walked him back down to the farm where his kind master could deal with it all much more effectively!). On reflection maybe THIS is what God was talking to me about – being the kind of person who could only do what they were made to do, which in my case it to do whatever God wants from me, to help usher in His kingdom here and now, in whichever way he would chose that to happen. And what pleasure the dog got from it and what a reward when he got a big pat and praise. The phrase 'well done, good and faithful servant' comes to mind…

oh dear. it's beena long time... Just a sign of much busy-ness. Form is starting next week and so i've been pretty manic trying to get all of that stuff ready. It's amazing how much paperwork it can breed! But we have 5 people coming and we have homes for them all and a pretty good syllabus planned until Christmas and so not much is left to do aside from plan a few sessions and then we're done! Hooray!!!

What else? Not much really, just trying to figure out how best to give money away, how to help people who are mouring, how to react when heaps of my friends are pregnant and it's not the right time for us yet etc etc. Interesting times.

The whole money thing is such a big one for me. Being a trustee of God's resources is a hard job sometimes in trying to figure out what he would best have you do with it. There are billions of starving and very underprivilidged people in the world and yet i have so much. Could it be i have so much so i can give them some (like jacqui Pullinger says, if you see them then you have to do something about it. how many people don't see what's going on in the world as they have allowed themselves to become hard to it. why do i see so much? how can so many people drive along my road and not see the handful of prostitutes who hang out on the corners or in dark shadows? has god given me 'eyes to see' which i need to do something about, or do they others just see them but ignore them?). Or should i look to more immediate surroundings? Or should i try and fight unjust world systems, the cause of much of it. Then again, you have to think too about the nature of poverty and if an ease of that problem is what people really need - surely they need jesus more. How can you give someone something and talk to them about Jesus without them thinking they have to accept Jesus in order to get the gift you're giving. Then if you don't say anything and just give the gift, when do you say the words? I do feel that eventually the words do need to be said. As much as people come along with the 'preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words' thing, i still can't help but see everywhere in the bible jesus doing things and then explaning why. everywhere...
(not sure i want advice on this one as so many people have so many opinions about it. I'm looking to see what god has for me, today and this week and then the month then the year then fo rmy life. I think he's quite personal about some things...)

so, it's a time of busy-ness and also of many questions. My brain seems to be in hyper-drive!!!

Finally i seem to be almost up to speed with getting around. I still can't walk for ages or do any running yet but i can get around without it hurting most of the time, so that's good!

Only 3 weeks now until Form officially starts. Slightly scary as i still have so much to do, but as it all came together at the last minute last time, i'm sure it will do so again - hopefully with a slightly larger margin of time between finishing prep and starting the running of it all than before!

Last week i met with Sarah, the person who heads up Grandmas in Bristol. It's a charity that helps out families who have someone with AIDs in it. We had a really great time talking about the poor, simplicity, money, the fundamentality of prayer and God's heart of compassion. All things reallyon my heart and mind at the moment. I think i may finally be starting to be able to take a longer term perspective on working things out, not needing to hvaing everythign sorted out now and for it to be fine that things are how i would ideally like them to be around me straight away. It's a good, maturing humbling process i think!

Our garden is now on the road through to autumn and the plants are producing the end bits of their crops. I have loved it all and am totally looking forward to digging all the last roots up, spreading manure down and planing seeds for next year. Tom and I have discovered a mutual love for broad beans so, along with hopefully some other beans, we are going to have the soil with the best nitrogen-fixed root nodules in the world!!

Gosh - a long time since i've written anything. I've been out of action following a little operation for a hernia in hospital. It was such good timing to have to lie at home on the sofa all day. Instead of the usual crappy daytime tv, i got to watch the whole of the olympics. Great!! I loved every second of it and even made Tom watch it. He got bored quite quickly... I even managed to get praying properly in a routine again by the end of the 2 weeks.I've been a bit slack recently.

Being ill was an interesting experience. It's only when you're ill i think that you really lose all of the usual pretense and calm that you portray to others and your true self comes out. So as the weeks went on and i let go of more of 'me', i realised underneath what i was really like - quite snappy, selfish and pretty self-absorbed. I'm not saying this in a put-myself-down type of way, it really is the honest truth. the good thing, the best thing, though is that i also realised and came to see more that God sees this all along and still loves me and heals and delivers me from the stupid rubbish that i have in my life, and has done in astounding ways recently. I guess at those times i am humbled, loved and challenged all at once. I think that in that place you start to realise a) that you can do nothing to change yourself, however hard you try, as that is God's job (i've been trying for years, believe me!) and b) that you need to put yourself into a place where God can change you. THAT is your responsibility. You can't change yourself, but God can. Your job then is to read the bible, dwell in god, worship him, try and keep tabs on what you're watching, thinking, doing etc, so that it builds up the person who God has made you to be, rather than trying to change the old person. God does the work and we allow him. through doing those thigns and the classic spiritual disciplines, we are able to realise who's in charge and make space for Him to do it.

On another good note, today i had a call from Sweden saying that 3 people want to come over to do the Form course with us here at Church. So now we have enough numbers to run the course and life is going to change considerably! I am so excited!

We also harvested our first sweetcorn on Sunday. Man, they were SO good. We roasted them on our chiminea and ate them with garlic and chilli butter on. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!

well, after a week of doing daytime fasting, i sat and prayed with a lovely friend of mine and felt freed afterwards to stop fasting. It feels like i've let it go into God's hands now, which i guess is always one of His aims. I also commissioned an amazing prayer-warrior type lady in our community to pray for the issue and she apparently did some battling with curses over it (!) and felt that they had now gone. So i guess that we now wait and see. Thankfully i now feel really chilled about that!
Horray for good community!!!
I'll keep you posted!

I'm having an interesting time with God at the moment, trying to figure out why something is not happening. i don't know if it's because it's not something that God's hand is on, therefore not flourishing and i should let it go, or because it's a spiritual warfare thing and so i need to pray and fast more. I wonder how you know! I have a feeling it's the latter, so i am embarking upon a ramadan style fast, where you eat dinner eat night, for a while. I think God' suddenly got serious about it all and has upped the stakes.

We got back from our holiday on Monday and then lazed around on Tuesday. A nice way to break yourself back into being home i think! We had a great time away - Birmingham, London, Harrogate, Edinburgh, Stirling castle, Loch Lomond, Loch Ness, Glen Coe, Mull and Iona. i totally loved Scotland and have already started planning in my head the next time we can make it up to the beautiful lush green mountains. Today i came back to work, with a zillion emails and things to do. But i've got through the day well i think.
 
This morning on the way to work i was thinking about someone i knew and how they intimidated me slightly (this happens quite often!) whihc then means that i get a bit defensive and distant. Silly really. So i was thinking about it and felt a little nudge in my spirit, which i think was from God, saying that i needed to start seeking to find the good in all. Grace, who i work with is so good at this. I have far to come. But when i tried it with the person i was thinking of, it worked! Not scared or intimidated by them anymore and can start to have normal frienship with them. Cool hey!
 
We went to a Form conference for 3 days just before we went away, which was brilliant. I love being with bunches of people who are just totally in love with God, who listen to Him and really hear him and who are great at encouraging others. I so want to be more like that - a setter of the mood, rather than a mood-follower. Tom and i both came away really really excited about god's plans for Form in Bristol and His help in getting that underway.

Yippee! Finished Power Evangelism last night which was a good achievement. It's ages since i've actually finished a Christian book i've started. So now i move onto the next unfinished one - probably a CS Lewis or Eugene Peterson. Maybe i should just stick to easy-read novels! Anyhow, P.E. was great and telling Tom some of the Holy Ghost stories even put goosebumps up his arms. More of that God(goose bumps that is and stories of our own to tell)!

Last night we sat down in our little lounge and sang some songs to God together. It was a good thing to do and i think we will be doing more of it (eh Tom?!). Hopefully God will harden my fingers up a bit as they're killing me today!

We're off on holiday on Thursday evening. First to a conference near Birmingham about Form the new gap-year programme we are starting up as part of the form network across the UK, then to London for my lovely friend Claire's leaving party - she is emigrating with her husband out to Oz : ( then we are heading up to Scotland for a week's camping trip. Fun fun fun!! I'm not sure Tom is quite as excited as i about it all though. He's particularly not looking forward to midges, which there apparently are in abundance up there. Hmmm... Any ideas apart from long sleeved clothes permanently?

So, yesterday I picked up 'Power Evangelism' by John Wimber and Kevin Springer once again, in a last ditched attempt to try and finish it. (I am so bad at starting things and not finishing them - very short attention span and quick to be bored.) Anyway, it's suddenly got to the more interesting section which isn't all theory and I came across something that I found has made me very thoughtful and something which kind of hooks in a bit with what I’ve been pondering on recently to myself. It's quite long, but worth a read:

“Before taking a closer look at how personal signs (which he describes before as being restoring the sight to the blind, casting out demons and evil spirits, healing sick people, making the lame walk, cleansing lepers, restoring hearing to the deaf, taking up poisonous serpents, raising the dead, speaking in tongues, calming storms, feeding thousands, drinking deadly poison and not being affected by it) enhance evangelism, I want to point out the significant relationship between them and social signs like care of the poor and liberating the oppressed. Social justice is at the very heart of the gospel. Jesus stated his mission in Luke 4:18-19: 'to preach good news to the poor...to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour'. In he Old Testament, the 'year of the Lord's favour' was the Year of Jubilee, in which debts were to be cancelled, slaves freed, land redistributed (Lev 25). Jesus announced the impending establishment of an eternal Jubilee.
This was fulfilled in the kingdom that Jesus brought. It is a kingdom in which 'justice roll(s) on like a river, (and) righteousness like a never-failing stream’ (Amos 5:24), a kingdom that ‘upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry’ and ‘sets prisoners free’ (Ps 146:7).
Jesus saw the people he preached to and healed as ‘harassed and helpless’ victims of injustice who were powerless to help themselves (Matt 9:35-6). He linked his healing ministry with ministry to the poor, because he saw both as ‘bringing justice’. (Matt 11:5, 12:15-21). In the Sermon on the Mount he pronounced blessing on those who hungered and thirsted for justice (Matt 5:6). He also gave his disciples a clear mandate to act for social justice: ‘I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisee and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt 5:20). Obedience to God requires private righteousness and standing for righteousness in the world (Matt 25:31-46)
As we stand for social justice we testify to the presence of the kingdom, and our evangelistic efforts are empowered. Peter Wagner’s categories of ‘social signs’ (preaching the good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captive, liberating the oppressed, instituting the Year of Jubilee) and ‘personal signs’ do not stand in opposition to one another. In fact, as we go forth preaching the gospel and standing for social justice, the Holy Spirit breaks through in signs and wonders.” (pages 163-164)

I don't know about you, but i am longing for some empowered stuff to happen. Maybe i've been trying to work it out in the wrong place...

Been a while since i've written - busyness has taken over i think...

Last weekend Tom and i spent a lot of time thinking and hearing about money and how best to look after/be a trustee of what God has given us. It's resulted in a lot of changes in our finances and probably a good dose of confirmation of what i'd been thinking for a while. It's interesting what a non-topic it is for a lot of people though, one of those things you just don't really talk about. Maybe that's why we should talk about it all the more!

Otherwise, things have been pretty busy with sign language classes (animals, jobs, days, months and a bit of calendar time), the night van, running housegroup temporarily for a month, lovely americans coming to visit, helping friends dig gardens and the seeing other friends who were back for a short spell after both having moved abroad! Hopefully this week will be a bit quieter.

I have started reading through Isaiah. Interesting book - i think i need to read it all to get a better all round perspective on it. At the moment God's seeming pretty mean towards everyone with destruction, death and much misery everywhere!

If any of you fancy praying, my lovely 78 year old granny's a bit sick at the moment so shooting some thoughts upwards would be appreciated. Cheers!

On Saturday i had my 30th birthday party - a big BBQ with all my favourite people. What a treat! Turning 30 hasn't been the traumatic crisis-enducing event i thought it may be, which is a relief. I did psend most of last year getting my head round it and i also think being married to a man 4 and a bit years younger than me definitely helps!

There was also the city farm carnival/festival round my nieghbourhood over the weekend, which drew every single hippy person in the whole of bristol to it. It made me realise i'm such a wanna-be hippy person and not really at all the genuine article. But maybe that's ok. I can just create my own genre of hippyism i think : )

We just found the first flower on our lavender this morning. a good moment.

At the end of my road, in the hippy, new age section, there is a city farm. I had never been to one of these before moving to where i do now and i'm finding it such a wonder. each day i walk past the HUGE pig rolling about in mud, the goats trying to oust each other off the ramp that's in their pen, ducks eating grass, sheep baaing, other pigs snuffling round and the piglets eating out of their trough whist standing in it(very funny to hear their clicky little feet and toes on the metal).

Then, to get to work, i carry on past the farm to walk up through to alotments. It's been a joy to see the crops progress each day through the year, from simple dirt rectangles to heaps of potatoes, runner beans, strawberries, onions and even a flower garden grow up from nothing.

I love where i live.

I have just read this Turning Tap Water into Sea Water and am astounded that a country as rainy as ours can't get it right when it comes to water storage. I'm sure there must be an easier way than taking it out of the sea (Dubai are startiong to see the consequences of this where loads of their marine life is dying as a direct result)! Maybe one big drainpipe from scotland and wales should be built - there must be enough rainwater there to keep us going for years!!!

PS Sign language was brilliant last night. I cna now tell you how many aunts, uncles, sisters (the sign for which is my favourite. I looks like you're scratching your nose!), brothers, cousins, parents and grandparents i have. Fun fun fun.

what's new? not heaps - lots more exciting plants have arrived our garden courtesy of my mum and sister; the sunflowers are looking like sunflowers now and the roses have bloomed. it's so exciting being able to go out each day and see something new. tom and i stroll each morning and survey our land (even though it's not really ours) and get excited about it all.

we went to cambridge over the weekend in order to catch up with my family a bit. it was pretty cool to see them once i'd managed to de-speed. my head is so constantly full of a million things. i've tried to start spending 15 minutes every day or two in slince with God. our spare room is becoming my little space for hanging out with him, which i like lots. hopefully when people come and visit it will be like that for them too. i wonder if the Spirit dwells in places anymore? i guess he shouldn't do after the temple got destroyed (hence no more 'sacred ground' in reality, despite what people say). I guess he does what he likes though. It's weird how some places do seem to be way calmer and more peaceful though, sometimes God seems even more tanglible in them. what's that all about!

enough ramblings. i must away to go to our sign language class : )

yet another good realisation! now that i have no inspiration or desire of my own to muster up to do things, it mean sthat i can only rely on God for it! maybe it's all just a part of his big plan : )

Our garden looks great - poppies, roses about to come out, beans climbing poles, tomoatoes and strawberries growing happily, sunflowers on the way. I love it!! Someday soon my lifelong dream of becoming like the Goodlife people will be fulfilled! Just call me Babs...

Last night a lovely friend pointed out to me that if i scrolled down on my blog a little bit i would see one of the possible causes behind suddenly starting to feel this way - the 'dangerous' prayer one which asked God to make me hunger for him the way i do food when fasting if i wasn't walking close to him. Hmmm... I guess that sheds a bit of light, but it doesn't make it go away! Still needing to do someting about it, but thinking that maybe it's God prompting me makes it seem much nicer somehow : )

Today i am stuck by how much i have fallen into the trap of living out of my own strength. Talking to someone yesterday on the phone and realising how God is a part of everything they do, every bit of planning they do for what they lead at church, involved in all processes of their life, i was humbled into admitting to God that i was rubbish at praying and great at relying on myself. I guess that must be the biggest form of pride that there is. It's so easy to fool yourself i think and maybe it's time i stopped and really saw what my spiritual life is really like. Hopefully it'll scare me into being active!

Sorry Lord for not letting you be my Lord and for thinking i can do it myself and that in my human strength i can pull things together. thanks that you constantly display who you are and it's no more evident than when our earthly plans fail. Help me.

Today is a fasting day (see Bristol Vineyard's 50 days series) and i was thinking about how cool it would be if each time i wasn't waling along with God i would feel hunger pangs for him in the same way i do when i don't have food.

I think i will ask him if he can fix it. Maybe it's one of those 'dangerous to pray' prayers, but onwards and upwards...

Yesterday my goldfish called Keith died.

It was such a sad day. Even though he's just a goldfish i'd grown quite fond of him, as had Tom. He'd spent a few days at the surface of the water and then on sunday morning we found him at the bottom, not breathing heaps and covered in a weird black dots. So we dashed off to the pet shop and by the time we got home with something which could have remedied him, he'd died. I cried and we buried him at the bottom of the garden. He looked so tiny.

I was amazed all over again at the amazingly intricate way that things are made. How something so small could swim, breathe under water, eat, think (yes they do apparently!), interract with other fish. Such a big bunch of effort went into creating something that small that was going to have no significant impact on the earth aside from keeping us amused while he fought off our other goldfish to the food. god is good.

So, i have discovered a couple of new things about Tom over the weekend:
1. he really enjoys watching snooker (oh yes, i know all the number values of the different coloured balls now, and that Ronnie O'Sullivan won the wordl championship!)
2. that he doesn't mind handling worms - a real bonus in my case as i loath them. He purposefully dug some up in edingurgh from a whopper compost heap as you need special worms for composting - the red tiger worms. They prefer that environment apparently!

We had a great time in Edinburgh over the weekend having a Hope family reunion for Tom's granny's 90th. Then we drove home via the length of Hadrian's wall and Durham cathedral. In the cathedral we joined in with the afternoon evensong which happened to be a special Easter one where you process to different stations around the church with the choir and think and sing and listen and move and look at different bits of art and sculptures. It was a very refreshing time, although a little hard to get into at first. I think it took me a long while to calm things down inside my head, all the thoughts that generally whizz around there and then all the objections to the service as there were lots of people who seemed to be there on show. Finally it was a peaceful, cotemplative time though and i liked it very much. I think i need to spend more time doing things like that as it's definitely one of the ways i connect with god.

On Monday we watched Master and Commander with some lovely friends, which was fab. A good swash-buckling tale of the high seas.

Last weekend was pretty relaxing - saturday = gardening (as you can see from tom's blog), wandering in town and eating some nice food. sunday = BBQ with some friends in bath and a long sleep. I like days like that. Sadly there never seem to be enough of them!

This week i have been thinking about whether or not to write down some thoughts to a charity that i volunteer for following receiving their 3-year plan and their prayer guidelines. In essence they are meant to be based on a 'christian ethos' but i'm finding more and more that their idea of what a christian ethos is and mine differ somewhat. Although i'm sure what they do is valuable, i find myself time and again compromising what i believe to be the way jesus told us to live in the name of political correctness, not wanting to offend volunteers who aren't christians and having to stick to very strict guidelines because of obtaining funding from certain organisations. What to do...

I've reinstated an age-old habit of trying to spend some time outside with God each day, namely a bit before work and some at lunchtimes. I realised that going to the gym was eating up into the times i used to spend with God and that it was hard to find other times. I also love being outside in a nice big open space - check out Groms' blog for this on 24 april - and it's definitely one of the easiest ways i let stuff go and give it to God. it's a place of peace and freedom for me. It feels good to be prioritising and not letting things get the better of me. The better of me belongs to Him and I am the one who suffers (as well as those around me who get the brunt of my un-discipled self) when i don't let him have it!

I love our housegroup. Last night we spent most of the evening just discussing things and it felt so good, so unforced and really interesting. We found ourselves starting off talking about the series we're doing at church at the mo called ' How to fall in love with God' and whether or not you can be 'in love' with god or if it should be something deeper. I guess it stems a bit from the notion that when you are in love with someone it is usually a romantic love with someone of the opposite sex (for heterosexuals i guess) and for guys it's a bit weird. This then moved onto singing 'love songs' to God and how in the Vineyard we have quite a lot of these and whether it's a good or bad/ right or wrong thing. We talked about emotionalism and then about how worship leaders lead worship by carefully planning what order certain songs will go in. It was brought up that it can be so manipulative and felt wary of having their emotions brought out to order. Others talked about how stirring the emotions was a good thing as it helped open up places we don't normally let open up, hence enabling us to worship God more fully. Then it moved onto if we needed to have excellence in music in order to help people worship and how bad musicianship made people unable to concentrate but how the bible talks about worship coming from the heart and expressions of that should be happening whatever. Very interesting debates!!

I couldn't quite formulate my thoughts during the evening but in the car on the way home Tom told me what he thought i was thinking about and he was spot on. I love having a husband who can know me so well. I wish i could express myself the way that he seems able to express me! In the main i think my thoughts were somewhere along the lines of a little fear of emotionalism as worship isn't really all about how I feel, it's about what we're offering up to God and just as our relationships with God have ups and downs and in the down times we may not 'feel' anything for him at all, so it probably is when we worship. So even when we don't 'feel' anything during singing, what we should be offering is a heart-felt bit of praise and proclamation to God of who he is and what he's done.

I think there are many more thought on this but i have to get down to some work now. maybe later on....

PS tom if you read, this please feel free to reiterate what you said in teh car last night in a comment!!

yesterday i had the strange experience of one of Daniel Beddingfield's songs making me cry (I KNOW!!!). I had spent half a day at a Christian festival thing and came away feeling moderately frustrated at the amount of junk that was being sold in the 'market place' area. It was mainly in the form of books and some of you may know that i don't cope particularly well with Christian bookshops who try to 'advance the kindgom through retail'. Anyway, i was driving home and skim-listening to Daniel in the car (it's Andrew's CD he left in the people carrier : ) and it came to track 8 which is called honest questions where he seems to be addressing God and asking him if he knows what's going on in his life. God's reply is this:

I will pour the water down upon a thirsty barren land
And streams will flow
From the dust of your bruised and broken soul
And you will grow like the grass
Upon the furtile plains of Asia by the streams
Of living water you will grow

and i started to cry! (not helpful when driving through country lanes!) i felt so sad that some people try so hard to find God and a better God-life through books and studying when HE is the one who provides life (and that often selling books in this way is a means of making more people do that). I'm not dissing 'Christian' books as i have shelves stacked full of them. I think i feel sad that people can use them as a substitute means of trying to find God rather than coming to God directly and reading the bible to find him. I wonder if that's fair.

I was talking to Tom about this this morning (as you do - heavy discussion at 8.15am!) and about how i'm not so good at processing. i just get cross and then find no way of telling people without ranting and offending them. He told me wonderfully gently about processing and needing to do it in order to figure out if i DO think i'm onto something and then also to figure out why it is i feel this way and then how best to maybe explain what i mean. What i'm trying to say is that this is a thought in process and maybe if you read this and react, to remember that!

so a very quick blog at the end of the day before i head home. The last thing i wanted to coomment on about Dubai was the fact that there were no police cars anywhere, not one screeching siren etc. Amazing. When i questioned someone as to why, they infomred me that it was due to the severe penalties that face people who do commit crime. As many of those living in Dubai are on visas, the general habit of the authorities is to a. chop off hands of those caught doing it (although i'm not sure this really exists quite as much as it used to!!!!) and b. sentence them to a very long time in prison and throw away their visa. Pretty much a disaster for them but a great way to reduce crime!

Great relaxing easter weekend and good to hear that the Turrigianos, who are coming to work with us from New York starting this summer got their visas! Great : )

I'm sure there's lots more i was going t o write but it's hometime and i can't think straight. long busy day!!

I'm back now! What a great experience Dubai was. We got to go into the desert on our safari. Much amusement (and almost hurling) all round driving over the dunes in a 4x4. Ours was the first in the lead which meant we had the bumpiest ride as we had to break the tops of the dunes. At one point we drove up to the top of dune and ratehr hastily over the other side, only to hear swearing from our driver as we plumetted down a vertical drop, bonnet first, the other side. Spades were retrived and then tow ropes. We got out eventually and it definitely added a new dimension to things! Sleeping out in the desert was good too - waking up and finding lots of bizarre animal tracks everywhere and wondering what perils we had escaped from in the night.

I think i forgot to mention before about the driving in Dubai. If you've ever seen one of those Britain's worst/most dangerous drivers programmes where people drive the wrong way up motorway exits, swerve through the trafiic, run people over etc, well this is Dubai 24-7. What shocker! I'm surprised that there's anyone left alive in the nation!

Coming back was shock to the system - very cold! But good to be back in our own space.

Thoughts this week so far have included ones about how God is really starting to properly set me free from some stuff from years ago - relief!; how it's hard to not get cross with Tom's work when he has to work such stupidly long hours (i'm sure it's illegal) and what can i do about it; and how when you actually really put your mind to it, it is easy to fit in time for God.

I also read 'The Heavenly Man' book about brother Yun when i was on holiday. Some of the things that happened were so ludicrous and outrageous it could only have been God. It inspired me though to be more accepting of circumstances and made me think a lot about how we often pray for things to be finished when often we need to pray for God to finish them when he wants to and for us to learn what he wants us to in that time. How does this alter my perception of prayer i wonder and what does that mean for intercession? Somehow i think it does change something, but i need to figure that one out a bit more before i venture opinion on it!

So here we are in Dubai - land of vast amounts of sand and money. It's been such a great trip so far. i like going on trips where you actually don't have to be a real tourist and can spend time just chilling out and doing normal things too. We've explored a museum, some of the old 'souqs' - markets, where you get harrassed into buying everything and anything, and swum. I even made it to the gym yesterday!! This afternoon we are heading out into the desert for a proper tourist thing. We are going on an overnight guided 'safari' and sleeping out there. I'm so so excited!! Sadly it's quite windy today, which doesn't bode well for trying to keep sand out of my shoes!
A few notable things about Dubai - the difference between the head coverings (fdish dash) that the guys wear are due to their ethnic origins (egypt, UAE, Jordan etc); EVERYONE has expensive cars, mainly mercedes or 4x4 (which seem to replace people carriers out here); diamonds are very cheap, little kebabs are even cheaper and it's very very hot.
I have found it fascinating to spend some time in a country which has so many different values than ours (although sadly it's becoming more and more permeated with western things). I love the call to prayer which happens so many times each day (it's made me sit down and pray each time, just to keep up and outdo them!) and i love all the different traditional forms of clothing you see when you walk down the street (the population is mainly indian and pakistani, mixed in with a good bunch of Arabs); i love that there are vegetarian restaurants everywhere and they don't sell stupid stuffed peppers, but instead the most amazing indian vegetarian food i've ever eaten and i love that you can barter someone down to pretty much half the marked price for something and it's normal and the owners think they got a good del! (It has to be noted that Tom's mum is an expert at this. Even for htings she doesnt realy want she'll start bartering just for the fun of it. she can't help herself!)
Anyway, i have to go as i'm meant to be helping make palm crosses for palm sunday this sunday at the english speaking church here. (which, i must mention, is in a big square hidden away in town, where pretty much all the churches meet. There are around, get this, 140 different christian denominations which meet there. CRAZY!! And we think people should integrate more in the UK! One notable one was an indian run church which had the rather appealing notice outside of its church - "the wages of sin are death". Oddly it wasn' really a very big church! I think i'd like to see what a proper native Christian church is like. Going ot the very British c of e one was a bit of a head spin. Just like being in the UK but hotter. Odd odd odd... )

oops, a little slack in blogging again.

BUT tomorrow Tom (who has been working really really hard) and i are off to Dubai for a week! Yippee!

Tom's parents live and work out there and after many years of having done so they are about to retire to Portugal (in a lovely house in th emiddle fo orange tree orchards. The smell is amazing!). So we thought a trip out to see them before they leave was necessary, plus i've never been to the middle east before and wanted to go.

So sun here we come!

Last night we had fun at housegroup. It was my turn to lead the worship section - he he he!

I explained very briefly about my thoughts on worship (a la we/us songs and the need for community-reflecting songs to be sung when we are coming together as a community rather than i songs and also having correct theology in songs)

Then at the start we read out psalm 136 (give thatnks to the lord fo rhe is good; his love endures forever) in pairs to each other, with one half reading the give thanks bits and the other reading the his love endures bits. It was like we were speaking truth over each other as it was straight out of scripture, we were hearing God's word being read, which is always good but then also reading it - Godron Fee would approve!, and then we were giving glory to God all at once!

Then there was a talk bit (fantastic job done by angela)

And then at the end we then sung a kind of negro spiritual song, accapella, with harmonies and improvisations etc so that with everyone praising God themselves in little sections, when it came together as a whole, it made something more than the individuals had and something that i think was very beautiful to the Lord.

Very cool : )

Since i wrote that blogspot, (04:12:48pm) i have been kind of had some friendships which i'd forgotten about put in my face and now i need to stand down a bit from my previous statements. Although they are still mainly true, i think i probably need to acknowledge that 1. a year isn't a very long time 2. that effort is needed on both sides to make friendships work.

So easy to fall into despondant introspective me!

Thankfully my God always pulls me out. Hooray for Him!

I feel i want to blog, but can't really think of what to put down!

i've been thinking a bit about friendships recently and what makes someone an aquaintance, and then what makes an aquaintance a friend. I feel a bit strange here in bristol in this world of lots of people knowing who i am from my job, a few knowing me better and not so many really knowing me deeply. It's hard to know which acquaintances to try and pursue and grow into becoming friendships and then which friendships to grow too. I've been here for a year now and i still feel such a newbie and yet people say to me that i seem part of the woodwork. What to do.

That's not meant to sound all doom and gloom. just some thoughts...

I wonder if the friendship of the type Paul had with the Philippians exist in our society? We were learning about them in Bournemouth - how they were almost contractual, but a contract whereby the other party would do anything as a natural par for their life for the other - ie take in their kids if they died, give them money, support them in every way possible. I guess a bit like the OT covenants.

That would be kind of daunting but amazing i think.

Nothing very exciting has happened today, just a nice normal day. The good thing is though that i had a pretty productive day doing all those things i'd been putting off doing because they seemed to be too much of a mammoth task. When i got round to them they weren't actually too bad at all! I'm sure there's a talk somewhere in there...

Last night Tom and I went out for our weekly 'date night', which we have now restarted having had a bit of a break whilst getting married and settled into our house. Having thought we'd try this new Indian place called 'Oh Calcutta', it turned out to not look too great when we got there and so we went to a tried and tested place up the road. Sadly i fear it wasn't very good at all! Oh well. I am in desperate search of this indian dish that Tom had once which was like having curried coconut with some chicken in it - really sweet and mild. All the coconut ones i've tried recently have failed to stand up to the tests.

Someone bashed into our car the other day. Well, more scraped along the side of it, taking out the wing mirror, denting the back section a little bit and scraping down to the metal in some sections. This must the be the most unlucky car purchase i've ever made. next time i'm going to muster up HUGE amounts of faith and pray for all the money for a way better car. At the moment i'm mustering up faith for paying for repairs!

Ho Hum!

OH NO! I have fallen into that blogger wilderness - the one caused by not having blogged for a while and then realising there's too many things that have happened and you don't know where to start and so you don't bother!

But i'm going to try and fight against it.

So last week we went to Bournemouth for the annual gathering of leaders within the vineyard 'movement'. Aside from seeing lots of people i hadn't seen for a while (always a joy and a feeling of horror!) we had an incredible time lisstening to the wonderful Gordon Fee. He spent his time talking us through Philippians in a way i've never encountered before; really opening up the bible for us and showing us how to read it PROPERLY.

Then i had a fun weekend out with some girls on saturday while Tom was on a stag thing. We went along to Boudakan and had nice food AFTER A 1.25 HOUR WAIT! In the end my great friend ange politely complained to the manager and he clevely gave us the whole dinner free. not bad! So to make up for not having spent money on that i went along with some friends to Dynasty, the most amazing chinese place int he world with a bunch of people and scoffed lots.

Then yesterday we had a staff outing to see the Passion fo the Christ - Mr Gibson's film. I closed my eyes through 1/3 of it as it was too disgusting for words, then for 1/3 i was totally detached from it, not able to link it to being the Jesus of the bible at all so it became instead a horror movie, then the rest of it i was actually quite profoundly touched - mainly in the area of realising what actually happened. I'm trying to think how best to explain that. it didn't make me feel bad for it, like sometimes people try and say oh jesus did THIS for you, so repent. More it brought up a guiltless thankfulness and profound sadness at the same time. Doing what happened to jesus is a horrific thing to happen to anyone. How he could have endured all the flogging etc to have made it to the corss in the first palce is beyond me.

I found the making of the turin shroud quite a comical section along with jesus making the first table and chairs with high legs in the world. What was that about??!!

Last night i fell asleep at housegroup, woken up by tom putting his hand over my mouth during prayer time after i'd snored. oops. I think it was a combination of last week's conference (much too many late nights, pre-dinner and after dinner drinks), crazy weekend, tom being a bit ill an dgoing out ont eh One25 night van on Tuesday. We didn't get done until 12pm and so i didn't sleep until 12.45 and that with crazy dreams about the pitiful girls we met that night!

I think that sums everything up! here's to blogging more regularly : )

So this morning one of the daffodils in our garden has come out. imp so excited. maybe that means an end to yucky darkness and grey? I hope so.

I have been doing quite a lot of thinking recently (is that a good thing?!), mainly about sung worship and also about what the gospel is. The former was prompted after I sobbed my way through our Sunday worship time, feeling fully grieved about the lack of praise songs and the lack of communal 'we' songs. I find it really hard to sing songs that are so focussed on me and my needs when God has already done all of the work. I find that sometimes we're so introspective we forget that God has done so much and that we need to step into it rather than beg him to do more all the time (I'm not against intimacy with God on a one-to-one basis, so don't get me wrong. If you look through some words of some worship songs though you might get to see what i mean).

ANYWAY, keeping that in mind, Andrew was reading me something at work out of a book he's studying (I think he's put it on his weblog on the bristolvineyard website) about what the gospel is really about; that we don't get or preach the big enough picture. It really reminded me of what Todd Hunter spoke about at a conference last year. he talked about God's bigger story and that his plan is for redemption of the world (creation etc) and of his kingdom. So often our starting point is OUR fall and OUR need for forgiveness and restoration with God (ask people who know God what they think the gospel is and you might get some idea). This is all part of his plan, but we need to step back one step further to see the bigger picture.

With this in mind I started to think about my relationship with God and how this then fitted into his bigger picture. Instead of the whole of his purpose and plan being ME maybe it was therefore way bigger. I then felt like a bit of a tiny ant which could easily be trodden upon at any instant with not much consequence for the rest of humanity (except that maybe some people would be sad). But then reading through the bible and looking to see what Jesus was like and what he said, I know that God does love me and care about me. SO then I was overcome by rather a large wave of thankfulness and gratitude that such an almighty God could possible care for me and fit me into this HUGE plan that he has.

Which then brings me back to worship songs. With this humbled attitude in mind I figured that maybe I could sing some of these songs (although probably not the ones which I really don't see as being true to what the bible says or begging for God to do what he's already done). Quite a nice realisation! I wonder why I haven't got it all this time. I think instinctively my spirit knew it but my head didn't. I wonder if everybody else has already got it (which is why they don't mind singing songs like that) before me?!

On another note, I made it out to see the girls working round the corner from my house. It was a good time. Although I only chatted to one lovely woman for a short time ( a 'client' came along. Hmmm) I felt like I had made a difference and that she'd remember me for when I go back again. The thing is with stuff like this, once you start it's so hard to stop. When you KNOW that 1 minute walk from your house there are girls freezing themselves to death and selling themselves because they don't think they have any other way, there's no way you can ignore it. Or at least I hope there wouldn't be any way...

PS don't know if this makes much sense but i didn't intend to offend if it's made you think i did.

Last night I went out on the night van for the first time in a few months. The van, belonging to an organisation in Bristol that deals exclusively in this domain, drives round the streets and gives out food and condoms to the working girls. It also has advice on housing, drugs, etc. I do have quite a few issues with the whole thing which I won't go into now, but wanted to say that last night was a good night.

We went out in the car rather than van as there weren't enough of us for the van (you need 3). Going out in the car is better sometimes. It feels less 'official' and I feel that you get to chat to the girls on a more casual basis rather than formal one. This means I don't feel like I’m in a 'righteous and morally good place' compared to them like I do sometimes in the van where they have to exit their world, which is 'seedy and unpleasant', to get in the van and come into our world, which is 'clean and how life should be’.

I met a girl last night who had come out for the first time. A friend of hers, who normally works the streets, had brought her out. She was nervous and wasn’t sure if she was going to do anything. It broke my heart meeting her, yet I also felt a strange glimmer of hope for her. It felt like it wasn’t too late for her yet. I don’t know what happened after we left, but I prayed. That has to be the first step, and the only other thing I could have done at the time.

Now that I met the girls last night and know their names, I think I may go and see them again today – it’s a good opening for me. They only work 1 minute from my home front doorstep and i have postponed for long enough!

Over the weekend Tom and I went to a leaders thing at a place called Glenfall house. Bill was doing some teaching on vision there which was awesome. So many times i've heard the old Nehemiah teaching about having to have a vision and that you have to repeat it heaps, but no-one has ever told me how you take the random passioante feelings you have inside but find hard to articulate into something which is pictured in your mind and written down in words. How cool is that! God gave Tom and i some stuff which we're now mulling over - but he gave us both seperately pretty much the same thing. It was so obviously meant to be!

I did my talk on Sunday and i think it went ok. I like talking like that. It feels good - maybe that's part of my gifting? Lots of people said they got some good stuff out of it and everybody was praying in groups at the end and God-stuff seemed to be happening which was good. God is very gracious to me!

We saw a pigeon and a blackbird on the birdtable too. That was really exciting. I think they must all come in the daytime when we're out at work as he seeds and bread keep disappearing!

So, last night i went Salsa dancing with some other wives/girlfriends who had been widowed by Tom's firm's busyness. It was very good fun and i totally intend to do some more. For someone who doesn't generally have the greatest sense of rhythm i did pretty well! My butt muscles are pretty achey today. So girls, if you're looking for a way to tone the cheeks, salsa is the way forward i reckon!

This weekend we are off to Glenfall House with a bunch of other people from BV. Hopefully it will provide a bit of space and repose for us. It's been a pretty tiring week and i haven't really seen Tom much. I guess it's good to make us make the most of the few minutes we do get together each day. It certainly increases the dseire to see him and, if it's at all possible, the happiness i do have when i do see him!! How great is that - i love being married.

Today i was talking with God about our relationship (mine and his) and about how it's changing since being married. It's strange to think he ordaned marriage with the full knowledge that it would change relationships with him. I suppose in a way therefore it means that a changed relationship can't be a bad one, just a different one. I'm still finding it quite tricky sometimes though, but i don't think i would change it for the world. It's funny to feel something changing but knowing that the outcome will still be good. I think that that's the one thing they didn't tell us an dprepare us for on the marriage course we did before we got married, yet having talked to qute a few married people they all seem to have experienced it. I think i'll try and make sure i warn people too - then it won't come as such a shock.

Life is busy and i haven't had time to blog. I don't like that. Ho Hum.
BUT two good things happened yesterday:
1. a bird landed on Tom's birdtable for the first time - a thrush apparently. It was a very moving moment and we danced around the kitchen excitedly
2. On the way to work i walked up the big hill beside the queues of traffic and above all the engine noises i could still hear the bird singing in the allotments beside the road. It reminded me that God's voice and His creation, witnessing to Him can always be heard above anything man has created to drown it out.
It was quite a profound and praise-inspiring moment.

So, the car has got a leaking front shock absorber. Not great. I am currently under negotiations with the garage as to whether or not they are going to fix it for free or not. most frustrating.

On a different note, i have recently been relidtening to some John Wimber tapes again. His testimony one is fantastic. Even though i'd heard it all before at least 4 times, it seemed brand fresh new and stirred up something in my spirit that hasn't been very active for qute a while. I've also, along with a bunch of other people in the church, started to read Power Evangelism, also by Wimber. It's so good to feel challenged and inspired about the Kingdom. It's only when you realise what you're missing that you start to realise how numb you've gotten to it all.

It's getting harder and harder to get up in the mornings now that i've started working full time. It's such a stretch working those few extra days!!

A quick little lunctime blog.
Managed to get my outline done for my talk, which is good. Once i've done that normally it's a piece of cake as all i have to do is fill in the gaps. Groms started to cover some of it on Sunday and i was sitting in my seat panicking that he was going to ruin it all. Thankfully it can serve as a sort of intro to what i'm going to say.

Today we have had to put our car into the garage. I hate cars and buying new ones. They always seem to be more hassle than they're worth. We only got it a month ago and already it's got something wrong with it. GGGRrrrrrrrr... Oh well.

Tom built a bird table over the weekend. It turned out very well i think and now we wait in anticipation for the first birds to come along. It's fun doing stuff like that : ) It's quite funny how easy it is to fall into the stereotyped roles of man with wood and saw and woman in kitchen cooking. It just so turns out though that we both like doing those respective things. I wonder if that's just the way things go or if it really is a bit inbuilt for the man to take care and build and the woman to look after her man and cook for him.

Before Tom and I got married, and during the wedding service, a few people had very specific words from god for us about our marriage being used to bring our families to Him and bring healing. I realised the other day that this has so obviously started! Having my parents together last weekend was a momentously huge occasion - it could only have been brought about by His sneaky work, i reckon, in light of how they all felt about each other before our wedding!

This week has been quite hard. Tom's been having to work late most nights (he didn't manage to leave until 9.30pm yesterday) because of a big deal that's going through in his department at the moment. It creates a challenge i guess of how we can creatively have close quality time together when we don't see each other so much and when we do we're both knackered.

It is giving me a bit more time alone though, which is nice in some ways, especially as I'm trying to write a talk for our church meeting in a few weeks time. It's such a long time since i had to do anything like it. It's proving quite tricky. I guess though, as it always is for me, that when I stop trying, then God can do his stuff. It frustrates me that i almost always have to go through a period of struggle, trying to get stuff done, or thought about, or even in terms of trying to sit down with God for a while, then when i let go and let God in, stop trying and relax and see him instead of my feet as i run around focissed on not tripping up, that it all suddenly gets way easier and i meet Him ! I must try and get out of THIS learning circle. Very annoying!

Juat a quick little post as i'm tired and need to go to sleep.

I'm currently in Cambridge seeing my relatives with Tom as we didn't come over for Christmas. It'sd good to see them all. It makes me realise how nice it is to have family you get one with - no dodgy aunts in my family!

Today was also quite a momentous day as it was the first time that all my family (aside from my grandma and uncle who couldn't be here) were voluntarily in the same room (outside of our wedding) together. My parents split about 5 years ago and so for mum to invite him and his wife round was a bit of a huge step. maybe huger for me that mum even. She was ready to move on and so invited them. I needed some time, crying and a gentle push from God to do the same. Hard, but it was actually ok. Thanks to all who prayed : )

Night night

Oh my goodness! It's so long since i posted anything and so much has changed!

I made it through the relative trauma and then the absolute total joy of getting married, of going on honeymoon to the Maldives (not at all traumatic aside from the 2 hour speed boat ride to the island, which sounds ok until you have to do it and after a very long flight too!) and to cornwall. Then setting up home, where Tom and I found the one thing which consistantly makes us snappy and argue - moving furniture around! Strange hey?! Each time we popped to Ikea and came back with a sofa or the like, the traumas involved in getting it in the house almost made it not worthwhile!

BUT now we have almost sorted the house out (the spare room has some boxes still in it) and being married is the best thing ever.

It's also quite hard sometimes, as i think Tom has echoed in his blog, as it does involve adjustment - from having time to have solitude, to wanting it but also wanting very much to be with your spouse; from having time to spend with God when you want to, to not so much; to having to share EVERYTHING about yourself because you're now at the most exposed you'll ever be. Interesting time.

Good time though as it's teaching me so much more about God and his thoughts and feelings about me. That he can still love me when i don't spend so much time with him; that he can still change me and my family when i haven't spent hours asking him to do so. All the things that i have spent so much of my Christian life struggling with have now come to the fore again as things which annoy and frustrate me, but which God, in his mercy and grace and love is using to grow me and change me. How good is our God!