An Adventure in Ministry

  A couple of weeks ago I had surgery and while it wasn't too serious, it was a bigger op than expected and recovery has been quite rough! I am someone who is always on the go and this last year has been pretty hectic for me, so to go from of all the responsibilities of work, study, being the primary carer for my daughter, keeping the house going and loads of other stuff, to absolutely nothing was a real shock to the system in many ways.  My recovery means doing very little and that is not something that comes easy to me! I found that soon after my operation, fear, worry and anxiety quite easily set in. One particular day a week into recovery, after a bad night’s sleep, I experienced anxiety wash over me in waves and I began to worry about everything. About all the study I needed to do, all the jobs in the garden I couldn’t do, the work emails piling up and the people behind them and whether people understood how truly awful I was feeling.  I tried to counter all this by ...

The other week I received the letter that I had been dreading would come. The letter that said ‘Your daughter needs to be shielded from Covid-19 for a minimum of 12 weeks’ and with that everything changed. Well to be honest it wasn’t as dramatic as that. We had already been isolating for five weeks already and in many ways life would continue much the same as in previous weeks, but as is often the case, along with the letter, the enemy seemed to enter my mind with words of fear, anxiety and worry. Looking to the news for guidance and reassurance did very little to help so I looked to the place that overflows with reassurance and words of comfort, I looked to scripture and I wasn’t disappointed. Psalm 28:7 says: ‘The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with songs I praise him!’ What a promise! The scripture makes it clear that God will shield us, in every situation and even as we shield those...

One of the most interesting lessons I have learnt in my 5+ years of infertility was about lament. Up until I experienced the sorrow of infertility, lament had been something I had not really paid much attention to. I thought that David in the psalms was a bit of a moaner and I had never really opened the book of Lamentations. But when I discovered lament, I found a whole new way to worship God and exercise my faith. So what is lament? In simplicity it is a prayer to God for help and it comes out of a place of intense pain and suffering.  In my opinion it seems to be a forgotten form of worship, with Christians often believing that by acknowledging pain and hurt they are somehow being a bad Christian. However lament has a string biblical presence. Over 1/3 of the psalms are psalm of lament, many of the prophets lamented, (especially Jeremiah) and Job lamented over his situation. There is even a book of lament aptly named Lamentations. Interestingly Jesus too had moments of ...

Soon Paul (my hubby), Lucie (my youngest stepdaughter) and I are going on holiday. Now, I’m one of those strange people who love planning a trip away almost as much as going on the holiday itself! I know, I’m a control freak!! I have loved finding the place to stay (complete with hot tub!), organising day trips, cleaning the house ready to go, packing for myself, the dogs and Paul, etc etc etc! But So quickly the joy of planning and preparing can become the ties of worry and the bonds of anxiety. The fun I have had planning have given way to worries about worming the dogs (really!?!?!) panic about when and how we will pick up Lucie and anxiety about making the house tidy for mum and dad house sitting (even though I know my mum doesn’t care and will tidy up for me anyway!) and so many other little things that have brought me down and exhausted me. Whilst pondering this, my mind turned to the road I am walking through infertility and once again I realised God’s goodnes...