An Adventure in Ministry

  Very soon, people in the UK will be celebrating Mother’s day. This day is difficult for many people, for many reasons. There are those who no longer have their mums, mums who no longer have their children, women longing to be mums, those whose mum’s weren’t always what they should have been, to name just a few.  For me Mother’s day has been a challenge for many years. I am step-mum to three beautiful women and I first really realised how tricky it can be when I overheard two of them having an argument in church one Mother’s day about whether they should give me a gift if it would upset their mum. This difficulty around mothers day grew more complicated as year after year I didnt hear the patter of feet and that little voice called me mum. When my mother in love (my mother in law!) was promoted to glory there was an extra layer of grief. Now as an adoptive mum, the joy of motherhood on mother’s day is tinged with grief as there is a mum out there grieving the loss of her daug...

  Re cently I was watching my beautiful daughter playing and reflecting on our journey to becoming a family. At age three my beautiful little girl is still not quite walking yet and has few words beyond Mumma, Dadda, Good girl, the wiggles and cake – obviously the most important words! You see our perfect daughter has Down Syndrome, which means that she takes a little longer to do the things that come so easy to others. I smiled as she managed pulled a photo of her nana out of her photo bag, signed her name and clapped herself in congratulations and pondered on the truth that although this wasn’t what I had planned when I began my journey to become a mum, it was full of the golden threads of his grace.   As many of you know my journey to motherhood wasn’t an easy one, in fact I became the step-mother to teenagers before we even tried to extend our own family! We journeyed through years of trying to extend our family but never getting anywhere. Eventually in 2018 we decided t...

A little while ago I wrote a very personal blog about my experience with infertility and some of the issues surrounding it (If you haven't read it, take a look here: Motherhood challenge ) I was absolutely blown away by the response to it. I received emails, texts and letters from people all over the world offering encouragement, sharing stories and asking advice. It was a very vulnerable place to be in, knowing everyone knew very personal details of my life and marriage, and it was definitely one of those 'shelter in the wings of God' moments, as, at times, it was very uncomfortable. However it highlighted to me that it was a topic often not spoken about, and over the past couple of days I have felt God calling me to share once again a few thoughts on this topic......So here it goes!  You are not abnormal! This is my biggest struggle as a christian woman tackling the minefield that is infertility.  So many times I am led to feel that I am half a woman, les...

recently there has been a thing called the motherhood challenge going around on facebook, where you post up a number of pictures that you love of you as a mum and then tag a number of people who you think of as good mothers.  It all sounds very nice doesn't it?!? But for me it has proved a bit of a challenge...will if I'm honest each post has left me feeling lots of conflicting emotions; happiness - at seeing so many beautiful children sadness - that I am not a mother jealousy - what do they have that I do not?!? anger - why has God blessed these women and not me? insecurity - does God not think I'm good enough?  guilt - why can I just not be happy for them and scroll on?!? You see two years ago.  my husband Paul and I decided we wanted to try for a baby.  Paul already has three daughters from a previous marriage, they are all teens and absolutely beautiful inside and out. I love them very dearly and thank God for them every day, but I wa...