An Adventure in Ministry

This week is baby loss awareness week. It is an opportunity for people to remember those babies that didn’t make it through pregnancy or died in the early days of life. It is also a time to bring awareness to the fact that baby loss is unfortunately common, and that the grief and loss that parents feel is real, valid and something to be spoken about. As someone who has walked through infertility for 11 years, while baby loss isn’t part of my story, as a redemptive thread God has woven as part of my story of grace, I have sat with many women who have lost a precious child. I have wept with them, longed with them, prayed with them and lamented with them. It has been easy to see what a horrendous thing baby loss is and how the grief can be very isolating.  Last night I had the great privilege of speaking at our local annual service of remembrance for parents who have experienced baby loss both recently and in the past, organised by Macclesfield maternity unit and hosted at the beautif...

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 ...

Mother’s Day is approaching. For some people it is a time full of joy and celebration, for others, however, it can be a horrendous time full of sorrow and pain. I fall into the second category. For the past few years, as we have been ttc it has got harder and harder.  For a while, as a single woman Mother’s Day was tough as it reminded me of a future I wasn’t sure that I would have. Then when I met Paul I suddenly became step-mother to three teenage girls and it brought a whole new dimension. Mother’s Day at church was filled with conflicted loyalty for the girls and a reminder that I wasn’t a real mum! I remember one year, one of the girls going to get me the obligatory ‘Mother’s Day gift’ whilst another having stern words with her that I shouldn’t receive a gift as I wasn’t really her mum and that their mum was at home expecting a gift. The whole while I felt terribly guilty that I had put everyone in such a position, happy that I was seen in some way as a mum and sad th...

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog. So much has happened in the past few months and if I’m honest it has been really really tough! As many of you know at the end of August I fell and broke my ankle pretty badly and after a lengthy operation, progress has been slow, painful, and both emotionally and physically draining. Although I have returned to work, I am regularly finding I can only do a fraction of what I was able to do before.  However God is good and I have learnt so much about God, myself and my ministry through it all. God has also been revealing to me where he leading me, and although it’s pretty scary it’s super exciting too.  Over the past few days I have been considering the year ahead. In a lot of ways I will be glad to shut the door on 2017 and look to new possibilities. Don’t get me wrong I have had some truly wonderful moments in the past year. God has taken me deeper in my ministry, especially with women journeying through infertili...