Another ‘about to move house’ post, sorry!

The moving process is harder then I expected it to be.
I think I’ve coped rather well so far. I got through our Circuit goodbye service without crying, my last day at work without crying, said goodbye to my best friend, and sat through our last service at our home church all without shedding a tear. But it’s the physical process of moving that is currently driving me rather scatty. I’ve cleaned, and sorted, donated to the charity shop and the tip, tidied and labelled.

It’s tricky because this is my first glimpse at the lack of control we’re going to have over our future and living our lives for the Church.

The packers.

We’re paying a removal company to do our packing for us. I thought it would be a good idea. But… I’m a control freak, and I cannot control what goes in which box, how those boxes will be labelled, what will be mixed...

Home.

Here it is, our final 7 days in this place that we have nestled in for the past 10 years. I have both hated living here, and loved it. The walls have heard my screams of anger, and soaked up my tears of joy. The wind has whistled down the chimney and wrapped its thundering around me. The sun has shone through the dusty panes and filled me with the warmth of its comfort.

Now I face leaving, I realise I am happy here. As a family, a huge, scary adventure awaits us. It’s exciting yet daunting, and a part of me wants to remain here, where it is safe, where I know my neighbours, where I can chat in the street, where I can turn my key in the lock and know I am home.

Home for me, however, is more than bricks, wallpaper and paint. Although, God help me, it’s had it’s fair share of re-painting and papering as we prepared the house to go onto ‘the market’. Rather, home is about the...

I had the privilege of listening to my hubby preach last Sunday. We were at a local URC Church in Rochester, and we have visited there every quarter for the past five years. The people there are gentle, loving, supportive, and have become part of our extended church family.

It was to be our last visit there before we move, and we, or rather Ray, had prepared a service where we could say goodbye. When hubby got up to preach, he read from Ecclesiastes 3:

Linking this reading to Genesis 1 and 1 Thessalonians, he talked about cycles of life, and how we had come to a place and a time where we needed to mourn and say goodbye, and start afresh in a new place.

As he was talking through what he had prepared, I found myself thinking about a Y6 SATs paper I had once helped a child with in 2002, called ‘Spark of Life’.

I thought about the devastation of the recent forest fires a cousin...

This weekend a lovely scrap booking friend introduced me to her scrapgals group on Facebook just in time for (inter) national scrapbooking day 2017. The group were running 8 challenges throughout the day. I’ve never scrap booked, and really did have no idea where to start. However, the first challenge issued fell within a sort if familiar comfort zone - to use watercolours. That was the only ‘rule’ to the challenge. And straight away I knew what to do.

I grabbed some a5 cartridge paper, which I strip painted and to each strip of colour added water droplets, flicks of paint, cling film or salt. Leaving this to dry, I turned to Matthew 14, which tells the story of Peter, who tried to walk across water to reach Jesus, but his faith waivered and he began to sink. Jesus lifts him to safety, and asks, ‘Why did you doubt me?’

Before turning to this passage of scripture, I had a song...

On the 1st May, hubby and I went to the Medway annual Sweeps’ Festival…. we’ve lived in Kent for so long, I’ve taught in Medway schools for 8 years, but we’ve never been. And seeing as we are moving 450 miles away to live in Yorkshire this summer, we thought we really ought to seize the opportunity to attend while we could.

It was a wonderful day, full of Morris dancing and local bands, but I found myself tinged with a little sadness when thinking about the reality of Life as a chimney sweep.

Children as young as 4 years old were bought from workhouses to be apprenticed to a Master Sweep. They were forced to climb hot flues which were 23 x 23cm wide. The raw skin on their elbows and knees were toughened with strong brine, which was scrubbed into their damaged flesh in an effort to harden it.

The boys and girls slept on the floor under the carcinogenic soot sacks and often...

I love rain. I love the sound, the smell it brings, the refreshing, it’s cleansing, it’s power. It started 43 years ago, when as a babe in arms I was rocked in open doorways and open windows in the desperate hope I may sleep for longer than 20 mins at a stretch.

I have continued to never sleep well. I have vivid memories of being around 7 years old, laying on the top bunk at about 4am staring for hours out of the window watching the rain fall. In fact, if I was home and it rained, I would dash upstairs to do just this, or throw open the front door and sit in the porch to watch the rain.

One of the first things I did when I met my husband was take him on a rain walk…. summer torrential rain, saw us out in t-shirts, shirts and flip flops walking, running, playing, getting deliberately drenched, making the tentative first steps into shared memories.

Safe to say, it’s a gentle...

Georgia’s 2nd image.

Today I was thinking about the name of my blog: it is based on a Bible verse in Proverbs 31, which says, ‘She is more valuable than rubies’. Further on in this chapter it says that ‘she is clothed with dignity and strength and she laughs without fear of the future. When she speaks her words are wise and she gives instructions with kindness’. It seemed perfect for this drawing of Cinderella by Georgia.

The verse strikes me for a few reasons.

The first is Georgia herself. I find the verse is so suitable for her, prophetic about her future, for the strength that she shows every day.

Secondly, the phrase ‘gives instructions with kindness ’ made me chuckle with soft irony. I’m a school teacher. I find I give instruction 90% of my working day. But, actually, are they always given with kindness, or sometimes frustration and exasperation? Should I find a pathway...

My husband and I first ‘stepped out’ in February 2004. We met for the first time at a church service - I was playing the piano with the worship group, and at the end of the service noticed a newcomer, a stranger, a giant of a man-mountain.

A few short steps later, we were engaged and married in the October of that year. I know a lot of people thought we were ‘crazy’ - that it was too soon, that we didn’t know each other well enough, that it would all end in tears. And, that first year of marriage was tough; but we knew, we knew God was in the relationship, we knew that if we stepped out in faith and stepped forward together in faith, that we would always be on the right path. Together.

We stepped out of our boundaries again six years ago, when we were asked by Social Services to foster our four nephews and nieces, aged 6-17. Becoming an immediate parent under such emotionally...