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Showing posts from December, 2017

Our 2017 (a year-end letter)

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Dear friends, it's been an eventful year. Goodbye, boat life! Somehow it's only been 6 years since Mr and I even met, and since then there's never been a dull year. Long may this continue! We started 2017 with a move - no, two moves. We had sold our boat and needed to be out by 6th January, but hadn't exchanged on the house by then. As a solution it just so happened that a colleague of Mr had a basement flat we could move into for three weeks! Amazing provision, a great place, although moving twice in one month isn't something I'd recommend with two under 3's. At the end of January, though, our new house was ours and we moved. On moving day we were joined by what seemed like the entire body of  Lawrence Weston Community Church , everyone showing up to help: so the challenge became less one of physical hard work for us and more one of coordination of the many willing helpers! Midway through the morning, an elderly lady from the church showed up at

"So what difference does being a Christian make in your life?"

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I was driving today and had the radio on, listening to an interview where this question was asked. The interviewee was a bit at a loss to explain - and I totally understood why, such an all-encompassing and foundational change as becoming a Christian... how would I explain, concisely and simply, the difference it's made for me? Any answer I came up with seemed trite, worn, cliched. What difference? I could talk about how I'm simply not the same person I was... but how can anyone really appreciate how radical a change it is to go from dead inside without even knowing it, to alive? Or how much knowing and leaning on Jesus has helped me in the bad times? Oh no, I'd never bring this as an argument because I went through much worse before I was a Christian than anything life has thrown at me after... and I survived, even without knowing him. I think the best way for me to explain the difference inside is to say:  I care now . I never used to care about others . Not s

Building a life

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We're a family.  Have been for a few years now. We're building a shared life: first as a couple... then came a home of our own... a dog... a baby... and another baby on the way now. Family: the settled everyday adventure Until I met Mr. and we started building this life together, my highest goal in life was freedom. Flexibility. I loved being able to say I could pack two bags and be off tomorrow, into the sunset - and for years, I could have done that and sometimes I did. Aged 22, I packed my bags and went, one week after telling my family I was going to move to New York. After a while there, I packed my bags again and moved to Virginia. I would have stayed but it wasn't possible, so I packed again - six weeks before having to leave the country when my visa expired I had no idea at all where I was going to go, then I met a lovely couple from the UK and they said, hey, why don't you move over there. So I did that. With the exception of leaving Austria, I never