Healing in the light

I’m waking up with a profound sense that something has changed. These last few weeks one phrase has been on repeat in my heart and last night it found its fulfilment in my world.

“Healing can only happen in the light”

10 things I didn’t know a year ago

I can hardly believe it’s been almost a year since my last post! In all the process of pregnancy and settling into life with our little girl, blogging has just not happened. So I’m super glad to finally be finding a new normal and finding some space to blog!

I’m also super grateful for the start of 2015 and am looking forward to spending January looking back and forward (and hopefully not getting whiplash in the process).

It seems to me that becoming a parent is basically like taking a crash course in pretty much everything, so I wanted to stop and try and capture ten things I didn’t know a year ago….

40 Acts : A Lent Journey

Yesterday was not a good day; physically painful. It was the kind of pain that can only be induced by a growing baby slowing pushing your ribs up and out. But it was also ugly, the kind of ugly that can only come from pain-induced frustration and fog of a mamma wishing it would stop and that everything would be back to raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.

On throwing away… and reclaiming

After too many years wasting hours each morning throwing items from my wardrobe and dresser in a desperate attempt to clothe myself, I decided something drastic needed to change. Thank God, I discovered Hayley Morgan’s (The Tiny Twig) book, The No Brainer Wardrobe (super affordable and comes in handy e-Book format so you can read it on your phone!), just in time to avoid having a mini-meltdown and throwing EVERYTHING out of the third-floor window (classy!)

In the journey of trying to dress with less fuss, it became clear that I needed the help of one special friend who could help me decide what needed keeping, and what never really suited me in the first place. Through the process of ‘This one? How about this one? Pleeeeeease not this one?’ we ended up with a wardrobe of things I actually like and want to wear. Why oh WHY did I not think of this sooner??

Fast forward to Sunday, and a cracking message from our pastor on Isaiah and Ahab (1 Kings 21:17-29)…

“The humble person is quick to own what they need to own”

Enough is enough

Alright, I give up. For weeks now I have written in my journal, on my phone and on many, many scraps of paper; yes I have scribbled, typed, even drafted. I have done everything and, in all honesty, anything but actually click ‘publish’.

That is, until now. And this is why…

I remember it clearly, one of those crystal clear memories where you can almost feel the warmth of the sun on your skin.

I was stood in the kitchen looking out of the window at the sparrows that loved our Lancashire garden, one hand holding an overheating phone to my ear with my grandmother on the line, as I told her of our imminent move abroad (I think at that stage it was looking like it was going to be to Sweden)…

‘Oh, how exciting!’ she said.

‘Yes, it is.’ I reply. ‘But… it’s a little scary.’

‘My dear, when have you ever let being afraid stop you from doing something?’

Lessons learning

I reckon everyone needs at least one person in their life who asks the kind of questions that stop you dead in your tracks.

Those are the questions that might only come once in a blue moon but they radically change your perspective. Those are the people to hold onto, tightly.

We were stood by a railroad crossing and in no particular rush to get wherever it was we were going; as we were deep, DEEP in conversation (as we often were!). I reckon I must have been sharing something particularly deep and meaningful that was challenging and inspiring me at the time. Then, as the bell rang and the barrier dropped, it came:

‘How are you actually going to make that real in your life?’

In fact, the people who have impacted me most in my life, are those who gave questions, not answers.

This one came from the heart of someone who is perhaps the most authentic woman I know (she writes a blog too and I heartily recommend it to you), one determined not to just speak about change, but to really effect it in her own life and so impact those around her.

It was a very good question. And it came five years ago, but I have come back to it so many times. When I get excited about a new insight on a situation or a new perspective on something important in my life, that voice still grounds me. ‘What are you actually going to do about it?’

I’ve realised that so few of the important lessons in my life I can ever really tick off as ‘learnt’, but I love the journey of discovering new levels of meaning.

I pray that I will never stop learning, even if it means re-learning. And I pray that as I share with you those things that have touched or inspired me (both silly and serious), that they might speak to you too.

Have you ever been asked a question that stopped you in your tracks? Did you ever figure out the answer?