I’m working on a book at the moment about how the Bible is relevant and uplifting in my day-to-day modern life. It’s a bit like a journal showing how different Bible verses have impacted me. I shared an extract a while ago, here. Last week I was at home a lot and added several chapters…
Category: Reflections
All you need is Love…
Happy Valentine’s Day! I don’t hold much value in the consumerist version of Valentine’s Day, but I do love an opportunity to celebrate, whatever the reason. At its best, Valentine’s Day can be a time to celebrate love in all its guises, the gift of family and friends and the uniqueness of each person. At its worst,…
For the Love of Words
For me, there’s something about putting life into words. I love the process of translating the nuances of emotion and experience into language, allowing it all to cover a page or a screen. Writing helps me to live my life with a sense of engagement. We’re all finding ways to tell our stories and make sense of them,…
A Prayer for 2016
One of the things I love about the Psalms in the Bible is the way they help me find the words for my own prayers. The rest of the Bible does, too, but especially the Psalms. They are deep, very human expressions of all kinds of emotions, questions, desires, troubles and joys. In them, the…
2015: Best Posts
Happy New Year! I hope you are enjoying the last day of 2015 🙂 Looking back over the posts from the year is perhaps a little introspective, but it gives me a good insight into what’s been popular or has struck a chord with all you lovely readers. Here are ten of the most popular posts…
New Year: JOY
I feel increasingly that 2016 will be my year to focus on JOY. Joy? Joy? Really? Yep, joy. Where is the place for joy in today’s messed up world? As Ann Voskamp writes so eloquently (here), ‘how in the world does a weary world rejoice?’ How, indeed. You know, plenty of people are finding an answer…
2015: Hope
It doesn’t feel like a year ago that I was writing this post, summing up 2014, but here I am, at the close of another year. I started 2015 with a strong focus on hope, as I wrote here, and this very much stayed with me throughout the year. I have learnt that hope is…
Advent Peace
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about peace. These do not seem to be peaceful times. We have one of the biggest global refugee crises in history, and no one can agree on what to do about it. We have violent attacks being conducted on civilians, and it seems that one of the few solutions…
Life Lately
I thought it was time for another ‘Life Lately’ post. Right now, I’m sitting in my living room with a fire lit, Jamie the dog curled up on my lap, a pile of books, a cup of tea and my favourite playlist. I put new batteries in the fairy lights in my lantern, so they…
Ode to Autumn
Every summer I say ‘Summer is my favourite season’ and every Autumn I change my mind. I love the colours and textures of Autumn, the crisp, cold walks and fire-warmed rooms, the breezy winds that makes you feel like something exciting is about to happen, the feel of leaves underfoot, all of that. As a…
Family
I just read this article, The Families We Choose, over at the Kinfolk website. I love its opening sentence: ‘There’s no such thing as a perfect family. Regardless of what kind of family you were born into, you can keep adding characters to your clan, whether or not you’re related.’ The essay is a relatable read,…
Life Lately
There’s a lot to write about lately. The plight of the refugees trying to get to Europe has, for many of us, been an unavoidable presence in our minds. I find it sad that we’ve all only just caught on to the severity and tragedy of the whole situation. It seems that it took a…
Life Lived 