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18 months

Do you ever look back over certain time periods in life and wonder how much you have changed? Sometimes nothing seems to change even over long periods. Other times everything seems to change in the blink of an eye. 

I’ve found myself looking back over the 18 months that it is since I last posted here on my blog. I say posted because I’ve sat and I’ve started to write many times but i’ve always been pulled away or got confused or lost in what I’m trying to write. 

18 months is apparently quite a long time and this 18 months in particular for me has been a pretty big deal. 

So this post is my attempt to summarise this time frame knowing that much of what has happened will probably be referred to in the future….!

When I last posted I was trying to find some way to process and battle with the miscarriage of our much wanted third child. In January 2018 we fell pregnant again but unfortunately we lost a second baby to miscarriage just 2 weeks after we found out. We joined just 2% of people who have two concurrent miscarriages. We were heartbroken again but I think in many senses we were numb to it. The grief on top of grief was too much to process.

Just one month later we fell pregnant again. Fear was HUGE. Anxiety through the roof. It was hard to feel excited and I didn’t feel able to dream about this baby’s life. We went for an early scan at just 6 weeks and where I was waiting to hear those much feared words of “I’m sorry there is no heartbeat” the sonographer announced “and there is your baby’s heartbeat”.

It was not an easy pregnancy with sickness, pelvis problems and just general fear. BUT on November 6th 2018, 2 days before her planned c-section, Abigail Hope Johanna Beavis was born. She did not fill the hole that the losses have created but she did complete our family. We still carry grief but we also carry joy. 

Also in the past 18 months we almost had to move out of our home, our oldest started primary school, Ross was made to travel with work, having big impacts on our family life. Ross fell through our ceiling from the loft, we had some holidays to Center Parcs, I ran every day for a month, I battled with lack of discipline and weight gain, our now middle child started playgroup and then more recently moved to nursery school. I started a business, we had a ridiculous heat wave, some of our best friends got married and I navigated more life without my mum. I’ve had a rocky recovery from major surgery and restarted my weight loss journey. I’ve read a number of deeply inspiring books and have been challenged by friendships, small groups and prayer groups to look at identity, personality types and who I am in God. I’ve walked the path of third baby not gaining weight properly and it took a great deal of time to adjust to the idea of being a mum to a girl. Parenting a newborn, parenting 3 children and a change to routine as Ross started a new job have all stretched and challenged me, often very close to the edge of survival. 

It feels like a lot in 18 months. I am not the person I was 18 months ago. BUT I think that is a good thing. 

As my head comes up above some of the newborn fog at 6 months I feel called to start writing again. To go back to some of the things I’ve attempted to write over the past 18 months and to start being obedient to the things that I feel God poking me to write in the hopes that my vulnerability and honest can comfort, inspire or help just one person out there.  

So here’s to the second wave of my WholeheartedJourney blog. I hope you will join me for the ride…..

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Real beats perfect

It’s so hard to be real. It’s a so hard to vulnerable. It’s so hard to admit our weaknesses. It’s so hard to stop striving to be perfect and just aim to be real. But REAL will ALWAYS be more beautiful, more inspiring, more present and will ALWAYS build community.

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Moments 

How often do you stop and take on the moment? 

I’m stuck in the babies bedroom with him asleep on me after his nap ended too early. On a Thursday we go to small group so needs to be awake late and so I have resorted cuddling him back to sleep. 

Sat in a dark room, listening to sleep baby snuggles and the irritating clock mechanism (why is it still in here almost 3 years after it first started bugging me?!) trying to stay awake and wishing I was somewhere else. 

And then I actually stop and listen to the babies snuggles and he breaths so sleepily and feel the warmth his cuddle and realise he won’t be my baby for long. Not my baby baby, he’ll always be my baby! 

The three years with Zac have gone by so incredibly quickly. The parenting quote of the days are long but the years are short is so incredibly true! 

And so for a moment I’m enjoying this cuddle and his smell and snuffles and fidget (whilst writing this so I don’t forget or fall asleep!!) and I’m reminded to try and find more moments to treasure in my day to day, mundane life with these two gorgeous and totally infuriating lovely boys! 

Actually I’m reminded that I need to just stop more often. Not just for my mumminess or my memories but my own sanity, for my Sarah-ness. 

There’s so much I can strive to get done. There’s so much I strive to get done and don’t get done. There’s always the next thing and so much to fit in that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount.

But I need to stop. I need to be still sometimes. I need to sit with God. I need to read. To just BE and not to produce just for a little while each day! 

The idea fills me with fear. How do I fit in 10000 steps?! How do I clean the house?! How do I spend time with the boys? How do i fit in reading bible plans? But stopping is the best thing for me and I hope that by prioritising that I can strive less and thrive more! 

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Inspired

There are many many people who inspire me in my day to day life but today I am particularly inspired by my amazing friend Jo. 

She pushed herself beyond what she thought she could do and at times beyond what she wanted to do to achieve running a half marathon yesterday. She is quite frankly amazing. 

She inspires me with her perservance at work, her commitment to her family, her passion for life and her heart to see everyone achieve their potential. I love her energy, her excitement, her passion, her big heart and her striving to do better. 

Joanna you inspire me in ways I don’t have the words to describe. You encourage me for the future and you push me to do and be a better version of myself without putting my current self down. 

My mum would have been SO proud and impressed. She’d have thought you were nuts for doing it in the first place, mind you, but she’d have been so impressed! 

I do not doubt the same would have been of your mum. What a spectacular young woman she created. 

#shedefinitelycanshedefinitelydid

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Kids and food

What was your experience of food as you were growing up? Your parents approach to healthy eating? Your parents thoughts about dieting? I hope it was a positive one.

For me I grew up in a house where we ate the same foods each week and we weren’t very adventurous although to be fair much of this was because my dad worked a more than full time job and cooked because my mum was well enough to. When I had concerns about my weight in my teenage years my mum exclaimed she wasn’t having me getting worried about weight things at my age. Our food was not unhealthy but my weight certainly was.

So since my early teenage years I have been unhappy with my weight and have tried different ways of losing weight including several years of Weight Watchers and Slimming World. In those years I learnt that somethings you shouldn’t eat and somethings you should. The ‘shouldn’t eats’ became more appealing, FAR more appealing. The ‘shouldn’t eats’ were things you only had a treat or on special occasions and when you did have them it was GOOD.

So in the times of losing focus, losing motivation, losing heart, feeling overwhelmed, useless, a failure, fat, lonely and not worth the effort, I would turn to the shouldn’t eats, the treats, the things you only have on special occassions, and eat them without care.

Problem is that I would come back from those times of lost focus or come out of my overwhelmed state to find myself more overweight that I was and so having further to go to fix it.

It frustrates me and annoys me that I have made my journey longer and harder but at the same time I know there’s nothing I can about it. Except learn to not lose heart when things are tough. I can also learn from the experience and I can share that with others.

I already wrote a post on things being permissible but not always being beneficial which is certainly on of the big things I have learnt BUT it’s also taught me a lot about the treats and special occasions food mindset. (See that post here)

If we teach our children that sweets and chocolates are a treat and only for special occasions we do not teach them moderation and we make them more appealing and tempting. If we teach our children that we can have these things whenever BUT we have to have them in moderation we teach our children that these things are just another type of food but to be wise with how much we have of them. When something is BANNED I want to have it more.

Maybe that’s my mindset but I have seen it with my biggest boy, Zachary.  I have never had bans on when Zac can have certain food because of how I viewed food and knowing the impact that it had for me. Zac can have a little bit of chocolate or some sweets when he asks nicely, sees someone else with something or when I need to blackmail him with something (!). He knows he can only have a little (often saying ‘just a bit’) but actually rarely asks for them despite knowing where in the cupboard they are.

Don’t get me wrong I know he’s not yet 3 and he’s not a scientific study but at the moment he has a healthy approach to ‘treat’ like foods that we will continue to instil in him in the hopes that as he becomes old he will have ingrained in him a healthy mindset, even if it’s something he forgets for a few years in between when he first starts buying his own foods.

I guess it’s similar to a friends experience of alcohol. His parents didn’t allow him any alcohol at all as he was growing up so when he hit 18 he spent much of his time drinking too much, being irresponsible and not recognising the impacts of alcohol on his system. This in comparison to someone who has tried alcohol at home with their parents in a safe environment, recognising when they’ve had enough that it perhaps is changing they response is less likely to binge because alcohol is a new experience but more likely to do just it just because they want to. Hmmm perhaps that argument is a little light but hopefully you get the gist of what I mean!

Anyway, the whole of my post is just to encourage you based on my experience to not make foods banned, shouldn’t have, special occasions food but rather to make them everyday, normal, in moderation food.

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Focus

I’ve been a bit slack with getting round to writing blog posts. My head has written many and I’ve half written a few but this is the first time in a while I’ve been able to sit and write. Even then this is the second time I’ve started this particular post. But it seems important so I shall try to carry on.

I’ve noticed a couple of times that God uses the time I’m changing Sully’s nappy to speak to me. When I’m changing Sully’s nappy he has this habit of trying to pull the cables that are up by his head. If he were to manage it he would pull his baby monitor or his light down onto his head. He should ask his brother because Zac did it once; missed him but there’s still a dint in the wall to show for it!

Anyway I digress a little. Sully often spends his time on the mat staring at the cables and his hand twitches towards them. If I can distract him away from the cable his hand doesn’t twitch and he forgets all about them.

Bear with me here!

What I felt God saying to me was that it’s where your eyes focus that you see. Obvious huh? But where you are looking makes a difference to what you are tempted by. Your eyes are what your brain is focused on. When I spend my time focused on something I want and can’t have I make myself want it more. When I turn my eyes from that things I want it less.

If I spend my days focused on the wrong things there’s a high chance I’ll make the wrong choices.
Food is a battle
For me food is a battle. For as long as I can remember I’ve tried to lose weight but willpower has lost out to temptation of eating ‘fun’ things, more appealing things, having less restrictions on my life, choosing the free path. Problem is that eating what you want isn’t the free path when you need to lose weight. It’s just you being trapped by the food that tempts you. I’ve created a mindset in me that somethings are banned and that then leads to me wanting the banned food. To be fair that probably comes from years of following different dieting plans! But actually I am finding freedom in the idea that everything is permissible, all the foods are like (or rather appeal more!) are permissible BUT not everything is beneficial.

The bible says that very thing in 1 Corinthians 6:12 “”Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.” I cannot eat whatever I want whenever I want because it is not beneficial to me. By using calorie counting instead of weight watchers or Slimming World I can see the science of calorie in and calorie out. If I’ve eaten all my calories today eating on more chocolate bar, even if it’s smaller, will not allow me to lose weight – it’s not beneficial. However if I want that chocolate bar and am willing to go for a 30 minute walk to gain it then that’s a different ball game. My head is full of thoughts about kids and food at this point but I will write that somewhere else and link it when i do! (See that post here)

More than that…
It goes further what I eat though. Focus comes all the way down to the wanting to lose weight in the first place. When I am so wrapped up in the scales and the calories I fail and falter when I don’t achieve my calorie goal that day or I don’t lose the weight I want to. If my focus is on God and the journey that losing weight takes me on with him; a journey of discipline, obedience, refinement and transformation IN HIM, then when the scales don’t do what I want them to do or I eat too many calories that one day then I can’t define myself as a failure. When we define ourselves as failures we are more inclined to give up. When we see ourselves as on a journey we are more inclined to keep pushing on and see where God can take us in this journey.

Don’t get me wrong I still desperately want the scales to go down. The weight loss part of my journey still seems so long but it’s easier to pull myself back and remind myself this is a journey that it has ever been before.

I can’t recommend enough the book Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst. She speaks more eloquently than I ever will about the journey that weight loss can take you on with God.

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Post infertility – reflecting on the journey

This was written around October 2014 when Zac was almost 1 year old and i thought I’d post it here to share. It covers some of our infertility journey and Zac’s initial craziness!

I’m packing a box of the things I want to keep for Zac, a special box of his first baby grows, his “Welcome to the world” cards and Dedication cards too. As I think about what I want to put in it I’m to the box, I’m overwhelmed by the journey that has come before this day. 

Five years is a fairly large portion of your life when you’re only 27. Five years is an even larger portion of the eight years we’ve been married, but that’s how long this part of the journey took! 

In November 2009, we thought it would be nice to have a baby, thought it was a good next step after 3 years of marriage, felt it was the right thing to do. Now, when I was growing up, if you asked me what I want to be when I grew up, I’d always say “I want to be a mum”. After we were married, I would say ‘IF we can have children….’ but I’m pretty sure I never really meant the “if” even though I was aware it doesn’t always happen! So really, I’d been kinda ready to be a mum for a long time! 

Things didn’t go to plan and we spent the next 3 years and 3 months dealing with infertility. Dealing with heartbreak, shaken faith, grieving what could have been, dealing with the comments of acquaintances, friends and family, watching others have babies easily, watching others have second babies easily, losing hope, battling fears, asking “why us?”, feeling like a failure as a woman/ a wife/ a person in society, running from family events, watching from the sidelines, answering stupid questions, listening to some awful advice, crying in dedication services and about baby showers and all the other things that go with experiencing infertility. It affects your day to day life (not helped when you work with children!) and even your sleep and dreams. 

A nice little tip here for those who haven’t experienced infertility – don’t ask a married couple, of child bearing age, why they haven’t had kids, or even if they’d like them!! Chances are they either aren’t interested in having them, in which case they owe you no explanation, OR they can’t have them and desperately want them and you are sticking a sharp knife into a painful hole in their hearts! Asking when they are going to provide grandchildren or nieces and nephews is also probably not going to go down all that well, although they probably won’t say anything to you. Advice such as “just stop trying so hard” is also unwelcome, as are stories of your best friend’s cousin’s daughter’s dog walking buddy who was trying for 6 months but now has twins.

Infertility is such a taboo subject. This is partially because it’s such a personal thing and some people would genuinely rather not share, and partially because people feel uncomfortable talking about it. It’s a subject that involves sex and we all know you shouldn’t talk about sex. Unless of course it’s in a book, in a film, on an advert, in songs, in a magazine, workplace banter, or down the pub as a crude joke. No, no, sex in terms of serious, procreation, married couple sex is not a topic of normal conversation. 

But talk about we did! Well, more “I” than “we”! 

I initially told my closest friends, we told our church small group after a year, our families around the same time, and after about 2 years, if you’d asked about my personal life I would have told you without really thinking anything of it. Infertility was a part of my (our) life and if you wanted to know how I was, you’d hear the shitty bit of my life too! 

With a lot of people, telling them was the best thing I ever did. They understood a bit more about my reactions, prayed for us and with us, supported us, loved us, encouraged us and loved us. With others, they were just as insensitive and hurtful but the support gained by telling more often than not out-weighed the option to bottle up, especially as they’d have said the hurtful things anyway! We had a lot of support from people, but some people went out of their way to make us feel loved. I can’t imagine what I would have done without my friends Carol, Ali and Ellie and without the love of my sister in law, Kirsty! They were there, they listened, they encouraged, they prayed, they wiped tears and they cared. Ali even lent me her child for days out!

We were blessed and unfortunate in equal measures to not have to go through too much medical intervention. We had initial tests but due to my weight we couldn’t go any further. My weight wasn’t a problem with fertility for us but the NHS hoops to jump through include weight!  Now the logical answer to this problem would have been to lose weight. Logical – yes; realistic for me – no! I am a comfort eater, about 3 weeks a month I could eat well and lose weight. But then there was the one week a month, possibly even 2 or 3 days where the heartbreak was all too much. Feeling like a failure month after month is a hard burden to carry and a much easier one to eat through! Another tip for those parents of young children, especially girls. If your child is sad, don’t give them food to cheer them up, or just after they’ve been upset – it teaches them to look to food for comfort. (Pretty sure that’s not what happened with me, but I see it happening and fear for the outcome!) 

Anyway, during those years I never understood how having a baby could feel like the right thing to happen but that it didn’t happen. I had many arguments about it with God and it definitely shook my faith and trust in Him. While this was going on we also had encouragement. This came through things like books (I HIGHLY recommend both Hannah’s Hope and Baby Hunger), songs, quotes and prophecies (where people heard from God about our lives and shared it with us). The biggest one of these was back in October 2011 when our friends Gav and Ali felt that God was highlighting the date 5th November when they prayed for us. There were also prophecies we never heard at the time but have done since such as our friend Stephanie telling our friend Anna to give us a children’s craft that said “God gave Sarah a baby” on it and our friend Charlotte feeling that February 2013 was important. There’s so many bible verses and encouragements and quotes I could list here but it would be crazy long on top of an already crazy long story! (If you want to hear more of them get in touch!) 

In February 2013 we made the decision to use the money we had been saving to pay for baby items (pushchairs, cots etc) to pay for private medical investigations in March 2013 – after all, what was the point in the money sitting there when we didn’t have a baby to buy things for? We never had to use those savings, as on 22nd February 2013, we found out I was pregnant. I cried, Ross read the pregnancy test leaflet several times and then we went to work. So many times I had taken pregnancy tests and watched them be as white as snow (negative). The deep joy and disbelief of the red line appearing on that test that morning will never leave me. 

Now logically this would be the end of a story about infertility, but the journey we’ve been on only seems to be coming to a bit of close as our little bear is about to turn one! 

Pregnancy was hard. I had a few bleeds, I had few times where I couldn’t feel the baby moving, one time when even the hospital struggled to get the baby to move. I spent the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (as most mums to be do) fearing my baby wouldn’t make it, maybe I’d imagined it, maybe something would be wrong. Actually I think I spent 41 weeks thinking maybe I’d made it up, maybe I’d wake up from this dream at some point! It was only when I went into labour on November 5th (see prophecy above!!) that I realised this was really happening. 

My labour was hard, a total of 37 hours! He was back to back and face first and after 17 hours at 5cm Zac was delivered by emergency csection. He was HUGE, amazing but huge – 10lb8oz of lovely squidginess! I was unwell after he was born and just as I was reaching being well enough to go home little bear got jaundice and was put on a sun bed. I was so frustrated that I was stuck in the hospital and not at home with my husband and baby living the newborn dream! 

Day 5 of Zac’s life and we got to go home! It was such a surreal experience. I remember almost panicking that this little baby was depending on us and we couldn’t just send him back – what had I been thinking!?!

Zac had lost 10% of his body weight in 5 days – 1lb – but it was within the allowed amount. We were bombarded with midwives for 2 weeks seeing 8 different women in that time, each giving different advice, wanting me to do different things and prodding and poking me. After 2 weeks the health visitor instructed the midwives to hand us over to them. I cried with joy that I would be dealing with one person who would be consistent! Zac didn’t gain weight for weeks. He fed and fed, baffled medical professionals, didn’t have any allergies, and no tongue tie to prevent him from feeding. Adding in expressed or forumla bottles didn’t make any difference, he just wouldn’t grow. He was content, healthy and developing perfectly in every other area apart from his weight.

We headed to America for 3 weeks when he was 6 weeks old. Two days before we left he gained 2oz, and so a referral to the hospital was put on hold! For 3 weeks we had fun, we rested, we explored, we ate and we spent time with Kirsty and Seth who looked after us and loved us! It was the best thing we could have done after the stress of the 4 years before! We escaped everyday life and enjoyed just being a family of three and with spending time with loved ones! 

When we returned, despite having fed for 1 hour every 3 hours every day, Zac had not gained weight and a referral was made to the hospital. He was still a content and well developing baby. The hospital could see no problems with him and Zac started to gain tiny amounts of weight each week. At 16 weeks old Zac hit birth weight again. I sobbed! Another visit to the hospital confirmed our baby was probably fine and as we weaned him at 5 months old he suddenly gained weight. I’m fact, in 9 weeks, Zac gained a crazy 7lb! 

While all this was going on, the same people who had supported us through our infertility were there beside us supporting us and loving us. But in the background of all of this we had people telling me to stop breast feeing, contrary to doctors’ advice, and comparing our son to other children around us! To be built up by some but pulled down by others was heart breaking! Your words have the power to build up or break down and you choose how you use them – do it wisely! Finally in May, I could start enjoying my 6 month old without weekly weigh ins and the stress of his weight! 

The past 6 months have had their ups and downs. Dedicating our little boy at church was such a special emotional day with so many friends and family coming to join us to celebrate him . The next day, I returned to work 3 days a week for 13 weeks. I desperately missed my little boy, felt I’d been robbed of 6 months of my maternity leave with all the stress, and was sure that leaving was the right thing to do so it was hard to go back to leave! I was blessed by working with some people who kept me going, and by friends and family who took time out of their lives to look after Zac on those days! Leaving work was a sad but exciting day. Starting a new job nannying for Ali’s two lovely children and taking Zac with me has been a joy and seeing how God has worked his timings to be perfect – faith affirming! 

Zac continues to grow well (he’s gone from being born on the 99.6th centile, dropping to below the 0.4th centile back up to the 98th centile!) He is developing in his abilities and strengths, and his character and facial expressions bring us joy. We thank God for him daily, sometimes several times a day! We cherish the moments we have with him and are in awe of this child of God we are responsible for!

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Infertility – in the trenches

I thought I’d share an email we sent to family 3 years into trying for a baby. Miraculously just 1 week later we found out we were expecting our little bear. I share this to hopefully encourage others and to share the resources we shared with family.

Hello all

Apologies for the mass email; we wanted to update you with where we’re at in our attempts to start a (or more accurately, to grow our) family, and an email was the easiest way to get everyone up to speed. Obviously, this is not something we wanted to include in the Christmas letter!

We’ve now been trying to conceive without success for over 3 years, and in that time we’ve really valued your prayers and your support. We understand that it’s impossible to know how to support us fully without you having been through the same situation, and we find this with our close friends as well.

Since we started trying, we have been to the doctors twice about the issue: first to have some initial tests, which showed no obvious issues, and the second time they said they wouldn’t be able to treat due to Sarah’s weight. We’ve since spoken to friends who are medical professionals who have assured us that this is a formality (bureaucracy) and not a medical reason. Sarah has obviously been trying to lose weight, and at times has done quite well, but infertility is an emotional roller coaster which doesn’t help the process of weight loss, and so she hasn’t been as successful as she would have liked. She has recently started trying to stick to Slimming World more seriously and with more fervour, and she always appreciates your support in helping her to eat well (Slimming World isn’t always obvious in what ‘eating well’ means as it’s different in different circumstances, so please ask if we’re eating with you and you’re not sure – she/we won’t be offended!)

Since the end of last year we have been thinking about going private for further tests, and have decided to pursue that this year. We still need a referral from the GP for this but the weight loss requirements are less when you go private. Sarah still has a few more pounds to lose before this bar is met, but it is much more achievable, given the circumstances. Obviously there are costs involved in this which start off quite piecemeal, so we will see how it goes and whether it’s something God wants us to pursue all the way. Thankfully, we have been saving for when we have a baby, and after praying, talking with friends, and discussing it between us, we feel this is an appropriate use of the money. (There’s certainly no point in storing up the money without the baby!) Although our savings aren’t much, it’s enough to get started. We have faith that if this is God’s path, he will provide the money when we need it.

We’re grateful that we’re able to talk about this openly with you and that you are all understanding and considerate people. We want to let you know that we do find life hard because of all of the above, and sometimes it can be particularly bad around special occasions where the absence of a child in our family is all-the-more obvious to us, or when we have recently had another negative result. Consequently, sometimes we may withdraw from situations or conversations, or even decline invitations to events that might rub salt in an open wound. We appreciate your sensitivity in these situations. Also, there are some topics of conversation that could provoke an emotional response internally (which may or may not become external!). We don’t expect you to know what these are, as sometimes we don’t even know what they are ourselves, but this is just to give an explanation in advance if we come across as short, withdrawn, or just a bit ‘off’!

All that said, we honestly don’t mind talking about our infertility journey, and if you ever think of questions, we’re more than happy to answer them. It’s rare that you would upset us by bringing it up, as chances are, it’s already on our minds.

We could carry on giving advice on how to support us, but there’s a website that has it pretty well pegged, by the author of a book called ‘Hannah’s Hope’ that we’ve read. (If you’d like to read it to gain a greater insight in to what we’re going through, we can lend it to you, or it’s available on the Kindle at a reasonable price.) 

http://www.hannah.org/?i=5455&mid=7

Look for the section titled ‘HOW TO ENCOURAGE YOUR INFERTILE OR BEREAVED FRIENDS’ roughly two thirds of the way down. There’s a little bit to read; we’d be very grateful if you were able to spare a few minutes to read it all, as it really is very good advice.

There’s also a video linked from that page: (can be watched without audio)

http://www.tearsandhope.com/emptyarms_video.html

It’s a smidgen cheesy but conveys pretty much where we’re at, although the suggestions for support don’t go into as much useful detail as the hannah.org website.

We’ve seen God do a lot in us in the last 3 years, and we still have hope in Him for what the future holds. We’ve had words, pictures, and Bible verses from God through friends and strangers, so despite wobbles in our faith at times, we still know that God has us in his hands, and that he has his best for us in store.

Anyway, sorry this has been so long; thank you for reading this far (if you skipped to the end, shame on you! ;-D), and thank you for your thoughts, prayers and love, both in the past and the future.

Love

R&S x

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Gratitude

I lead small group this week on gratitude. The discipline of being grateful, especial grateful to God.

We’ve looked at a whole of load of spiritual disciplines but there’s something about gratitude that makes it very accessible and very uplifting to practice both for yourself and for the people around you.

Gratitude is best practiced not just in our time with God but in our every day lives. It’s about taking an attitude of wanting more and turning it into an attitude of abundance. When we look on what we have with an attitude of abundance we take away room for jealousy and bitterness and comparison. Living with an attitude of abundance allows us to see just how very much we have.

I know it’s easy to look at hard times in life and think well what do I have? I suspect there is a part of me that does this when I think about missing my mum. God did something very wise in me when he blessed us with Sully just two weeks after mum died. It stopped me from constantly dwelling on what I did not have. To be grateful and excited for a little baby on the way at the time was incredibly hard. How can you mourn and be excited at the same time? You can’t really. You bounce from one emotion to another, feeling guilty about both emotions because you feel you should feel sad but feel guilty because you should also be happy. But as I look back on it now I see that the blessing of Sully, and Zac, and Ross and all of my precious friends, stopped me from dwelling too hard and too long on what I did not have.

God has a generous heart. By sending Jesus he gave us more than we ever deserved. When we are at rock bottom our gratitude remains because our gratitude is not based on our circumstances but on a person, Jesus Christ.

When we give God the praise and thanks that he deserves for everything from running water to new jobs, from growing flowers to financial provision, from roofs over heads to clothes on our back, we live knowing that God has given us SUPERABUNDANTLY more than we deserve.

How great He is and how remiss I am in recognising just how much He provides.

Gratitude needs a response. Without a response gratitude is like wrapping a present but never giving it!