Let Love be Real

I'm in the last stages of preparation to be a probationary minister. In early September I'll be welcomed to my new circuit and I've been invited to choose a hymn for that service.

I wondered about come with me come wander (which fits September 4th lectionary well so I'm keeping that for then) or Come all you Vagabonds which has some powerful words of inclusion but have settled on Let love be real by Michael Forster (615 in StF). It's simple and profound and goes to Danny boy. Here are my top 6 reasons for requesting it.

1. "Let love be real" If the ministry I live out is about love then I've done good.
2. "Give me your hand" I had it at my wedding so feels like a good one for a place where Husband is to be welcomed too

3. "Give me your strength when all my words are weakness." It's full of powerful words, like this phrase which have been quoted by my best friend when I've been struggling with essays. I've sung them beside multiple people I love and are my commitment to my churches that together we find God's strength in one another.
4. "As God loves us." It's never about us, but first that we are loved by God. I'm so glad that my call to ministry is not about me, but about who God calls me to be - "make us brave to be what we might be"

5. "so let us love each other" There was a significant moment in April I was driving to the pastoral committee at my link church, at that meeting knowing I was leaving there were many moments I wanted to help but couldn't, yet on the drive over the travel news mentioned an accident in the town I'm moving to and my heart just went "that's my place to love." It's amazing after being matched with somewhere I hardly know I'd already committed to loving it.

6. "Just open hands and space to grow." I'm new, to ministry and have a lot to learn so hope this is a place where I can make mistakes and learn and grow, and the same should be true of the churches.Maybe also the line - "give me your trust when all my failings show" the Methodist Church is putting a lot of faith in me!

I look forward to what September has in store and singing that song with all its many meanings in my new circuit as together we learn to love in God.

Stop and apply handbrake – review of 2013

When you learn to drive you are taught the difference between give way and stop. The best way to show the examiner that you know the difference is to apply the handbrake at a Stop sign, to show you have come to a complete stop. Whereas at a Give way you pause, look and if it’s safe go.

At the moment life feels a bit non-stop. It might not be the case it might just be I’m focusing on different things and in my spare time I’m now knitting (something I learnt in 2013) rather than blogging and in my new job I’m driving less, and driving was my thinking-of-blogs time.

Looking back, each year is that bit different to the others, I’m not saying on December 31^st things stop and January 1^st other things start but there are definite treads in each year.

2010 was the year of five addresses, I graduated, went full time, and at the very end lived on my own.

2011 was the year things started. I got my passport and went to South Africa, MWiB came into existence.

2012 was the year of interviews – well eight weeks of it was anyway, with seven interviews squished in them.

2012 was the year I challenged myself to run 5K to complete my Grade 5 Music theory.

Then there was 2013.

                A year in two halves, the first eight months were saying goodbye, packing up. It was about half way through those eight months I was offered my new job. Subsequently the final four months of 2013 were hellos, fresh starts, and new challenges.

It was the year I left the first place I’d chosen to live. That beautiful little city where I went for university will always have a place in my heart. I loved living there and miss it and it’s people.

2013 I grew up. I bought a house, I got a mortgage, I learnt what a damp proof course, a retainer on a mortgage and all sorts of other jargon was.

2013 has also been a year when I didn’t go to things. I missed Spring Harvest due to it clashing with MWiB weekend – and actually my job interview. I missed Greenbelt because I was bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding. So both good reasons! Then I missed 3Generate – as I’m too old – but I was on local radio that Sunday morning. That weekend was also five year anniversary of me and boyfriend! That is a long time! Much of 2013 was spent as a short distance relationship, which meant dates to the cinema, art gallery and a new found love of Chiquito’s popcorn. (We also went to a very beautiful wedding with lots of driving as I didn’t realise how big Yorkshire is). Boyfriend has now moved far away – sad face. My best friend has also moved far away – in her case to the other side of the world – very sad face. I did get to go to the weekend of Conference in London, and Soul Survivor with my young people – playing the animal game almost constantly, was really lovely when they wanted me to play. The other great moment was when one of my young people mentioned my passion for participation – “you always let us decide together” - win!

One of the most impressive things of the year was the fact I managed to do my journal every day, something my Brother and Boyfriend both thought was way beyond me.

2013 was also a year of travelling. My trip to Italy to help plan the seminar there this June was a great time –well despite having my purse stolen. I got to go to Northern Ireland for the Irish Methodist Conference– something I didn’t blog enough about, but the President’s sermon about Joshua 3 has reoccurred in many of my own sermons. I got to see the theological college which is a beautiful place to study in. The whole Conference was God centred and prayer was a key aspect. I also got to see Irish Helen Kim Memorial Scholar J.

Soon after that I ran 5K in 36 minutes – 6 minutes faster than the year before and much helped by the Youth President’s fitness regime while I was in Ireland.

Then there was Paris. Part of my new job is helping with the Churches’ Scout group and in October half term we got to go to France and meet Minnie Mouse, we did get the ferry in the awful storms. Other parts of my new job include a toddler group, lots of different styles of worship and a very busy advent.

You will now realise that it is February, and we are already 1/12 into 2014. What does it have in store?  So far I’ve been trying to set up my pension, I’ve knit two snoods (one for me and one for Mum) and visited boyfriend in his brand new exciting job – see his blog here for more on that.

2014 will be another year of solitude evasion - finding ways of building community. It will hopefully me the last full year that I’m single, (like I had to put on a form the other day). It’s a year of more new experiences, running an international conference in Rome, and so far a year of three weddings, every year has had a different number recently – very clever of you my friends.

I think I need to pause more, to put on the handbrake, reflect what’s happened. So bring on 2014! Let’s hope it’s not as manic as 2013 but just as fun and action packed. 

sound and silence

I’ve been to the panto this evening. A friend, well the Dad in the family that has kinda adopted me was Will Scarlet and his eldest son had a fab little role too. I haven’t been to the panto in a few years, me and Boyfriend went to see John Barrowman in the one in Cardiff one New Years Eve –probably 2009/2010. For our 50 month anniversary we decided on date afternoon to go see Les Mis at the cinema (well on our actual anniversary being Methodist Geeks we went to see the President of Conference then had burgers at Spoons). Anyway I bring up Les Mis as like the panto people sing rather than talk and tonight’s blog topic is music.

On a slight tangent if I was ever on Room 101 I would put songs with siren noises hidden in. These are the ones on the radio that you have to turn off when driving just to check it’s the music not a fire engine, ambulance or police car.

I think I listen to music a lot less than some people. Maybe that’s not right, what I mean is that I don’t intentionally listen to music as much as some people do. (Not that I compare myself to others often).

I don’t own an iPod, my mp3 player is rather old, and to be honest I don’t really like head phones. During the day when I’m driving I have Radio 1 on (so that's music!), and in the evening (after 7) I choose between Radio 2’s music (must be getting old) and Radio 4’s chats (turning in to my mother), or sometimes I have a specific cd in my car; the Disney blog came out of that time of driving and cd listening. When I’m at home I sometimes put the music on my laptop, but often I just sit in silence or relative silence anyway.

Something that music does is help us recall certain memories, I’m reminded of a fellow steward whenever I hear the Yfriday version of Strength will rise, I can no longer sing And Can it Be without thinking of Boyfriend or One more step without getting the giggles from old Exec days. For everyone Born will always be a MWiB / South Africa song. Some songs have negative memories though. The other day I was on a train that was packed between Huddersfield and Manchester and at Hudds two lads, one very drunk and one not quite so drunk got on and sat one next to and the other opposite me in a four seated bit – like the table seats but without a table. They were boasting the fact they had been kicked out of 4 out of 5 clubs in Huddersfield, still wearing yesterday’s clothes and were on their way to Liverpool, or maybe Manchester. After the first stop many in our carriage got off and I had the opportunity to move seats, but believing it would cause more agro stopped where I was and had an interesting 30-40 minutes being asked if I thought they were attractive, if I could tell they were wearing yesterdays clothes and the more drunk one singing over and over again “I want to scream and shout and let it all out” This song is now in my bad books for two reasons as when it came onto the radio the other day it took me back to that train ride, but it also has siren like noises in the background.

There is one type of music I seem to listen to a lot, and obviously this goes in peaks and troughs, is on hold music. It reminds me of my grandparents and Radio 3, it reminds me of placement in 1^st year when I spent ages calling a bowling alley and each 20 seconds of song were disrupted by an advert. I don’t know what the answer is to decent on hold music, but I’ve not heard it yet.

Yesterday’s issue with music was that of a facebook game. This particular one where you have to fry or grill different types of chicken had a rather annoying sound track background, however if you turned it off you also lost the sound effects, the bell as a customer came through the door, the click of the frying pan saying it was done and the ring of the phone for take away orders. So the choice was include the annoying music or lose the detail that made the game easier.

Now I’m not about to burst into song when mid speech but I do talk a lot, so it may come as a surprise to you that I’ve booked a mostly silent retreat. The idea is at meal times I can chat with the Nuns and others who are staying at the Monastery but the rest of the time is for me, my thoughts, my questions, some books and God. I’ll probably take paper to write on, pencils to sketch with, my camera (rather than my phone) all to help me find God

Like I’ve said I don’t intentionally seek out music often, right now all I can hear is the ticking clock and the sound of the keys on my keyboard as I type. But silence, that’s something else altogether. 

Moving Out, Moving On

Mondays are always a bit strange for me. A while ago on Twitter there was a hashtag going round - #youthworksongs - and one changed 'Working 9-5' to a normal day of a youth worker, mine today would be 'Working 9-11, 3-5, 6:30-9:30, what a way to make a living'. But it's actually the gaps I want to focus on today. Monday is the last day of my working week, and as I worked last Tuesday (though technically had the Saturday of 3Gen off it’s my first day off in 9 days tomorrow. This is, however, the first time I’ve sat at my laptop all day, so emails will have to wait till Wednesday.

Anyway today!

Today was the day I’ve been dreading for quite a while. The day Boyfriend moved out. I knew as soon as he moved in that it wasn’t forever. We have always said we wouldn’t live together before we got married, but as he got his job in nearby city and no real time to house hunt before he started, he moved in and my study / guest room was occupied again.

Car has been playing up in the normal way today –but it's off to the garage in the morning so that should hopefully be the end of that! So any time I say 'so we/I drove here or there' imagine a few minutes of the car not starting to add to the stress. I got home from my exciting Monday morning meeting (not sarcasm, I really do enjoy it) to get the car packed up, Boyfriend was mostly packed, had sorted the details and soon we were on our way to letting agent office number 1 to sign paperwork, the cheap supermarket for lunch then letting agent office 2 to get keys. Then finally to the house, where Boyfriend met one housemate leaving for work and we moved stuff in, made the bed, unpacked the clothes, had lunch, moved the furniture, drove Boyfriend back to letting agent office 2 as there were issues with keys and I drove off back to work. 2 hours later, I have an hour and a half to kill and decide to look for a single friendly eatery (as you get funny looks in some places asking for a table for one); the local supermarket cafe stopped serving at 5 (it was 5:05 at this point) and my fave pub for eating in didn’t start till 6. So off I went to Indian takeaway for Chicken Korma. Realising at this point I had no cutlery and stealing from a supermarket cafe is wrong I went and found plastic cutlery to buy – so now I’m prepared for next nine times I need to eat takeaway in my car! It was also about this point that I had a fab chat with a great friend, who let me rant and work out how I was feeling –as well as making me laugh, before going back off to work.

Today is a sad day. (I'd bet that there aren't many relationships where moving out from your partner's house is seen as progress. It is quite nice to know we can live together, yes the house is a bit messy, and we argue about silly things but I still love that man. It has been a lovely couple of months, and we still aren’t about to dance up the aisle (Though my proof reader states “I'm not dancing up the aisle ever!” ), but I think we are closer, and realistically if he can move out when I’m working at 11 and 3, I’m pretty sure I’m going to see a lot more of him than I ever did when he lived in that other country.

So yes it's sad, but it's another step on our journey, moving on as well as moving out and I’m not going to become a wimpy missing him kinda person, I’m a hardened Long Distance Relationshipper who is, as Jason Mraz and Colbie Calliat sang, “Lucky [to be] in love with my best friend” 

Is this the real life?

One of my typical lines that my friends get is, when will my life get back to normal? (alongside grr printer) or my life isn’t this mad normally!

I mentioned in my blog the other day that the day before Greenbelt I had a bit of a disaster. I’d been house sitting with many many animals and popped home to find the boiler that had been emptied the day before, while we (me and Rob the plumber who I know well now) waited for the important heating / electrics part to arrive, had filled up over night and then leaked out of the gap where the new part would do, and my hallway was raining when I walked through the door. So I rang the letting agent, and then my Mum! I sat while water dripped into my pots and pans. It took some time, but was all fixed by 4pm! Me and Mum sucked the water out of the carpet with a carpet cleaner and then Letting Agent came to have a look at the damage and decided to bring in a dehumidifier.

Lets jump ahead, past Greenbelt, and the car accident ‘bump’ to Thursday and Friday of last week (so just over a week ago now) when I went with Boyfriend, Mum, Dad and Brother to London. There were two things that we did while in London. On a windy day much earlier in the year Dad and I decided we wanted to go to the Paralympics so he booked the five of us tickets to athletics. It was a great morning. Cheering members of Paralympics GB, including watching someone win a Bronze medal. I’ve seen it tweeted that it makes us rethink the term 'dis-abled'. What an incredible group of people. Inspiring the next generation, and reminding us all that nothing is impossible. I’m also so glad to have said I’ve been there, and got the water bottle.

The night before the four of us went to see ‘We Will Rock You.’ A powerful musical set in the future where everyone lives on the internet and music is banned – which is a little silly as they all sing all the time. It talked about how High School Musical and Simon Cowell wrecked the music industry. The moving song about musicians who died young was my highlight. They obviously used ‘is this the real life’ to challenge the perceptions of the internet culture. This reminded me of one of the talks I went to at GB – the one by Vicky Beeching. She very cleverly linked social media and worship, the point that struck me most was about authenticity and the Fall – how Adam and Eve shared everything, and then hid things and re-designed themselves after the gift of knowledge. Also how we use the internet to be like God, our search to be all knowing, or hope to be omnipresent – the way we can be with all our friends all the time and never turn our phones off. Not that social media is a bad thing, but is a very interesting insight.

So maybe this is normal, it’s busy, it’s hectic, it throws or rains all sorts of surprises at me but this is real life!

Back to Earth with a Bump!

There are sometimes in life when something happens and everything else has to revolve around that. It’s usually something major, and generally life changing – but sometimes it’s just a small thing. My next few blogs are going to be about one thing that happened. The ideas are written down the side of a Sudoku book and might be five blogs, or might just be two or three if I condense them.

But this blog is just the start, setting the scene so to speak.

Last Thursday night despite everything that Thursday threw at me (and that story will be in another blog in this series – you’re getting interested now aren’t you) I managed to drive over to my parents’ house to do the final prep and pick up the important things – like my brother and the camping stove, ready to drive to Greenbelt in the morning.

For those of you who don’t know Greenbelt is a Christian Arts and Justice Festival, held at Cheltenham Race Course on August Bank Holiday weekend. This was my 4th year there.

I go for a number of reasons:

Friends! Firstly it’s an event that I get to see many of my Methodist friends at. I also bought tickets for a group of 12 and most of us camped together which was really nice. As well as randomly bumping into people (interesting use of word there – totally different bump to that in the title, it’s my blog so I get to reflect as I go along ok?) It is always nice for the prearranged hot chocolate, and orange juices with people, catching up and three times meeting friends’ new girlfriends.

Worship – Now I know I’ve said before that I go to a number of different festivals throughout the year and worship isn’t the first thing I think of usually when planning my greenbelt, however this year had two worship highlights for me. Firstly communion, I love sharing bread and wine with family, friends and strangers alike, as well as blowing bubbles, doing silly action songs and reflecting on seeds. As well as the challenge to ‘Bring ‘em all in to my heart’ when singing about the lost and the least. Secondly was Andy Flan and his powerful worship, for which Boyfriend felt a bit unprepared as I cried over him for quite a while. Sometimes life is sad, I was having one of those evenings last night too. I love being a part of the sisterhood that is MWiB, but as you get when you bring people and in this case women together life happens and pain is there. The leadership in our movement are generally having a rough (understatement) time. I’ve struggled recently to get my head around death, struggled with God, I struggled at Soul Survivor with some of the imagery often used in regards to the Holy Spirit. So after the story of the woman at the well, who was so hurt yet loved by Jesus I knew I had to let God in, and I wept. Crying for a future that will never happen, a family travelling the hard road of grief, and for myself, to enter back into God’s loving arms, to be held and loved as the Child of God I am.

Talks. GB has some brilliant speakers, some I agreed with, some I disagreed with, some who I thought were just brave to turn up. I was challenged in my opinion on the Press and Leverson. I learnt about ethical weddings – and not only did Boyfriend suggest I attend that one, he also came with me! (think when I do eventually get married then the ethicalness of my wedding will appear in a blog them – that will be another time when my whole life will revolve around something) I enjoyed Vicky Beeching’s talk about social media and worship, and will come back to that in another blog. It was also great to see Boyfriend being interviewed about his trip to Israel/Palestine.

Music. Apart from Paul Bell who I love a lot there wasn’t much music I had intended to go out of my way to see. I did however enjoy The Proclaimers, Bellowhead, Fischy music and of course Folk On.

Film. Now this is Brother’s fave part of greenbelt I think. I joined him for the Film Review of the Year which I enjoyed last year too, and having only seen about five or so films this year and Gareth Higgins liked most of them I think I did well. With Cousin 5, her Boyfriend, Brother’s friend (why are we playing around me?)and Cousin 5’s friend from Spring Harvest, we entered the film quiz, under the name ‘The Lord of the Quizes’ and came about middle which was good as we guessed most and refused to take part in the singing round. Brother and his friend (Wawpam) were also busy helping the people from the BBC with some of their film events and even saved the day with Brother’s Mac when other technology failed. This all lead to something very exciting that I will tell you about in the next paragraph – so not so long to wait.

Comedy and poetry. I’ve clumped these together. Harry Baker and other poets did a brilliant job, I particularly liked the female poets at the Woken Spured event. This year I’ve been to less comedy than other years. I did start this year with Paul Kerensa talking about Climate Change, in a informational and funny way. Then every day ended with Last Orders, it was mostly funny though ‘as the actress said to the bishop’ was just awful! Each night was different but my highlight has to be Sunday night when Brother and Wawpam got to go on stage and explain about the film competition. After saving 18 seats, and going back to find the memory card for the camera and Mum even staying up late to watch it, Brother, Wawpam and their Hawaiian shirts talked to about 3200 people! Very Proud Big Sister Moment! Having said that when we were walking back to the tents after that my piggy backpack got more comments that Brother did, but that’s the fickleness of fame for you!

Camping and mud. I love camping, I could have done without so much of the mud and rain that caused it, or the leaky tents by the end of the weekend. But all in all it was a fab time.


So after leaving Paradise – the theme of the weekend, I dropped Cousin 5 off at the train station and started to drive to Chepstow. And that’s when a van went into the back of my car. BUMP!

The Plan

Warning – my proof reader has described this blog as messy, I think this is because I’m still working through this – or I’m still shattered from Soul Survivor. I think it helps make the point I’m working towards, even if I don’t totally get to where I think I’m going, this is one of those posts where I’m leaving you to work out the ‘moral of the story.’


God’s plan isn’t always our plan.


If you’d asked me 5 or so years ago, I was going to uni to meet my future husband, get married when I graduated and live happily ever after. I think I even had a life plan, working out when I’d have my 4 children working around the summers that Breakout would happen...

I was partially right, I did meet my boyfriend during the uni years, he just didn’t go to my uni. And actually I’ve had more boyfriends from his uni (two) than my own (none).

You will probably know I recently had seven interviews in eight weeks. I’m now very good at the rejection phone call. It’s been hard but I think I’ve learnt a lot. This came to an end when my Circuit decided they couldn’t continue without me and talked about and finally agreed to keep me on, upgrading my Circuit hours to full time and therefore ending my searching.

This was strange, I was so ready to move on, for a change. But no, I was called to stay. It didn’t make much sense at the time.

However! Or maybe 'But God’...

While I was away at Soul Survivor, Boyfriend was busy going to an interview which would mean he’d get to work, and therefore live, close by. And yes he got it!
So now it all makes sense, I needed interviews to know what I was lacking, I need to stay so boyfriend could get his new job which should be a great stepping stone in his career.

So there you go. It’s always nice when God’s plan becomes obvious.
Though there’s a part of me that’s in shock. Not that I didn’t believe God knew what (s)he was doing, but that this wasn’t part of my plan. I was never expecting to live near (or with – but that’s a totally different blog post) boyfriend, my plan was always going straight from long distance to marriage. I’m not complaining at all, I’m excited about being so close, and now have new things to plan!


PS – something this year that has gone to plan was that I passed my grade 5 theory in music!!!!

6 months on...

Hello loyal blog reader, nice to be back, I’ve been meaning to blog for a while but my life was a bit like going round in circles. But then it wasn’t. Life has a habit of throwing things at you, never more than you can handle, but always something. Or at least that’s how my 2012 has felt. But we are now 6 months in so it’s about time for a recap.

So I’m failing on some things, chocolate is one of those things – but clothes I’m doing well on! Let's check the list!

1, Get fitter and healthier - In a number of ways.
a, Walk / run - aiming to do a 5k run for charity by the end of the year,
b, Do more exercise in general - mainly on the Wii as well as walking.
c, Have a better daily routine - including eating breakfast more often.
2, Blog more - I'm not saying how regularly, but more often!
3, Worry less about the future!!! 2012 is gonna be scary but worrying helps no one!
4, Stop being so obsessed with marriage.
5, Be more fair trade:
a, Only buy clothes that are fair trade or second hand
b, Give up non-fair trade chocolate.(Now that is the really difficult one and I've already failed once as I forgot - will ask Brother for tips!!)
6, Be wiser with money.
a, Reviewing giving - not give less but do more with what I give.
b, Review my spending.
c, Make more sandwiches / packed lunches rather than buying them.
7, Pray More! Lancashire district are having a year of prayer I'm hoping to get involved in a number of ways! First plan is to say grace more often before meals. Maybe find a spiritual director.

So 1a – I did my race for life 5k, in 42 minutes!!! Raised £200 (if you include gift aid) you can still sponsor me at – https://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/rachic11
1c – well I had breakfast this morning!
2- well I’ve blogged more! Just not a lot recently
3 – I’ll come back to this later.
4 – fail!! Which I knew I would so replaced with grade 5 theory! Which I took in one very random weekend – day before the 5k, still waiting to hear how I did...
5 – a pass, b fail!

6 – hmm, well I bought accident insurance today – they obviously rang when I was feeling fragile.
7 – yeah, @yr_of_prayer is really helping 


So the future!

Well I had 7 interviews in 8 weeks and was about to implode, but then I got a call from my circuit boss asking if the circuit meeting agreed would I stay another year! So after my brain exploded and circuit meeting agreed I can now say I’m staying where I am for a further 12 months.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently reflecting on being called to stay! I was expecting to have to move, to be sent, or even to be without a job, but now I’m staying. I thought I was about to start the next race, but actually I’ve just passed another milestone – on the 5k there was a sign very kilometre on the route, it was such a relief to see the 1k earlier than I was expecting. My job will be changing slightly so I’ll have to change my way of working – more local stuff, more children’s work.

There is other stuff going on, but I’m not very good with words, and songs say things better than I can. I’ve been clinging to the words of Faithful One, and remembering I’m part of a bigger community. I love that there are people who are there to hold me when I cry, or let me use their shower – had many boiler issues over the past month. In my car at the moment is an Andy Flanagan cd which includes the song – Fragile, written about the tsunami in 2004 but has been a comfort to me this past week.
Life and death are so hand in hand. On Monday my youth group were having a bbq at a farm, we had a tour and saw a calf that had been born that morning. New life. Death reminds us that this is not forever, that life in the grand scheme of things isn’t very long, but means that we have to live each day, spend it with those we love, doing what we love, being who we are called to be.

So here I am, not moving, called to stay. Trying to be the best me, in the time that I have, working towards the next milestone. Much of the past 12 months have revolved around the word Bambelela which when all is well feels like a carnival word, but maybe it’s more like supercalifraglisticexpealidosiuos – the word to say when there is nothing else. Bambelela, Never give up, Christ is our hope.

love yourself as your neighbour

I’m very good at looking after other people, I’ve spent a lot of tonight showing people where the toilets are and stopping under 18s leaving without an adult. I’m also very aware of what I think and why I think it. I love the wishbone activity where you work out the core route of an issue. For example, I’m tired, cos I went to bed late, cos a friend was upset about something, so I need to make sure I turn my internet off on my phone in enough time to give me time to chill before bed –something I need to learn due to having a new phone with internet.

I’m a little bit worried I’ve taken on too much at the moment. I’m a bit behind with admin at work, my house is a bit messy, I’m running out of clean clothes – which is saying something! I have many friends going through some stuff – all of which I love, and don’t want to not be there for them – please do not read this as me telling you to go away, this blog is about me! I’m blogging for MWiB every day next week – which I am excited about. I have another friend setting up youthworkhub, which we bought a domain name for today – again exciting stuff but have had to say that I can’t commit to doing much work for it. I used the phrase earlier that I need put life on hold while I catch up with work. I need a routine, which was why as part of my New Year's resolutions I wanted to take up running and eating breakfast. Since getting back from Spring Harvest I’ve had such an irregular diary, especially with MWiB weekend last weekend that it has meant I haven’t managed to get back into routine, and do my music homework and some faith and worship.

I think today I hit the post Spring Harvest lull, not on that spiritual high, all of my prayers of recent days has been for this friend or that opportunity. Let's go back to my friends. I was talking to someone earlier about how couples counterbalance each other, and that led on to love languages. I know I’ve talked about these before but I think it is a brill theory. How do love languages work online? Most of my friends I spend more time with online than I do offline. I’ve said before that touch is my primary language, touch doesn’t work online, as much as a *hug* shows the thought, it's not a hug. Similarly acts of service and gifts aren’t easy via Facebook chat, or MSN. Words are what we do have. Quality time is possible, but then with the way we communicate online is it quality time, or is it the gaps between other things – or turning that on its head is it quality time cos we fit it around our offline activities.

So to stop myself from burning out what do I do? Even tonight at Duggie Dug Dug I took the steward’s role, staffing the door. I hope tomorrow morning I can really engage in the worship, and I’m off to a Taize service in the evening, to give me the space to listen to God. Then Monday I need to start as I mean to go on, eat breakfast, run and get on top of my admin. So wish me luck, please pray for me if you do and if you want check up on me on Monday – though don’t distract me please.

learning to swim

Sometimes I fail at things. Things get bigger than me, and stress me out.

I've not been running in ages, grade 5 theory is really difficult and this Sunday coming my service is the most important to date - or at least it feels like that - assessed all age service at my home church on the transfiguration!!!

I'm trying to be real in this blog, not every thing is easy, but as someone said in an email to me last night - God puts us in situations out of our depth. I don't think He does that to watch us drown, but to teach us to swim.

My mum taught me to swim. Week after week she walked backwards doing widths in our local high school swimming pool, knowing that she was there gave me the confidence to swim without arm bands.

I know when I'm stressed and can't touch the floor that God is there, willing me on and ready to catch me if it all gets to much.

update on jogging and music.

So I took a few days off jogging due to lack of motivation, but did learn some new Zumba steps on my wii. Then yesterday went for a jog/walk to the shop, doing about half the distance I'm meant to - and still on week 1 of the couch to 5k plan. then walked the mile ish back - with pizza for tea!

After that I had my first music theory lesson. The teacher was lovely though does want to hear me play at some point (what is it with music-types and wanting to hear me ruin songs. It looks like I will be taking the exam in June. We did basic things like key signatures and clefs. Think its going to take me a few weeks to get back into it, but its all good fun.

I'm doing the theory as its something I wished I had done years ago when I had the opportunity but didn't due to holiday clubs. I'm also taking this on as I'm already failing one point on the aims for 2012, so am compensating for that.