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My church is about to head into a pretty big transition. Our Pastor for the last 17 years leaves in February to a new position at another church. By God's great grace this is set to be a peaceful parting, Rob and I are on the Leadership Team of our church and there is a strong united feeling amongst us all that God really is calling our Pastor and His wife to a new fellowship where they can do a tremendous amount of good. We are happy to release them with our full blessing and support to follow God's call.
Even though this is going to be a healthy step it is still going to be a major leap into the unknown and unusual for our church. People will take on new responsibilities, changes will be made, there will be a fresh approach to some areas of ministry.
The phrase that keeps returning to my mind over and over again, is faith, not fear. I recently read this poem written by Kent Keith and allegedly revised by Mother Teresa
It drives home to me that that there are many fearful reasons to not do the right thing. You might be misunderstood, you might fail, you might feel alone. Some of your fears may very well be valid; people do get jealous of success, so why not just stay mediocre?
But letting your fears dictate your choices is a pretty poor way to live a life. I am so adamant that I don't want to enter 2018 with a sense of fear, no matter how great the challenges are that lie ahead. Instead I want to let faith direct my choices and decisions. If you are ruled by fear you will always be mindful of the hundred things that can go wrong, but if you are ruled by faith you only need to think of one wonderful thing at a time.
Faith tells me that God is a Good Shepherd who has led our church faithfully to this point and He will lead us to take the next step, and the one after that. Faith tells me that God wants to build His Church in love, beauty and strength so I am filled with hope. Faith tells me that although my church is full of all kinds of different people with different viewpoints and experiences, that in Christ, we can have unity of the Spirit to move forward together as a family.
Faith tells me that even when I feel inadequate to be part of leadership that Christ is the all sufficient chief Pastor, and as long as I stick close to Him, I will be enough, just as I am in Him.
Faith, not fear, is all it takes to face the next step...and the one after that, and the one after that.
It drives home to me that that there are many fearful reasons to not do the right thing. You might be misunderstood, you might fail, you might feel alone. Some of your fears may very well be valid; people do get jealous of success, so why not just stay mediocre?
But letting your fears dictate your choices is a pretty poor way to live a life. I am so adamant that I don't want to enter 2018 with a sense of fear, no matter how great the challenges are that lie ahead. Instead I want to let faith direct my choices and decisions. If you are ruled by fear you will always be mindful of the hundred things that can go wrong, but if you are ruled by faith you only need to think of one wonderful thing at a time.
Faith tells me that God is a Good Shepherd who has led our church faithfully to this point and He will lead us to take the next step, and the one after that. Faith tells me that God wants to build His Church in love, beauty and strength so I am filled with hope. Faith tells me that although my church is full of all kinds of different people with different viewpoints and experiences, that in Christ, we can have unity of the Spirit to move forward together as a family.
Faith tells me that even when I feel inadequate to be part of leadership that Christ is the all sufficient chief Pastor, and as long as I stick close to Him, I will be enough, just as I am in Him.
Faith, not fear, is all it takes to face the next step...and the one after that, and the one after that.
Time and Date: A wet, cold and miserable afternoon on Thursday 5th's January. Started preparing food at 3pm, meal was ready to serve at 5:30pm.
Expectations: Were low. I have made beef stew several times before but with very mixed results. Sometimes the meat is too tough, sometimes the potatoes are too hard and nearly always; my sauce is very weak and watery. My experience of cooking beef stew has been, in a word, frustrating.
Difficulty Level: Easy - especially with the pictures in the book., I would have made things even easier for myself again if I had chopped up all of the veg and ingredients before I started instead of doing them as I went along. The one thing I did differently this time is that I set aside the meat after I had browned it. Normally I skip this step to save on washing up.... which might be why I had problems before!
Any Personal variations to the recipe: I added a leek and a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce.
Results: A hearty warm stew, with soft potato chunks in a rich thick sauce. Hurrah! This felt like such a win for me, especially because Rob loves a good stew and has had to step in several times in the past to rescue my watery offering. (His stews always turn out fine)
Who ate it: Rob, Orla and I ate it for tea yesterday with garlic bread and then had the left overs for lunch today with slices of buttered Tiger loaf. I was especially pleased that Orla happily ate a bow full, leaving only a few of the bigger chunks of meat. Nearing 2 she is getting more particular about what she will and won't eat, so finding something that she seemed to like is a big hit with me!
Would I make it again: Already adding it into our family meal planner.
My Dad sent me a link to this reading challenge a few days before the end of December. It has 26 different book prompts to read and is from Hannah Braime's blog, which you can find 
I thought it would be quite a fun thing to do with my Dad. We both love reading and I owe him for introducing me to some classics; he used to read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to me as bedtime stories. It will be interesting to see our different choices and how we get on with the challenge.
The first prompt is 'A book that you read in school'. There were a few tempting choices; Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Handmaid's Tale, To Kill a Mocking Bird... But as I love all of these books and have read them again in the last few years I decided to choose a book that I haven't read since High School; Shakespeare's Macbeth.
I know technically it is a play rather than a book but I am sticking to my choice because I really want to re-read it. By the way, how fitting does my fancy page-marker look with this beaten up spooky looking copy of Macbeth! It was a Christmas present from my good friend, Anna, that she discovered at a craft fair. If you are interested the maker is called 
So, what are your New Year Resolutions? And if you have any tips for celebrating any of these holidays please share them in the comments. I'd love to hear from you!
I've been blogging on Word Press for five years on a blog called 
Over the last couple of years my blogging became more and more infrequent until I pretty much stopped completely. Life got in the way, I suppose. I was having little sleep, trying to get the balance of work and home right and I was working on a qualification that ate up a lot of my head space. There really wasn't time to make cookies, let alone blog about them!
But I really, really missed it. I'd forgotten how much fun blogging is and how much it pushed me to try new things and tackle projects. I'd forgotten how having a place to document the things we do as a family makes me more determined to do fun things. And eventually I decided it was time to pick it up again. I made some lists and very sweetly (or pleadingly) asked my web-designer-husband, Rob, to set me up with a new blog for the New Year. He kindly obliged and is working on sprucing this place up further with a proper logo to come soon!
So, here we are 2018, it's now 9:36pm on the 1st January and I am back to the blogging world and am ready to start sharing again what is happening in the life of my little family.
Stay tuned!
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