February: Hello

January has been and gone, already. How fast did those 31 days fly by? Well, in our house: very! I think that the baby calpol and ibuprofen ranges are going to be recording an increase in profits this month So many bugs, so many upset nights, so many coughs and colds. And I’m pretty sure Beth and Ben brought a different bug home, which they gave to each other. Phew. Glad all that is over…. I hate it when my babies are sick.

So. February. What will we do this month. Its the perfect month to do ’28 day shred’ although I am a little late starting, but if I don’t start today, then I never will… I used to walk to work (yes, I did) it was over a mile – and I walked back I was a lot slimmer then. I asked Ryan to find me a mile route here in the village, but we concluded that without the pressure of having to get to work, or some other dangling carrot me just going for walks wouldn’t actually be exercise. So after having a rather home bound January, I’d quite enjoy walking or something to get me moving… I mean I do move, but it mainly involves running up the stairs, and back down, with or without baby!

This is my last month of maternity leave, and I want it to matter! I want to do some really lovely things, see some lovely people, and have a party. I had the party last night. My favourite girls came – and their guys. We sipped champagne. I read some of my book. And we ate canapes & mini sweet treats. I had fun with everyone – and enjoyed signing books for friends!

I have some craft ideas, and a love for pinterest… so I’m going to try some patchwork There’s going to be a new baby in my extended family (you didn’t think me did you? Remember: three is my perfect family!) and I’d quote like to make something special for my niece or nephew

I have been reading some prayers in the bible, let me share this one from Ephesians 3:16,

 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. ¹⁷ Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. ¹⁸ And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. ¹⁹ May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (NLT)

Amen!

That is my prayer for today, that I will know God’s love and show it to my children, my husband, family and friends.

Have a Fantastic February, love A xox

 

Marriage

This year we celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary – and ten years of being ‘together’. Through the past decade we have had a lot of laughs, talking, love, conversation, loving, talking, loving and probably more talking Recently, friends’ marriages have ended. The ones who had a slow engagement and then married and the ones who met and married. I love love. (and so do they). This is a reminder for me (for you?) on how important keeping connection in marriage is… a few tips shall we say? 

Books I have read that are totally helpful (at any point in your marriage). Note: I read a lot about marriage. Like I do about child-rearing. Like I do about Christianity. This isn’t when it’s failing, rather to protect something so special to me. I want to know what a 2 year old should be doing so I read about 2 year olds. Same way, I want love to last in our marriage, I want to be a great wife. Almost a Proverbs 31 wife. But sigh. The cloth making enterprise in my own home is NOT ever going to work… I also listen to podcasts. 

So my fave marriage/love teachings are: The Marriage Course/Book by HTB, any dating/relationship book I find(!) and then the CD series from Danny Silk: Defining the Relationship. And a recent find is the one by Zig Ziglar (now, I can’t remember this title but he is an incredible writer and inspired the likes of Seth Godin etc… so pretty incredible at that!!) 

I think the most important thing in marriage is. Wait. There are so many, so very many important things in marriage. And since all the words in my blog are goggle-able (if you get me) then I will write about the relationship/talking/conversing aspect of marriage. I’m sure you can find blogs/books on the other parts…

I think being connected: connecting is pretty much the most important thing. So often we get busy. Really busy. Ryan may be in a conference, or working late, for several nights in a row. I might be busy with my stuff, feeding, facebook etc So when we see each other it’s a very quick hello/goodnight/how are you. This kind of conversation can only last for us for a few days. Rather like a business transaction. I give a brief update on the children, any repairs to the house, financial figures, any highlights of the day. I receive a brief update on his day. There is a connection (because we work at that for all the other days we are not really busy) but it would not sustain our marriage. 

We would not actually be doing anything at all together. It really would be business. Rather than friendship, love, or fun…and we would end up running two separate lives. Separately. And if they happened to cross paths it would either be good, or (most probably for us) very bad!

In the recent book by Zig, he has a questionnaire and it asks how many times a day do you hold hands without needing to. So initially I thought ‘hardly ever’, but after waiting it out through the day, realised that we do hold hands if going for a walk, sitting in the car – ha imagine being like the couples who sit at traffic lights having a kiss imagine! So holding hands seems so well, basic, doesn’t it? But this is about the ‘connection’. 

What I mean by ‘connection’ is: meeting someone in a deep way – not like the ‘encounter’ you will have with the supermarket checkout lady (or the self scanner unit… I guess if you do all your communication via email/social media it could end up like that.. that would be pretty bad for us!!) So connecting at a level where you can not only talk about the events, but about feelings, about emotions and connect in a soul-to-soul kind of way.

This has taken me years to discover! Rushing around isn’t conducive to a long lasting relationship. You get cross. You don’t understand the other person. They don’t understand you. Oh wait. I’m not naturally a busy person. Just in the past five years we have had three wonderful children and somehow from the hours of 7am-6pm I get really really really busy. Never too busy to eat, but just a bit too busy to have super-dooper deep conversations. So we worked out we need a few evenings a week together to re-connect! ha. Not just to go through out diaries and make plans -although we do – because knowing what each other is doing actually helps

I would say that our relationship is better now than when we first got married. It was wonderful then, just making our first home, just enjoying two incomes to spend on us and our holidays [pause to remember our hols to California, Zimbabwe, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge............... loved it! and I love it now - it is so different, and, different is good]. Now we are a family of five things change. And change is also good. Yesterday we realised that Beth and Ben would be staying at my parents overnight and Ryan suggested we catch a train to Paris with Alyssia. OH how I would have loved that. OH how I love that we can still think of things like that

Being connected means that you deal with things. Means that you forgive. Not the forgiveness that you dig back up to use as ammunition in a future argument. btw that’s not forgiveness. Nor is forgiveness saying what happened doesn’t matter. It is about talking about what happened, how you feel and then choosing to give the gift of forgiveness (and not seeking to sneakily take that gift back at some point in the future – you can’t with a real gift can you?) and in choosing to forgive you may forget, you may not, but it’s about your heart response to that person in the hours and days/weeks etc, to come.

So we deal with things. Small things, big things, and mainly expectations. You know. The silent ones. The silent ones that can often kill relationships – and no-one knows why, because they had NO idea what on earth your expectation was. Yeh. Those. You know? Either expectations on someone else. Or on yourself. Here’s a simple one – but you can replace with any scenario. I was absolutely stressed out for several days at 5.15 pm. This is around the time Ryan gets home. There I am with baby in arms, two older children playing and I decide it’s tidy up time and time to cook tea, and time to sort out everything I didn’t get round to in the whole day: laundry/ironing/cleaning/paperwork/unload and load the dishwasher. Can you see this is turning into a disaster… well. As soon as Ryan gets home – probably late as the roadworks are in place for SIX weeks… I just tell him all that I couldn’t do, it’s garbled, I don’t make sense, and then he asked: Why did you try and do it all at once. I said: for you so you get home to a tidy home. We both laugh. thankfully I laugh. My expectation on myself is perfect home for his return. I realise that this is impossible. And begin removing the expectation I put on myself (shame, I loved the ideal of perfect housewife with three children all sat silently paying their own thing, maybe with a little halo around their head, and some classical music playing, as I WAKE UP… this isn’t my life!!!). We realised that 5pm gets super stressful for me because I try to make it all perfect, but that can wait. Dinner can’t! You know what, I think that coming home to us all content – no halos or the likes – is probably more welcoming than a stressed-running out of control wife So glad we talked about that one!

In dealing with the little things, and, it usually is the little things that you hold onto, that makes the next little thing that little bit bigger, which after a few months of this means you start hardening your heart. Start trying to ‘get even’. Start trying to despise the other and then love begins to get lost. So if you have little things… please, take a moment, go on a walk, hold hands, talk, talk, talk…… and let the little thing get sorted out. It protects your marriage. Danny Silk in the CD series spoke about being connected and how that keeps your relationship alive. So by dealing with the small things, the love, romance, fun, love … all can be enjoyed as you have fun in relationship with each other.

To sumarise: talk. Don’t make your relationship like a business transaction. Don’t take record of wrong to use against the other in the future (because if you do, so does the other and it’s not actually nice hearing their list……)

You know I like words so I will ponder on this as I drink my coffee for the morning, but scroll lower to read the message version: 1 Corinithians 13:

⁴ Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

⁵ It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) anddoes not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights orits own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].

⁶ It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

⁷ Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].

⁸ Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].

 

The Message version says:

   Love never gives up. 
   Love cares more for others than for self. 
   Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. 
   Love doesn’t strut, 
   Doesn’t have a swelled head, 
   Doesn’t force itself on others, 
   Isn’t always “me first,” 
   Doesn’t fly off the handle, 
   Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, 
   Doesn’t revel when others grovel, 
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, 
   Puts up with anything, 
   Trusts God always, 
   Always looks for the best, 
   Never looks back, 
   But keeps going to the end.

   Love never dies.

 

It is this love that connects us.  Love that never gives up, love that takes pleasure in truth, love that trusts and looks for the best – never looking back (aka real forgiveness) and keeps on loving.

Thankful for our relationship. And more so to the God who makes love in our hearts so very real, as He loved us first in a way that we can only receive, and love as best we can in return: perfect love. A love that holds us. Thank you God.

Love A xox

Awoken with a song

I woke up this morning (finally, when I was ready – not at 12, 1, nor 2 when Ben was He wanted to talk to us about who was asleep – Beth? Abbit? Balloon? Oh. My. Ben, yes, the balloon is asleep!!)

And as I really woke up I found myself singing in my head these words:

That were an offering far too small;

It is from, after some googling, the song “When I survey the wonderous Cross” By Isaac Watts in 1707. It is talking more so about repaying God for the wonder that He has done.  Wikipedia suggest that it is linked to the parable of the talents (I don’t see it.)

However, I do see a link between that phrase and the verse Galations 6:14 (NLT)

As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.

So I am to boast, take note, talk about God. The world is not interested in me: Just what is within me? Further insight into this verse, and perhaps the hymn is here in Message translation of the same verse:

^14-16For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world,set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate.

This is what it means then: My offering, my gift to Him for the freedom I have in Christ is too small. If i think about all that Jesus has done, will do, is doing – not having to fit into a specific mould suggested by others. Not having to be someone else.

Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them!

So I will keep on pondering what this means, as you can tell this is an unfinished blog, but didn’t want to lose my thought track with the business of routine about to begin any minute.

Lunch packed? CLothes ready? Tie found? Shoes clean? Book bag ready? In it all I will remain thankful for the freedom and seek to show my family and friends they too are: free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. (aka conformity!)

Love, Anna xox

 

Here is the rest of the hymn, you could read it as a poem-

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God,
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down,
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the world,
And all the world is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all

Wedding day

Today Ryan’s aunty and uncle have come to look after our children so that we can go to a wedding near Cambridge Today I am wife of the Best Man! Ok, that’s my role every day (wink).
The sun is shining, the sky is bright blue, we are on the motor way and then we will be there.

I love marriage, I love love and I love celebrating people. So it’s a perfect day for a wedding!

So excited to have a day together with Ryan, we were just saying that this we haven’t done this-ie gone to a wedding without children, well, since we had children!

love a xox

Devotion?

I am writing at the moment on devotion. What it means to be devoted and what we are devoted to.

As in, I am devoted to God. My husband, my children and my family.

But what else takes up my time – willingly or unwillingly. Yes there’s the housework and errands. But what about other gods? Yes. I mean that. Idols in my life. Things I worship that I shouldn’t…

Yesterday when I was listening to the radio, there was a man – Jonathan Barkley from Ekklesia speaking about our moral compass. I enjoyed his opening statement so much that I had to go listen to it again and typed up the main points. (you might think it’s a bit extreme to transcribe a phone interview, but you know when something really impacts you, you need to remember it). This is a brief transcript of his point. I emailed him to say how much I enjoyed the thought provoking and engaging debate he began. He is a Christian. I kind of knew as he was talking, but it’s obvious on his website.

this is in regards to the notw, banking crisis, mp £ scandals etc..

Do we have higher standards than ever before? We can’t think of a mythical bygone age where everything was great. Age to age values change. In each age we need to identify what we value, and what we worship. What alters we bow before. We have contemporary values, our new gods are consupmtion, growth, celebrity.

Even our homes used to be a place of hospitality, now they are an investment. We have fuelled this ‘religion’ by borrowing, by bowing at the alter of celebrity. We have allowed something to grow almost out of control so that they can no longer be allowed to fail.

Yes, there are other things that take my attention, things I may bow to or worship. I am certain that I want to continue to have a clear focus in life. To identify my values and know that they are aligned with God’s will for my life, for my families life. That despite the moral compass being a little off north, I can make change within the environments that I live in. And my scripture that inspired all of this, Hebrews 13:9:

Do not be carried about by different and varied and alien teachings; for it is good for the heart to be established and ennobled and strengthened by means of grace (God’s favor and spiritual blessing) and not [to be devoted to] foods [rules of diet and ritualistic meals], which bring no [spiritual] benefit or profit to those who observe them

A heart that is established and ennobled by means of grace – yes please!

Have a wonderful day, love xoxo

I love my family

First of all….. Sorry! I was writing and uploading my blog but they don’t seem to have made it into wordpress.com. Ooops!

This one is from Friday….. Right. Now. How to fix my blog…..! xox

The other night, we went shopping after work. And then took the children out to Nando’s. I have to say it was the best time as a family at a restaurant EVER. Our children were amazing… You know like the well behaved children in a restaurant you aspire to having one day. Beth even went up to the manager to ask if she could have a balloon!

We have found more music. Ok. Ryan found more music:-

Ryan found this band and we love it – hope you enjoy it. This music is exceptional. Watch on youtube to get a taster – they are a three piece band playing at least three times as many instruments. Beautiful Lyrics. Beautiful Worship.

Future of Forestry is a band from San Diego. I don’t know much else, but aren’t the words melting you right now?

Yesterday we painted the fence and Ryan fixed up the garden shed. Our patio was completed and it is looking amazing out there. We have been relaxing ready for the big conference this week.

Enjoy the music. And everyone who is close to you! Love xox