Welcome

So, right from the start of this new adventure I want you to know that I’m not writing posts because I am brilliant at sharing, modelling and nurturing faith with my three lovely children – some days feel like a disaster, many times I try & fail with style. A good friend encouraged me by saying I might have a ‘ministry of imperfection’. I certainly know I don’t get it all right (whatever that looks like!), and I am happy to be honest about that in the hope that it opens up conversations which might encourage and inspire.

The truth is I am passionate about my children growing in faith – it comes up there alongside my hopes that they will be healthy, secure, loved, and find purpose and fulfillment. In fact I’m not sure I can separate it out from those hopes. Jesus is the only one who brings life in all its fullness, and that is my prayer for them.

I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of. (John 10:10, The Message)

But its the ‘how’ that’s an adventure and a half, a challenge with lots of frustrations, failures and also full
of precious moments of blessing and new insight – insights that nurture my faith too. It’s an adventure with sometimes unexpected encouragements – always good to remember on the painful ‘nothing is going right’ (OK, more honestly – ‘I’m a failure as a Christian mother’) days – like the wonderful one I wanted to show you that we found hidden among the messages in Andrew’s Fathers Day present this year!

Let me introduce my family a bit, I am married to Andrew, a vicar, and we have three children, a boy & two girls. Our oldest girl has Aspergers (some say ASD, some Autism, some high functioning autism) and we are in the process of assessment with our youngest girl too; their way of seeing and understanding things, and the way they experience the world around them shapes our family life quite a bit!

In September they will all be full time at school, two in secondary, one starting infants – so I am told I might get a tiny little bit more time & space for the other things I fill life with. I am ordained too, and minister alongside Andrew on a flexible voluntary basis, so far since we moved here my ministry has involved children’s groups, work with families, work in infant & secondary schools, leading & preaching (esp love all age) and writing. I love gardening, crafting, baking researching family trees, and do them whenever I get a chance – oh and of course somehow or other all the jobs that go hand in hand with being ‘full time mum’ get thrown into the mix too (and some of them – dusting?? – get ignored!).

I am excited about sharing the ups and downs of this adventure I have been on for nearly 14 years now – and I am looking forward to the conversations we will have about sharing faith with our children.

“Daddy, I love you so much because – along with mummy – have helped me to learn more about God.”

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