A few months ago, as spring was emerging, I was still waking up in the dark, but there came a day when I’d open my eyes in the morning, and no longer hear the stillness of night. Instead, I would wake to the sounds of birds singing. It struck me that their song came before… Continue reading The Dawn Chorus
Hope is a powerful thing. A couple of weekends ago, I was in Calais doing some worship mission with an amazing group of people. Discussing the refugee crisis and the lengths that some of the people we’d met were going to, one of the team talked about the power of hope. These were a group… Continue reading Hope.
In a time when women were marginalised and unimportant, the presence of any woman’s name, let alone five women’s names, in a Jewish genealogy was remarkable. The fact that they are there tells us a lot about Christianity – it tells us that this faith is a counter-cultural faith, that women are valued and that everyone… Continue reading The Grace Files – #005 Rahab
One of the names of Jesus is Lion of the tribe of Judah. Judah refers to the baby I mentioned in the last post, born in wonderful and grace-filled circumstances. So surely, he was a great guy all-round and that’s why he gets a prominent feature in a name of Jesus? Not quite… Judah was… Continue reading The Grace Files: #003/004 Judah & Tamar
In the last post I briefly mentioned Leah. She was Laban’s eldest daughter, and the one who Jacob was tricked into marrying. Though not mentioned by name in the Matthew 1 genealogy, Jacob had more than one wife and it is Leah’s son who is an ancestor of Christ. Let’s look into her story to… Continue reading The Grace Files: #002 Leah
One of the best things about Christianity is that no one is disqualified, no one is too “bad”. At the very heart of all of it is a message of grace, which is literally available for anyone. And Jesus was the perfect embodiment of it. He dined with the ones who religion says can’t come… Continue reading The Grace Files: #001 Jacob
I was sat in my garden earlier this week, making the most of the sun and taking in all the beauty. One of my favourite things about nature is the lessons and revelations you can always get from it, and this time, it only took about 10 minutes for some wisdom to drop from the… Continue reading Pretty Weeds
So today marks the first official day of Spring! Though it doesn’t feel or look that much like spring, I’m still excited by this news. Spring is my favourite season (tied with Autumn) for various reasons. “The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come.” Song of Songs 2:12 I came across… Continue reading 6 Reasons Why Spring is the Best Season
I remember just over a year ago as I worked tirelessly to take off plaster, wallpaper and cork under flooring from my sister’s new house, something dawned on me. I imagined us, humans, as houses. All throughout our lives we fill ourselves up with things, plaster our walls, paint, put down flooring. Some of that… Continue reading Putting On and Putting Off
If your new year’s resolution was to read more books, to get closer to God or to be more disciplined, this reading list might be useful for you! I was inspired to share my recommended reads after reading a friend’s post. (Check out her post for some extra titles!) I’ve read lots of incredible books over… Continue reading Recommended Reading
do the write thing 