Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

I feel loved when I open the fridge and it’s full of food.

I feel loved when I’m warm.

I feel loved when I can close my eyes and feel the sunshine on my face.

I feel loved when my husband makes brownies.

But I really feel it because I’ve known a deeper love.

I was 15 years old and on a confirmation camp with the Methodist church that I’d grown up in. The site was a dazzlingly green forest somewhere in the Kwa-Zulu Natal midlands in South Africa.

I remember sitting on that rough carpet floor typical of simple, cheap camp halls, with a group of similarly aged boys and girls. The youth pastor sat on the floor with us and asked us:

“Who knows what grace is?”

There were some responses that I don’t remember at all.

He went on:

“Grace is undeserved love. It’s the love that God has for you. It’s love that is for you no matter what you’ve done. It’s the love shown when Jesus died on the cross. He died because he loves you.”

Not merely accepted, not merely tolerated, not simply told to keep going to the next level.

Loved.

I’d been to Sunday School all my life. I had read my Bible every night. But I had not heard this. I needed someone to tell me this.

And something clicked. Like most girls my age I was plagued by a constant sense of not being good enough, of not working hard enough, a sense that we’re not going to make it. And suddenly I felt something completely new.

A person who loved me with the deepest purest love.

And I felt all put together. Words were clearer. I felt connected where before I had felt immaterial.

I felt confident. Human. It was all going to be ok.

The next day, I sat on a hillside with a gentle older woman and for some reason I wept. There and then I responded to that love. And said thank you to Jesus.

“Sometimes the Lord heals us with tears,” she said.

Where can you reduce clutter in your life?

The title for this piece is both a reflection of my lack of inspiration for a title, and the content of this article.

I despise clutter. Less is more. A home should at all times have enough empty space in it for a spontaneous grand jeté.

I’d like to have you think that this is what I’d look like ⬆️

So I’d like to plead innocence when it comes to any clutter in my home. I know who the culprits are and they shall remain nameless.

Nevertheless, having home-educated my children, there are certain small cupboards that have been declared off-limits to me by certain said children, and yet contain things that I know they have hardly looked at – in years.

In fact, I suspect even they don’t know what is in those cupboards.

They are in general rooms in the house (not their own rooms), so I might claim a mum’s over-ruling prerogative and attack those cupboards when they’re not looking.

And there is still hope that one day I might look like the gif.

What snack would you eat right now?

But not just any brownie.

I know it’s unusual, but I’m not interested in things packed with sugar, white flour and butter. I think we can totally make delicious, happy-making, indulgent food that is also actually good for us.

So I’m all for a dark chocolate brownie. One that isn’t made with loads of eggs and flour, but with things like ground almonds, nut butter, coconut oil and even (trust me) sweet potato or black beans.

It’s chocolatey and gooey. It’s good for you. It’s heavenly.

I would eat it any time of the day or night.

Edit: I’m including a link to one of my favourite recipes here.

What is your mission?

About six months ago an elderly neighbour of ours started losing his keys. He lives on his own. Another pensioner living in our area – a friend of his – committed herself to visiting him regularly. It seems he’s always managed on his own and liked things done a certain way. He didn’t easily accept help, and he can’t hear very well. His friend – let’s call her Samantha – persisted in regularly checking on him.

A few days ago she was outside calling for him as he wasn’t answering the door. It turns out he had had a stroke and fallen. An ambulance came and took him away.

I shudder to think what could have happened had Samantha not been regularly checking on him. As it is, no-one knows how long he had been lying there, but had it not been for Samantha, it could have been much longer.

It’s people like her that make things so much better. They’re not famous, they don’t have a big social media following, they don’t give stirring speeches. They’re simply flexible if they see someone in need, and whether it’s appreciated or not, they’ll commit to meeting that need.

I don’t know what my mission is. When I was much younger, I had ambitions to achieve great things – be a gifted Bible teacher, write for famous websites, teach many about Jesus. These are good things. For me they had the outward appearance of nobility, but they were largely about myself.

Now I’m trying harder to follow the one who told a story about an unlikely helper: someone who deviated from his own plan to feed and care for someone else. He stopped and bandaged his wounds when church people were too busy and “holy” to do so. Jesus told us to go and be like that helper.

Right now my family need my attention, but in general I want to be ready. I want to be more like Samantha.

#bloganuary

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

I haven’t commuted in a long time but I can remember sitting in a crowded train carriage on murky grey mornings with other sleepy commuters absorbed by their phones. The train would weave its way passed countless flats and sub-divided maisonettes as it pulled into one of the busiest train stations in London. And as it did so, I remember the unmistakeably delicious smell of toasting bread. People were making breakfast.

London is grey. The sky is grey. The concrete beneath our shoes is grey. The trains creak and the bridges are grimy. Sometimes for all our busyness it feels like colour and life is being squeezed out and mixed into murky dull tones in the puddles on the street.

And then there is that smell of toast.

People say that if you don’t believe in God, how do you explain bacon sandwiches?

Despite all our technological advances, we cannot create life. We know the depth of it, but we at times take it for granted. We know the pain of loneliness, how growing old is hard. We know how fragile it is. Something tells us this was not how it was supposed to be. We enjoy simple comforts – the richness and joy and delight of it. We do know that despite everything, life is precious.

One of the very first commandments given was to preserve life “…for on the day you eat of [one particular tree in Eden], you will certainly die.” That command wasn’t followed and since then there has been that squeeze, that downward pull of grey. Yet even though that command was broken, God wants things to go well for us and for us to have a long life.

There are certainly things worth dying for. After all, the man who affected the greatest change in history lived a relatively short life. Now wherever we go in the world, if we see a cross we are reminded of that.

But we are also reminded that the purpose of that death was life. He loved us so much that he himself came, and by living his beautifully good life, then dying and rising again, brought the life we lost so long ago, the life of colour, the life without that downward pull.

Life that overcomes death.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.”

John 11:25

Genesis 2:17, Ephesians 6:3

#bloganuary

What could you do differently?

There are loads of things that I could do differently.

Literally loads. It comes in loads.

It chugs along from laundry bag to washer to dryer to hanging line to folding bag and back to the cupboard only to make space for the next load that follows it each step of the way.

But instead I could totally be on top of it.

There could be moments, perhaps even minutes when the laundry bag is empty, and when the drying line is folded away as there is nothing on it.

And then I could break into song.

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

I’m more for beautiful, soul-lifting pictures than words. So mine would say:

Slow down. Listen to the silence. Look for the miracles.

With a very beautiful picture. Like this one:

What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

You are welcome.

I am listening.

Your feelings are ok.

I will sit with you.

I will include you.

I accept you as you are.

I will help you.

I will never abandon you.

This is a very great gift. It’s rare but it’s there.

The apostle Paul felt this very keenly and wrote this to the church in Rome:

But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 CSB

The best day of my life was when I realised that Jesus accepted me because he loved me.

#bloganuary