Tag Archives: faith

in the father’s hands

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It’s been the strangest few months – hence my lack of blogs.

Lockdown and the effects of the pandemic have been a unique experience for us all and each of us has reacted differently. I’ve admired the resilience of fellow writers and creatives who have churned out books and continued to expound their thoughts and feelings over the past year. Often this has been a channel for very real anxiety, frustration and confusion.

And yet I have found myself frozen and silent on the side lines, like a spectator in the stands of an England football match, looking on in fear. 

Watching England play on Tuesday night reacquainted me with all the stress of supporting your national team, the intakes of breath as the opposing team take a shot at goal. The rising hopes and then that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you watch them trying to set up a goal, only to give away the ball to the other side, who dance it dangerously away towards our open goal. It’s stressful to watch and I have to confess to spending many England World Cup games in the kitchen, unable to cope with the edge of the seat nerves.

So, while some of my fellow creatives have been either launching themselves into the field or standing waving and shouting in the stands, I have been stuck to my seat, unable to understand my emotions and unable to form coherent or appropriate words for each twist and turn of the pandemic.

One author has really helped me shine a flickering candle on what might have been happening and helped me see I am not alone. Catherine Fox’s Tales from Lindford has turned out to be a cathartic read.

Always a fan of the author’s stimulating writing and delicious irreverent humour, I dived into this new offering hoping for an escape from the dismal headlines. The book was written in real time during 2020 and charts the characters experiences and reactions to what was happening. It took me back to the days before we’d even heard of Covid-19, the need for face masks and before vaccines. It reminded me of the journey we’ve all been on. More than that, as I read some of the feelings and thoughts of the various characters, I recognised my own emotions and mixed up thoughts. For many there were no words, no neat explanations, no clear way through the loss, the sadness and the mess. Like one of her characters Freddie, there have been so many times in the past months when I have just wanted to scream a very loud expletive at the top of my voice.

I am still struggling with words, both in my head and in print. The pandemic has shaken my foundations – there could be cracks, I daren’t look too closely – but they are still standing at the moment. Let’s see what happens next and where we are at the end of the summer.

One phrase has been going round my head for the past few days #inthefather’shands. I’ve found when I lack words, I can trust in God’s Word to help me keep taking the next step. 

“…no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.” John 10.29  

time for a new diary

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In true Bridget Jones spirit I bought a new diary the other week. 

I love diaries. I love filling out the details on the first page and putting in all the family birthdays and special events to come (not that I always remember them!). Before the year starts I like flicking through the clean pages with room for notes against each month. My last two diaries have been particularly brilliant as they even have tear out pages for shopping lists or other vital notes.

Even though I have a digital calendar on my phone, I still love my physical diary with pages. It’s a bit like reading a book, as opposed to articles online. There are some things we never tire of.

A few years ago, finding good diaries for my communications team was a bit of a ritual. When the catalogue for ordering the very corporate plain black or blue dairies came around the departments we all shook our heads. “We’ll find something more colourful,” I assured the team. For one very practical reason it was easy to distinguish whose was whose and to spot them amidst even the most cluttered workspace. So, each autumn I would ensure that I chose spotty, striped or other patterned versions that fitted our team spirit and brightened up the desks. Somehow the arrival of those brightly coloured diaries on our desks cut through any autumn gloom and signalled the start of exciting new things to come, even if we didn’t know what was ahead there were dozens of fresh pages to fill with deadlines, events and even holidays to be added in.

Like most people, my diary for this year is a poor relation to those of previous years. It is full of rubbed out events and trips, with lots of what appear to be blank weeks – ah, that would be lockdown! So, as my very stylish 2020 diary is consigned to the bottom drawer, I am really hoping for something fresh in the new year. I will dutifully fill in the events for 2021 that coronavirus cannot cancel, like birthdays and anniversaries, but I’m wondering what else I might be able to add in…

After all, I’ve been thinking – “we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Standing on a rock

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Twenty-nine years ago to the day I was sitting in church in a small Cumbrian town. It was Maundy Thursday and my husband was leading the service. It was a bright spring day, just like today. I was 29-years-old and expecting our second child. Another twinge in my tummy made me shift in the wooden pew and wince. Could it be starting? I wondered. 

Some hours later we welcomed our beautiful daughter into the world in Barrow-in-Furness hospital and it wasn’t long before her brother and her grandparents arrived to seal that very special Easter weekend event.

Today I wished our grown-up daughter happy birthday via Whatsapp video. She is expecting her first child and the due date is tomorrow. I can’t believe my baby is having a baby! 

But the world our grandchild will be born into looks vastly different.

When our eldest son was born, it wasn’t the easiest birth and I was grateful for very personal care and visits from my midwife and sometimes a health visitor. Having a baby brings enormous change. We didn’t make it easy for ourselves, of course, as two weeks after his birth I drove across the country from Nottingham to Carlisle for his father’s ordination and within another couple of weeks we moved house for a new job and life in Cumbria.

But all this stress and change pales into insignificance beside what is happening today with the Coronavirus.

It’s a daunting time too for anyone to be giving birth and caring for a tiny new person.

Yesterday I heard that midwives will no longer visit new mums at home, as all home care and checks have been suspended. They really are on their own once they leave hospital. No neighbours or friends will be allowed to call by and family aren’t even allowed to visit. I am worried about how isolating this will feel.

Our daughter is a paediatrician. She should be well equipped to keep an eye on the development of her new baby, who we pray arrives safely very soon. She has a loving husband who will take care of her. But I know she will struggle with not sharing this special time with friends and family or enjoying the practical love and support of her community.

Apart from the awaited new arrival, the virus is a challenge for us as a family in many ways with special events in jeopardy and all of us facing hidden fears of what might happen next.

This morning I read an article from an Italian writer talking about what we will face in the coming weeks. Francesca Melandri wrote: “At some point, you will realise it’s tough. You will be afraid. … That boat in which you’ll be sailing in order to defeat the epidemic will not look the same to everyone nor is it actually the same for everyone: it never was.”

But there is one thing that is the same. And it was the same 29 years ago in Cumbria, when I burst into tears on arriving at the hospital – I had my own fears to conquer.

I knew then, and I know now, that these words from Psalm 46 are true:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

When the world seems to be crumbling all we can do is remember we are standing on a rock and God is a the rock that can’t be shaken.

Unfinished stories and ‘Bird Box’

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We began to watch a scary movie last night. The film became progressively more terrifying and depressing, until we both admitted we didn’t really want to watch it anymore and turned it off, without any argument.

This is very unusual for me. I am a consumer. I consume stories, so leaving one unfinished is like walking away and leaving a plate half full of chocolate cake (or your favourite food). It just isn’t done. Once I start a film or a book, almost however bad, I need to know the ending and find myself glued to the chair until the credits roll.

It took me by surprise to discover something new about myself today.

In the night half-run scenes from the film ran through my mind as a dream formed with Sandra Bullock in a blindfold serving up Toad-in-the-hole in our kitchen. When I woke-up I couldn’t help wondering about some of the facts in the half-watched film that didn’t make sense and how on earth her river journey would end. 

Giving in I decided to google the plot and read how the story unfolded and how it ended. Spoiler alert for Bird Box! If you want to watch it, skip this paragraph. She and the children make it, although most of the others die along the way. I told this rough outcome to the other film watcher in the bed beside me and something strange happened…

We decided, in the cold light of a rainy Saturday morning, to watch the rest of the film.

“I don’t mind watching it if that’s the outcome,” he said. And strangely, I agreed.

My insatiable desire to devour another story was satisfied. By the end of the second half of the film the blindfolds were off and the birds were singing. And I’d also discovered more about myself.

I want to eat up stories, but I don’t want stories without hope.

Faced with an impossible situation, it looked like there was no way forward for mum-to-be Malorie (aka Sandra Bullock). Once I knew there was a way through, some light at the end of the fast following river and the dark woods, I was prepared to be engaged. To suspend my disbelief for 40 minutes and join in with the journey of Bird Box. I knew that the hardships ahead would eventually lead to some kind of salvation.

The link with faith is obvious. But I’ve never realised how much hope is such an important part of how I live, the way I think and what I choose to consume.

The most interesting thought I’ve been left with is that with Bird Box, I knew the ending ahead. Someone had already seen it and told me how things would turn out, so there was no need to fear. It wasn’t just hopeful watching, willing her and the children to be OK. The hope was grounded in some facts. 

I don’t know how my life will pan out or exactly what the ending will be or when it will come, but my faith gives me hope. When life’s circumstances threaten to knock me down, or I feel like I’m walking blindfolded, I have hope. It’s not based on something from Google that tells me it will all be OK in the end. But it is based on God’s Word and his promises and on my experience of being held in His everlasting arms.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 1:11

A taste of travel

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Are you a traveller at heart? Do your feet itch to take off on adventures? Do you follow the path of planes as they disappear into the blue, wishing you were flying off somewhere? Sometimes that’s me.. Almost two weeks … Continue reading →

Who’d marry a soldier?

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Guess who?
… Makes friends easily, adaptable, well travelled, independent, decorator, gardener, mechanic (when necessary), single mum (frequently), tough, fiercely loyal, wry sense of humour, expert gin & tonic maker, resilient, always hopeful – a lover of life.

My dictionary definition of an army wife, in case you hadn’t guessed.
I’m proud to be one of this diminishing breed, whose other characteristic is being a ‘pack animal’. Army wives are there for one another. When the going gets tough they stand alongside each other’s families supporting one another, sometimes emotionally but also practically.

Some of my best friends are either army wives or ex-army wives. The experiences we went through together as we waited anxiously for news from war zones or coped with being a lone parent far from our families, drew us close. Those bonds aren’t easily broken. That’s why writing a book with one particular army wife was the natural thing to do.

I first met Brenda Hale when she was a Sergeant’s wife while we were posted in Germany and our husbands were on an operational tour in Northern Ireland. Our children were born within a few months of each other. Brenda put me to shame in exercising back to fitness after giving birth and supported me in trying to run chaotic Sunday school sessions at the church on the barracks. In those years, although we worried for our husbands on operations in Belfast and Bosnia, I could never imagine what lay ahead.

One sunny August morning in 2009 I found my husband hunched at the foot of the stairs, shocked by the sudden death of a great man and a good friend. Neither of us could believe that this giant of a man had been taken away and his family left devastated. The harrowing news stories on the death of more soldiers in Afghanistan had become more personal than ever.

Some days later sitting at a table in an airport I still couldn’t take in the fact that the woman beside me had lost the love of her life, the father of her children and her best friend. How could this have happened?

It’s been a privilege to retrace the journey which the Hale girls have been on, through writing I married a soldier with Brenda. As she says, we’ve shared both tears and laughter as she has recalled wonderful moments, along with the most painful times.

If you’re looking for an inspirational read that gives you a real picture of life for army families, you’ll enjoy I married a soldier published by Lion Hudson. It tells the true story of how one very special army wife found a way through an event that threatened to crush her. This is a story of hope and faith beyond grief.

Letting yourself go

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Do you ever let yourself go? I don’t mean not washing your hair and wearing old clothes, but really ‘letting go’. I’m not precisely sure what this kind of ‘letting go’ looks like, but I know I’ve been on the edge of it and I’ve certainly had dreams about it…

I did a parachute jump quite a few years ago. It was BC*. I’d spent a whole weekend sitting in a classroom, then practising jumping, landing and rolling off a little platform a few feet up. We were all ready to go by mid afternoon on the Saturday… but the weather wasn’t. Apparently it was too windy. There was a chance it would be too windy the next day too and as our ‘training’ only lasted a few days, if we didn’t make the jump soon we’d have to train all over again. It does actually make sense. Practising to jump from a great height is a good idea, so that when it comes to taking that leap of faith you do it almost automatically. There’s a drill you know and the drill will make you safe.

During the early hours of Sunday morning the person I still share a bed with was woken with me shouting, “One thousand, two thousand… check parachute!” with most of the duvet pulled over my head. I thought I was ready!

The wind was still a touch too strong the next morning and us would-be parachutists lazed around in the sunshine, looking up at a blue, blue sky and intermittently watching a wind sock. This isn’t a sock hanging in the wind on the edge of the runway– it’s more of a traffic cone made from kite material that fills with wind and flutters or flops. We were hoping for more of a flop as the day progressed. The wind was a problem for parachutists because it could easily blow us off course and we could end up in the river Trent or a up a tree or in a silage tank… yuk! ..rather than the intended cornfield.

Eventually we were called to order and told we were going up in a plane that we wouldn’t be landing in. The little practise jumps and rolls were repeated and hugging our black parachute packs to our chest we walked towards the runway. I remember glancing back and waving and hoping everything was going to work out OK. There were a number of possible scenarios.
1. The parachute didn’t open
2. The parachute tangled
3. I broke my leg on landing or worse
4. The emergency chute failed or I forgot where the pull thing was (where is it again?)

Hopefully the person who had packed my parachute had done a good job and all would be well. But I said a little prayer anyway. A parachutist had died a week earlier at the same airfield when both his parachutes had failed, but statistically didn’t this make my chances of survival better?

It was amazing looking out of the door of the plane and inching myself along with my feet dangling over the edge of the sky. A guy in goggles gave me the thumbs up and I really had nowhere else to go except out. I let go of the handle I was gripping with one hand and leapt. A few seconds later I was looking up at a perfectly circular canopy above me and had that beautiful experience of floating to earth like a spaceman/woman. The landing was a little bumpier than expected… but all in all it had worked. I lived to tell the tale and write up the story in the local newspaper.

Somehow jumping out of a plane was easier than some of the other leaps I’ve been called on to take in life. But experience is telling me taking a risk, doing something that doesn’t make complete sense, is more fulfilling than watching from the safety of the ground. So… what leaps are you taking today?

*Before Children

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