Back on the Blog

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There is no big prompt for this post, just a vague inclination to capture some thoughts and feelings, and to externalise them on the page. 

September 2025 - life in Nottingham continues well having returned from Syria 14 months ago. The first months were spent at home, on holiday, seeing family and generally resettling. Steve started work back at Briggs after a few months, and I started at the British Red Cross a few weeks after him. 

It has taken time to reach a sense of contentedness, but I am grateful for the rhythm of life as it is. I am truly, deeply, profoundly blessed to live within my life. My past has a loving family, a good education, all the privilege of being middle-class, white British. The adventures of Florida, Nottingham (part 1), Essex, Uganda, Nottingham (part 2), South Sudan, Syria and Nottingham (part 3) have been extraordinary, incredibly special and enriching. And now Steve and I live in our nice house, with our lovely garden, in a good place, with cars that work, and healthy bank accounts, with health, and loving families and friends, and things to do... we are deeply blessed by God with all these past and present provisions that have made life pleasant.

It isn't fair - so many others do not have anything like these provisions. 

And yet God has been teaching me of His presence with one and all, through His Spirit, through creation's evidence. The whispers I know and love are spoken to all who have ears to hear. The most devastating events and experiences does not remove us from the love of God, and the tremendous sufferings of the human heart, body, mind and soul are not removed from God's care. I think of countless women in Afghanistan, and people in Gaza, and South Sudan, and other places of terrible depravity and violence. They are not far from the love and comfort of God - He is present and accessible to them, there. Jesus' suffering echoes through their own suffering - He is to be found.

A comfortable life does not equal a life lived richly in God! Just because I have provision does not mean I have the best relationship with the Spirit. In fact, I often forget my desperate need of God and carry on in my own sweet way. Earthly blessings do not equal spiritual wealth. In fact, they can distract.

Tension! I value and appreciate ALL I have been given. 

And I am leaning upon God because I need Him for my inner life to be peaceful and joyful. I need Him to have any chance of an external life that feels good. And I need Him to get me out of my immediate thoughts and feelings, and out into greater concerns in the world. These needs are not connected to my provision - they are shared by many worldwide in a range of settings who have tasted that the Lord is good. 

A rose from our garden, planted in Spring 2024

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