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I have been blogging on and off for a while now, simply because I like to write, and I would also like to watch less TV. As a first time blogger I am sure this new endeavour will be filled with many opportunities for learning as I navigate my way around this new world.

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The advice I have been reading suggests that a blog should reflect an individual’s interests and personality, who that person is; their identity.

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My family and I live in a post war semi in a busy area of South East England with our cats Bacardi and Guinness. Although I trained as a primary school teacher, I taught maths part time in a secondary school to students who have Dyslexia. I now have a passion for supporting people with neurodiverse needs and I work for a youth mental health charity called Emerge Advocacy. I love trying out new craft activities, films, dancing and music, especially worship music. I am currently into crochet and quilting and hope to learn to sew clothes properly, as well as rekindling my love for reading. I am making very slow but steady progress, mainly because I still watch too much TV. I also have a Level 3 Counselling qualification, which is proving to be a tremendous benefit in my connections and interactions.

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I have been especially blessed by the many people God has placed around me, not least my beloved tech mad husband Geof who works in IT training and my precious teenager Unique who is into computer gaming and writing music and songs. Unique is not her given name, in case you were wondering but it does reflect her personality and her identity in God. As a teenager, I feel it important to respect her privacy. Many others touch our lives, whom I am sure will mention as time goes on.

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Since I became a believer in Jesus while at university, I successfully spent the subsequent years binding myself in religious legalism with a good measure of judgementalism thrown in. Before you think about closing this blog in case I am peddling religion, I don’t do religion, I do Relationship. Only once reaching my 40s and now my 50’s, I have discovered that a life with Jesus is not only filled with love, but also inexhaustible, unconditional grace; freedom and opportunity. Imperfection and messing up make up my daily experiences, but that’s OK. My identity is in knowing that I am loved and belong to God. Nothing and no one will ever change that, especially not my own efforts – or lack of them. It is only now that I am beginning to live in these truths; as though I am living for the first time. It is so freeing to know that I do not have to constantly strive to be good enough before God. We already are good enough and God is going to fill our days with so many things.

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And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

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Ephesians 2:6 (NIV)

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I am constantly in awe of the extravagant blessings that God chooses to pour out on us every day, like an unceasing waterfall gushing with power and energy. I love that he cares about the minute details of my life and that he wants to journey with me as I negotiate daily challenges. Let’s face it each day has many challenges of its own. Life is tough; there are days when I struggle and show myself up. But ever faithful, Jesus picks me up and sets me back on the journey, hopefully a little wiser.

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Every day, something I see God doing catches my attention and I thought that I would like to try and write my thoughts and observations on what I witness and experience.

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I am no one special. Yet I am very special. I am no more or no less special or unique than any other person. If God can work his miraculous and transforming power in my life on a daily basis, I know he will do the same in yours also. Just extend an invitation to him to partner with you through life. You won’t regret it, I can assure you of that.

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Daily life comes along packaged in a variety of ways. Sometimes the wrapping is colourful and exciting; other times battered, shabby and torn at the corners, as though tossed about in the back of the car. Never the less it is how we respond to the daily gifts inside the wrapping that counts.

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Above all else, I hope my words will uplift and encourage you as you read; lightening your mood and make you laugh if nothing else.

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My blogs can be found on my Blogs page and filtered between the main topics. At present, they are Incomparable Riches and My Spinal Column which details how God has journeyed with me through the diagnosis of spinal cord injury. They are numbered so please read them in order. You can find out more about that here. Please also feel free to add feedback at the end of each posts if you wish.