When you have no idea what God's up to

I have been following the story of the Lawrenson family since about March this year. It is a story of hope, faith and love. I'm not going to retell it because Nathan Lawrenson has been doing that on his blog Confessions of a CF Husband
There have been times of major celebration, when God's answers to prayer have rung out crystal clear.
But right now God has thrown them another challenge, another battle, another situation where they can do nothing but lean on Him and pray.
And I, along with hundreds of thousands of people around the world, am joining them in their prayers. But the one thing I find myself asking God is: 'What the flippin heck do you think you're doing?' Now I probably have no right the answer but it doesn't stop me from asking it.
I know that prayer is powerful but that doesn't stop mine being full of frustration and anger. He's a Big God, He can take it and His still small voice of calm will provide answers. All we need to do is believe in Him
H x

Growing in faith

Accompanying my decision to step back from my Scout role is a desire to grow in my faith. I 'became a Christian' sometime between the end of 2000 and the middle of 2001, and I was confirmed in May 2002, just before my finals at uni.
I have been on an interesting journey since that time and I now belong to a good church. I have been on a short term mission, I serve at church in various ways. I pray and I read my bible. I have been in the same home group for four and a half years. I got married in my church, making my vows before God, my family and friends.
So what now?
I feel like I need to focus on being a disciple. I know bits about God, His word and His ways. I have a desire to know Him better. I trust in Him and His plan for me but I want to know how to serve Him better.
I want to know what my gifts are, and how I can use them to serve God and bless my family, friends, church and neighbours.
I want to challenge myself without spreading myself too thinly. I want to be hungry for God, for His word, His voice. I want to reflect His ways in mine, and for my life to be worship of Him.
Starting a PGCE in September is going to require a lot of me so I am tempted to rest on my laurels for a year, and shake up my faith nest July. But there is a nagging part of me that thinks drawing closer to God at the same time as my PGCE can only be beneficial. I DO NOT want to DO more, I want to GROW more.
So what should I do and when? God knows!
Hannah x

Learning to let go

I am a yes person. This is on the whole a good thing. It means I try new things, get new experiences, help people out and generally get involved. It does also mean that sometimes I end doing things that I would rather not. Sometimes these things turn out to be good, and I enjoy doing them, I learn from them and I realise that they are part of God's plan for me.

Sometimes these things are not good, I still learn from them, they are still part of God's plan, but it's when He tells me to walk away that I get stuck. I don't like to let people down, and I feel sometimes that if I walk away from something that I have failed.

For a while now I have been realising that the role that I hold within the Scout Group is not for me. There have been a couple of incidents that have made me think that I should not being doing this role, including a time I was reduced to tears. The situation came to a head shortly after James started his new job. It came to a point where a I realised that my role within Scouts was putting pressure on my marriage. Time to step down.

Around the same time Helen gave her last sermon at Emmanuel before moving on to pastures new. In it she spoke about being able to step out of a role and move on when you know its not your gift or your calling. It was one of those loud hailer moments from the pulpit.

Praying about it I felt God telling me to lay down my pride. In my head I didn't want to walk away and let the Scout group down, but God was telling me that it was not my responsibility and that I was not the only person capable of doing the job. I thought back over what I have achieved in the two years since I took the role and I realised that there are good things, and a firm foundation for someone to take forward.

So at my last exec meeting I took a deep breath and told them. I am going to carry on as normal until September and then from then until December I am going to do bare minimum and then step down at the end of the year. If someone comes forward before then I Will step down before then.

It was tough, letting go, giving the situation to God and asking Him to find someone to take on the role. It was tough to tell the exec that I am not going to continue. I felt bad, but I also know that I need to do this for me. I need to let go and concentrate on the gifts God has given me and the calling He has made to me.

Ch ch ch ch changes

Common wisdom would have it that you should get married, buy a house, settle down and have 2.4 children, or whatever the national average is these days.

James and I can tick off one, and two. Half way there.

As for three? Errrr not exactly.


You may remember that last Summer, shortly after we got married I started considering a change in career, and that in September we had an away day and spent time listening to what God wanted us to do with our lives. Well it wasn't just me considering my future that day. For a very long time James has wanted to become a Police Officer. It is something that he has thought about doing since school. I have never been terribly keen on the idea, and have encouraged him to pursue Planning that his degree and masters degree allow him to do. However after being in planning for a while he felt that he wanted to investigate whether joining the Police was a feasible option.

Well it turned out that it was. He called the MPS recruitment to see whether being a PCSO was the only route into the Met these days, this being the story his brother had been told 12 months earlier. It wasn't, and there was a recruitment seminar about two weeks later, which he could book a place on. This was the route into getting an application form and spoke about how to fill in the form and fill statements for each of the five competencies. We thought and prayed about James changing his career. There was a lot of soul searching, and tears and questions. The form arrived and James sat down for a mammoth filling in session. Except there was a surprise in store - James didn't have to fill in the competencies, he just had to declare that he was a graduate. And that was that.

He had his 'day 1' interviews in November, which he passed, and his medical in January. All good. The supposedly impossible application process had been so smooth and simple. It seemed that God had prepared a way for James, and I needed to rely on His wisdom and strength to deal with my worries and concerns.

The day after we moved, James had a call with a start date of May 27th. He resigned from his job at the council and got ready to become a Police Officer.

I still have concerns, and worries. I will worry about his safety on the streets of London, I will be concerned that he enjoys his job. I pray that he will be a good witness at work, that he remembers that he serves God first, not the MPS. However I have come to realise that my marriage vows mean that I am called to support James whatever he chooses to do. I would rather be married to a planner than a policeman, but God has changed our path and I need to walk it with faith, one hand in James' and one in God's. Together, bound in prayer, strengthened by faith, trusting God's manifold and great mercies, we will be going the right way. It might not be a comfortable journey, but it's the only way for us.

H x

Home Sweet Home

[this post will have photos when I take some]
On April 4th we got the keys to our first home. It was so exciting. We had moving planned for Saturday so on the Friday we picked up the keys from the agent, wandered up the road and through the front door of our house. There was lovely afternoon sunshine streaming through the window and we walked round the house into every room. As we did we prayed to God, we thanked Him for such a wonderful a place to live, that the timings worked out, that the finances were sorted. We asked Him to bless our house, to make it a place of love, where we can grow together, where our marriage will blossom. A place where people will feel welcome, where there will always be a cup of tea and place to rest, where we can entertain and practice true hospitality.
Saturday saw us move in, and the House transformed into a home. We couldn't have done it without help, and it was wonderful to sit and eat with so many friends on our first evening in.
Since then we have unpacked, sorted, shifted, and built furniture. James had a week of and painted, and plastered, took doors off and DIYed.
There are still some things to do to make it feel homely - we need pictures, and lampshades, and curtains. We need to make a rota for cleaning, and stick to it. My in-laws, James and Marion, have been doing Sterling work in the garden, and when I have my time off in August I am going to have a go too.
I love it. Life is tough right now, but having a place to call home, where I can shut the front door and feel safe. A place where I can escape and know that this hard time is temporary, is a great great gift.
H x

apologies

For not blogging.
Lots has happened.
I'll blog next week properly.
But for now
Go Enjoy Friday Night
Hannah x

1st Anniversary

Has a whole 366 days passed since I made these vows:

I, Hannah, take you, James ,to be my husband,
to have and to hold
from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love, cherish, and obey,
till death us do part,
according to God's holy law.
In the presence of God I make this vow.

Well yes it has. And what a year it's been.

We've been very busy, which is sometimes good and sometimes not so good. And I think that over the year we've grown together. We know more about each other, we've talked about our future, we've discussed, and changed, our careers (more on that). We bought our first home. We've comforted each other in tough times, we've celebrated in good times. And for everyone who said "Well you live together already, getting married won't change anything." You were wrong!

Being married is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. I love having my best friend around all the time and knowing that as I go grey(er) and wrinkly he will be there for me. I am so excited about sharing every day of my future with him, all the adventures, the highs the lows, the loves, the losses.

For our anniversary we ran away to Gav's parents' house in Corhampton. We went to Winchester, and James let me loose in a Cook Shop! We went to the Cathedral, we ate well, we chatted, we drank wine. On the Sunday it was 20 mile training day in the New Forest which you can read about on my Moonwalk blog, followed by Roast Dinner and Champagne.

On our actual anniversary we had a lazy brekkie in bed with Bucks Fizz and exchanged pressies. Instead of cards I came up with an idea (well actually I nicked it out of a book). we bought a notebook in Winchester and every year we will write a bit to each other. This way as time goes by we will build up a record of events, and thoughts and each year we'll put in a picture of us on our anniversary. James was cynical but he'll get the hang of it. This was followed up by a trip to a country pub and then the local May Country Fair with Maypole dancing and lambs! Great great fun.

James I love you. Always. Hannah xxx

A Mini Update

Well it's been a hectic week but....
We're in! A huge huge thank you to everyone who helped on Saturday. You are all Angels and we wouldn't have been able to sit down to eat in as much comfort as we did if it wasn't for you.
There are lots and lots of good things about our house. It feels like home already and I love that James and share a vision for it and the home it will be become.
I love going upstairs to bed, and waking up and going downstairs for Breakfast.
I love sitting down at the dining table, saying grace and eating my supper with my husband and chatting about our days and our plans.
I love having people drop in, and having a gorgeous tea set to serve them tea in and brownies to give them. Please feel free to drop by if you're passing. We really really mean this!!
I love that this is the place where our marriage will continue to grow through its early years.
There are some not so good things too:
Upstairs is a mess, but we tripped to Ikea last night and purchased a bedside unit to match the one we have and a chest of drawers. This will alleviate some mess and I can start finding homes for things. Bedroom then study need sorting.
The kitchen is more annoying than we thought it would. We discovered it has no drawers when we went to put stuff away on Saturday. The work surface area is tiny and the washing machine is in such a place that you can't put powder in the drawer. The cupboard where the fridge fits also has the electric meter and the fuse box in, so it can't go in there.
We had a designer round to quote for a new kitchen last night and there is not much work surface space to be created. However we could create more storage and drawers. The quote was not extortionate. We're going to wait for a while and also get a quote to move the meter and fuses. We may also need to put in a shelf somewhere to locate the toaster and the microwave. Whilst the kitchen is annoying the exciting thing is that it's ours to plan, and change and experiment with.

In other news: I lost 2lb at Weightwatchers this week but check out my sister's blog for her amazing week one weight loss!

H x

Praise Be!

WE completed before 10 am and are now officially owners of our first home x

Topsy Turvey

Well all things being equal we are moving on Saturday. We are due to complete tomorrow and we pray that all the money from the various places is at the right place at the right time and we will have our sticky little mitts on the keys to our first home by close of business.
This week has been exhausting. Physically and emotionally.
I am so very glad that I preceded it with a weekend at the Beehive, with good food, friends, chats, books, sleep and meandering. A weekend of real rest.
So since Sunday night we've been packing, and sorting, and binning, and shredding and recycling. The house is a tip. We've free cycled some furniture already so there's a gap where the rug and the coffee table used to be. We've found a home for our old dining table and the sofas in our new house that we don't want.
We've packed up most of the kitchen, including my much loved Emma Bridgewater Tea Set - must have some girlies round for afternoon tea soon!
We've nearly done the sitting room and the spare room.
We've made a dent in the bedroom.
But there is still loads to do.
In amongst all this I have had to have a Scout meeting with people from district, join the new gym, supervise Beavers, give first aid to a Beaver who ran into a wall blindfolded. (This was not part of the evening but risk assessing for Beavers is a very creative process), cook food to stick to my points.
Tonight I am going to my old Weight watchers class - I was at Beavers last night, I am seeing a chiropodist and then I am going to attack my bedroom. I am going to sort out and pack my wardrobes, clear out my make-up (my sister would cringe if she saw how old most of it is!), chuck paperwork and then I am going to collapse into bed.
By Saturday night that bed will be in my new home and I will collapse into it will my husband as we start the next new and exciting bit of our journey.
H x