Friendship

Wikipedia says that


"Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings."


The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary says a friend is


"someone who is not an enemy and whom you can trust" and "a person whom you know well and whom you like a lot, but who is usually not a member of your family"


Once again it's Facebook that has got me thinking, and blogging about Friendship. On my Facebook I have all sorts of friends. there are people I was at Uni with, my mooses, my SSAGS friends, and some of the rugby girls. There are the Beccs Ladies. There are people on SCITT with me this year. There are lots of my church friends, and friends from Croydon. There are also a small number of friends I went to school with. They are my 'friends' because I share, or have shared some sort of an experience with them. I have met every single one of them in the flesh. There are some people on there I know much better than others. There are some I see and share time, food, and laughter with regularly. There are others who are further away geographically but whom I'm love dearly and Facebook allows me to keep in touch with them, their lives, their lows and their highs.

There are people who are my friends on Facebook, whom I have not spoken to face to face with for a long time. Lots of these are the people I went to school with. At school I had very few close friends, and my best friends came from my Venture Scout Unit. It was with them I had the most fun and formative years of my life. However looking back through my wedding photos I was a little saddened to see that there was not one person with whom I had shared my school days there, apart from my sister. On the other hand I have achieved so much since I left school, and even university. I have changed enormously as a person and I love the me I am now much better than the me I was at 18, or even 20. Does this mean that I should ditch or ignore those people who were part of the fabric of my past? Does it means that people I shared experiences with at that time, should no longer be considered 'friends'?

A few weeks ago the opportunity arose via Facebook Chat to 'talk' to someone who I have not had any real contact with for about 8 years. This person and I were friends at school, never best friends, but we shared experiences, and laughs together. 8 years ago this person helped me out when I was in quite a low place. Shortly after this I did something that hurt this person. I am not proud of my actions, my timing or my behaviour. A few months later I met James, and by the time that year was out God was in my life. Although I had made my peace with God for what I did, I had never fond the strength, courage or opportunity to apologise to this person, this friend. The virtual conversation we had on Facebook was not easy, pleasant or jovial. Some long hidden truths and anger came out. I was forced to face the consequences of my actions from a different phase of my life. I apologised. I have forgiven myself for what I did but asking for someone else's forgiveness, when it's 8 years late, is not fun and appears to be a very pathetic exercise. I am glad we had our conversation, for me it feels like I have shut a door that was still slightly ajar.

So does that mean that me and this person can continue being 'friends'? Have the last 8 years without contact destroyed this status between us? Or is it that by trying to shut a door, I have in fact opened it wider, leading to more pain and questioning? I now find myself somewhat under attack from this person. They do not understand my faith, or the journey I have been on in the last 8 years. Our lack of shared experience in this time seems to have destroyed the friendship we had before this time.

I like having friends. I like the variety they bring to life. I feel lucky to have gathered so many shared experiences during my life so far. It would be sad to lose one but if the rift is too deep, if our differences are greater than our similarities, if we cannot understand how each other has grown and changed then maybe we find ourselves sharing nothing more than the past and staring into a future without each other.

Hannah

Mrs Gordon

(Thanks to Rach for the photo idea!)

So I am a week and a half into teaching practice and enjoying it. I have become Mrs Gordon, year one teacher!
I am teaching in a class of 5 and 6 year olds. They're lovely. I am still unsure, still feeling my way, still not quite getting it, but it feels OK.
I feel safe and like I can make mistakes. I feel like I am learning, by watching and being in a classroom, and by trying little things out.
I took my first little part of a lesson yesterday, which wasn't so bad and later this week I am taking Guided Reading. My teaching partner is lovely and our mentor's style really suits me.
It all feels a bit surreal quite a lot of the time. I looked around today and thought "This is my life! This is what I do now!"
I thought I would spend half term doing my first assignment, due in early January, and generally beavering away but I mainly rested. I did some prep work for the assignment, and then just mooched. I took a much needed trip westwards to see my sister, and receive her bargain shopping assistance, I had lunch with friends, I dinner with more friends. It was good.
And now I am back in school. In four and half weeks time phase one teaching practice will be over. I will have made a start to my teaching career and I will be ready to step up a gear and get stuck in to my favoured key stage.
I can't think about that too much right now, it scares me and I'm not quite ready for it yet. But I know that it will come and I will be ready. At the moment Year One is where it's at, and I feel that as the thirty children in my class learn new things and have novel experiences so do I. We're all in this together. H x

Wholeness

Last Sunday night's service at church was a service of healing and wholeness. This is something that we do regularly and is encompassed in the regular service. It is a chance to be prayed for with the laying on of hands and to be anointed with oil.

The service more generally was part of a series called 'The Provocative Church' and looked specifically at Christian Community.

During the time given over to prayer and reflection after the sermon I spent time thinking about what Wholeness means and its relationship to healing.

How am I supposed to know when I should be praying for someone to be healed, or if being made whole might mean God calling them home, where they will get rid of their failing earthly body and be restored. How do I pray for someone who is a shell of who they used to be? Someone whose deeds and witness has been locked away in a bosy and mind that can no longer communicate them? What am I praying for? Can I pray for what I want to pray for, can I be brutally honest with God? I want to be, but I am also drawn to pray a pithy 'not my will but yours' prayer. Is this sort of half hearted prayer even worth uttering, does it waste the time of my creator God who knows what is truly on my heart?

I'm not sure I know what to do, or how to pray. All that I know is that I am called to pray and petition God. Perhaps that is all I need to do right now? Acknowledge that I am struggling on this one, and that there is an issue close to my heart that I don't know how to pray through.

Hannah

Doesn't Time Fly

Well it's been well over a month since I walked through the doors of Wandsworth Primary Schools' Consortium to start my journey as a SCITT Trainee. In many ways my old life seems a long way away and I am beginning more to identify myself as a trainee teacher. I struggle with what that means, what is expected of me, what I should be doing and how I should be doing it.

I've had to meet 34 new people, my peers, my fellow SCITTs. These are the people who I am going to go through the ups and downs of the next nine months with! We are a good mixture of people, a wide range of ages, and we bring a wealth of past experience, from teaching assistants, psychologists, OTs, children's tv programme makers, musicians, artists and more. We are all people who have achieved in our careers and made a positive decision to change.


But now, we're all back at square one. We are all starting again. I am confused by how this makes me feel. In some ways I feel grateful that I have decided to change my life. I know that God is right beside me and this is the path He has me walking right now. I know that His will is perfect and pleasing. Starting a new career, a new training has put me back at the bottom of the pile. I feel deskilled, and whilst I don't feel stupid, I don't feel special either. I feel like I've lost my voice, and my identity.

There's a lot of new information too, but nowhere to use it. At the moment it's in files, on my shelves and in my head. I know that's OK and that when I need it I know where to find it. I have learnt and re learnt some stuff and on the whole I am excited

But my overwhelming emotion at the moment is anxiety. Next week is the start of my first phase of school experience. This represents another great unknown. I'm on a paired placement, with another trainee in the same class, and there are four other trainees in the same school. I am not alone! In my head I know that it will be fine, fun and frenetic. It's time to do some real learning, but looking at my School Experience Handbook in back and white with it's tasks and official forms scares me.

I need to get back in touch with the professional, competent, ambitious me. The one who applied to be a teacher, the one who believes that every child has the potential to achieve, the one who knows that all children are special, and given the right opportunities, goals, and chances will succeed. If she comes on teaching practice then it'll be a whole lot easier.

H x

Bye Bye Trixie

Three years ago after my housemates moved to Australia and my sister came to stay for the summer I decided that I needed a furry companion.
Living in a flat at the time I wanted a house cat - one that doesn't go out much. And I wanted an old cat. Kittens are for houses where they can run around and go outside and there are people to play with them. Old cats that find themselves without an owner are difficult to re home. I wanted to give a loving home to an old cat, and give it love, comfort and companionship in its last years.
So at the end of August 2005 Trixie came to live with us. Her owner had gone into a care home and so she needed a new place to live. Her paperwork was immaculate and her vaccination certificate said she had been born in March 1991. This cat was already 14.
She was great fun, enjoyed playing with bits of string, and anything that she could bat across the floor. She wasn't much of a huggable cat, but she liked company on her own terms.
The first night she stayed with us we kept he in the sitting room as instructed. Periodically throughout the night Alice and I could hear her wailing. We'd take it in turns to go in to see what was wrong. We were met by a low warm rumble of her purring and rubbing round our legs. She was lonely.
As she grew to know the flat her favourite place to sleep at night became the bed. On top of us. Or on our heads, or on our pillows. She knew when breakfast time was and was very good at walking on us and giving our heads a gentle tap to ask us to get up and wield the tin opener! In the day she lounged on the big fleecy cushion by the radiator, occasionally letting out little meows as she stretched and caught her paw on the hot metal.
The summer after James moved in he decided that she should go outside. So she did, enjoying the grass, and dust of the garden. She never wanted to stay out long, and would occasionally pop out to see if the outside world was still there. As she got older she did less, and played less and became more grumpy. She was my grumpy old lady.
She wasn't very happy when we moved, and she became noticeably older. She found stairs difficult and was more grumpy.
When we went on holiday last week she went to a cattery. It was sad dropping her off and she looked so old.
Last Monday the cattery phoned and I had a very tough conversation with them. Trixie had become more poorly. She was a very sick cat and we had to make a decision about what to do.
With very sad hearts James and I decided that it would be kinder to let her go there and then, rather than hospitalising her for a week until we came home. The vet who saw her said he thought she had a brain tumour.
It was very sad, and I was upset. I am still sad and the house feels a bit empty. I keep expecting to see her in the mornings or hear her on the laminate downstairs. But she's gone. After 17 and half years.
Tidying away the kitchen I found some cat food. Senior, it said on it, for cats aged 8 plus. It struck me that Trix had been Senior for more than half her life, and that's pretty good. I am glad that she came to live with us and was part of our family. I loved her very much, but I'm glad she's out of pain. H x

Time to turn the page

On Friday I will leave my job after nearly four years. I have had this date on my diary for months now, and I have known I was leaving since 28th November last year. But as I sit here now it all feels a bit real, a bit odd and I am unsure. On Sunday in church as I was praying I had an image come into my mind. I was standing on a huge book. I looked behind me and I could see the fold down the spine and the facing page in the distance. I was quite close to the edge. It felt like I had to step off so that the page could turn over. I was scared but I knew that God was there with me. And that's how I feel. People ask me if I am excited about SCITT but I am not ready to look at that yet. It's on the next page.
I have recycled masses of paper, sorted out files, written handover documents, deleted emails and computer files, handed over the keys to my filing cabinet and now I'm sitting here reflecting.
What does four years of a job look like?
The information in these files cannot possibly convey the conversations I've had, the relationships I've built, the anger I've felt, the good times I've had. It's even hard to portray the progress I've made. What I do is very qualitative, its been about changing attitudes, making links, talking to people and getting people to think differently.
I have changed enormously in the last four years. I started here at the end of August 2004, aged just 24, only one 'real' job under my belt. I have had to change and develop, learn a new jargon. I have grown to understand how things work, how to behave in meetings, how to address professionals and service users. I've learnt to work with people I don't like and to like people I work with. I have learnt not to take things personally. A few weeks ago I found myself chairing part of a meeting with some fairly high level professionals in it. I had a heated discussion with a service user who upped and left saying "I am not being insulted by some young girl." And as he walked out, I held my cool, took a deep breath and carried on. Some young girl I am not anymore.
I am leaving this job as a young professional woman. I hope that I have earned respect from my colleagues. I hope that I have been able to share some of what I have learnt, and worked on. I hope that I have been a good and amiable colleague. I hope that whoever comes in to do this job after me (Watch out for the advert in Wednesday's Guardian, as well as 4 other jobs) has energy and passion and refuels this project to achieve its potential. My time here is done. I am finished. Time to turn the page.
Hannah

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