My mood seems to follow the weather at times, on a grey day despondency and lethargy creep in and on sunny days I find myself feeling optimistic and hopeful. What worries me is having no control over this. I don’t want the weather to control how I feel and I do my best to pray my way out of the mood I am in and this does help. There is always a bible quote that can pick me up (see below), or a religious podcast with an uplifting message.

I have recently retired and it is very difficult to see a way forward when working for a living is no longer your focus, your children have grown up and need you much less and you feel as if you are on some conveyor belt to the final stages of your life. You also have a lot more time to think about these things and worry as work no longer occupies most of your time and thoughts.

There are many things that you can fill your life with, particularly to do with volunteering and being of use to other people, but I am at the stage that I want to think long and hard about this before I launch myself at any charitable work. I also want to feel that God is directing me so that I don’t end up taking on something that isn’t God led as if it doesn’t work out or feels overwhelming, you can end up feeling a failure both in helping others and in trying to offer up good works to God. There has to be a balance between filling your life and spending time with God, which can be difficult.

At this time of life it also seems to me that many people I have known have moved on – usually they have moved to another area to enjoy their retirement somewhere new and to be nearer to their children. It is also a time when your own parents are becoming frail and needing more help and this can lead to big changes. Life never really stands still and we have to adapt and I am so glad that I have my faith to help me with this. I don’t know how people cope without God accompanying them on their journeys.

God bless you and may you feel his presence more strongly in the difficult times you face,

There are lots of sayings about God laughing when we make plans. We like to feel that we are in control of our lives and so try to organise our futures and this can consist not only of where we live, what job we do, who we marry, how many children we have etc. we also do it when we try to serve God. Often without any prayer or any reference to what God may want from our lives we plunge ahead, happily unaware that we can be taking a wrong path. It is only when something happens to intervene, especially something really dramatic, that we suddenly sit up and wonder why it has all gone wrong.

There are probably very few people who aren’t guilty of this. I certainly have made many mistakes in my life and forgotten to involve God at all sometimes when I am making important decisions. When you are young you have your whole life ahead and you may be a practising christian, but you can live very much by making decisions on what feels good at the moment you are in.

I believe God will only intervene and advise us if we ask him to. He is not here to micromanage our lives, but if we involve him in every step we take especially the important ones, and we really listen to what he is advising us to do (even when it may be what seems to be against our interests), then we won’t go far wrong.

At one stage in my life I was heavily involved in church rotas, volunteered for a number of charities and ran a prayer group. Without really thinking of what it would mean I accepted a full-time job and this completely changed my life overnight. I didn’t pray about it, I just decided to do it. I was very unhappy for a number of years doing this work and I really missed my previous life. I struggled to maintain a balance between work and my prayer life and eventually prayed that I could be set free of this situation. I was delighted when a voluntary exit scheme was announced and I was able to leave and have a breathing space to think and pray about what to do next.

I am slowly regaining the life I led but it is taking a long time. Looking back I do so wish I had thought about this and prayed about it more, but you live and learn and we have to take on board the lessons that life has for us. I will certainly make sure that any decision I make in the future will be one in which I involve God.

God bless you and let God into your plans for your lives,

One of the parables that I think about quite a lot is that of the talents, where a master gave his servants talents (worth a lot of money in those days) when he went away, entrusting each of them according to their abilities. (Matthew 25:14–30). Two of them made profits but one buried his talent as he was afraid of losing it and feared his master.

There are so many meanings to this parable but the one I take on board most is the idea of failing to use your talents out of fear and I end up putting together in my mind an account of what I could possibly say I had achieved in life and falling short. Am I like the third servant? This bothers me a lot.

In this connection, comparing yourself to others is a very bad thing to do. The people I know are mostly teachers, doctors, engineers etc. and have had very successful careers. I decided to give up my career and be a full-time mum. I don’t regret it as I think looking after your children when you are able to is very important and greatly respect those mothers who have to work and bring up children. It is just looking back now, when I am retired, and assessing what my contributions have been and what my worth is that I feel I have fallen short. I question myself about whether I chose the path I went along out of fear rather than a desire to be a good mother.

I am sure many of us do question the validity of our lives and how fulfilling and useful they have been. Fortunately, the standard God uses isn’t our standard. Ultimately, we will have to face up to a reckoning of what we have achieved and what we have fallen short on, but fortunately God is forgiving and merciful. We should ask him at any stage of our lives to reveal to us what our path should be and have hope and pray that we get there in the end! This is what my hope is and what I cling to when I think about this.

God bless you and encourage you on your path,

It always amazes me that we use the expression ‘they got away with it’ when people seem to profit from the ungodly lives they lead. What is on my mind today is the Catholic Church allowing the marriage of a twice divorced man known for his alleged affairs with many women. He was allowed to marry as a catholic because his previous marriages were not to catholics and were not catholic ceremonies. Many people are complaining about this in the press at the moment especially as the catholic church is very clear about divorced people not being allowed to remarry.

There are several issues to consider: firstly, the hurt that has been done to practising catholics who have divorced and remarried and therefore cannot receive communion and their second marriage can’t be celebrated in a catholic church. Why should this man who not only has two divorces behind him but lives a life that is quite clearly not one a catholic should lead, be able to remarry in this way? Secondly, giving the appearance of being willing to bend the rules for some and not others. When a practising catholic couple decide to marry they have to go through a course with their priest so that he can prepare them for marriage and the lifelong commitment they are making. I don’t know if this was done, but I wonder if the priest who handled this really challenged this man about his lifestyle and treatment of his previous families. If he wasn’t challenged then that is sad for him as well as he will continue on this destructive course damaging himself and others. This was a chance to make him look at his life and realise the wrong he has done and change his ways. He should have been refused and sent away to think about why his behaviour makes this impossible. Instead he has been given everything he wants.

Finally, we do tend to forget God when we say ‘they got away with it’: he has the final say and we need to come to terms with the lives we have led and repent of anything we have done that is against what we know to be right. Basically, we don’t get away with anything – there is a final reckoning that can only be wiped clean by repentance and a godly way of life.

God bless,

There has been a lot written about mental health recently and it is great that finally people are being made aware that there are silent, hidden illnesses that we should know about and sympathise with the people who suffer with them. It has been very helpful to hear from people who are going through a bad time with their mental health; they are sharing how they feel and helping others who have been feeling the same way; they know that they are not alone.

When I was at secondary school I began to suffer with panic attacks. I was so ashamed that there may be something wrong with me that made me different that I didn’t tell anyone. I would never have gone to a doctor with this as I was totally in the dark and scared about what would happen if I did. I don’t remember anyone talking about this kind of thing and possibly people just got on with it and tried to cope as I did. It wasn’t until I was a lot older and after a lot of prayer that I was healed from this. It is such a blessing and I am very grateful that I am now able to lead my life free from fear.

This is what I wanted to say today – therapy is good and it is always great to talk about your feelings and what has happened to you with someone who is not involved in your life and help you to understand why you feel and behave the way that you do. However, there is an added dimension to this to really assist you to recover and lead a full, happy life as God intended us to do. You really need to consider seeking christian counselling because this will bring the healing you need so that you aren’t retaining any of the pain and negative feelings that are bringing you down. Christian counsellors not only listen but they pray with you and over you and ask God to release you from the damage that has been done to you.

I wish that I had received this counselling when I was younger. I ran away from so many situations and jobs because I couldn’t cope. Don’t let your pain rule your lives: ask God for freedom and healing now.

God bless you and my thoughts and prayers are with you all,

Following on from my blog about quality of life, I wanted to say something about this fight to allow euthanasia. It keeps cropping up from time to time and it is very worrying that one day it might be made legal in this country as it has in others.

I understand the plight of those who want this right and as always there are really good reasons to do something that essentially is a wrong disguised as a right. I wonder if those people who are fighting for this have really taken on board the possibility that if euthanasia was allowed, there will be people, without doubt, who will lose their lives even though they wanted to keep living. There have been abuses on the use of the DNR (do not resuscitate) order at the moment and who knows what will happen if euthanasia is allowed.

My sister is a case in point. Recently she suffered a series of minor strokes and she was sent to the hospital in an ambulance clutching an envelope. I met her at the hospital and sat and chatted to her in the ambulance when she was a bit better and asked her what was in the envelope. The staff on the ambulance said it was a DNR order and so if she had had any more strokes or a heart attack on the way to hospital, they would have been unable to help her in any way. She was very angry about this as she wants to continue living. The nursing home and her doctor had done this without anyone being involved, even her power of attorney holder. They presumed that she hadn’t the capacity to make that decision and looking at her health, thought this was the right thing to do.

I have had stories told to me by a nursing home manager of families that don’t want their relatives to be given any help whatsoever if they become ill, even painkillers. This isn’t out of love for their relative; they resent the amount of money care homes cost and just want a ‘speedy end’.

People who are for euthanasia will say that there can be many systems put in place to prevent this sort of thing happening: a panel of doctors to sign it off, etc. but if someone can’t make their wishes known well enough (my sister could but they didn’t ask her!), they have to rely on what their relatives think and that will not always be an unbiased opinion.

There are places that do allow euthanasia, as we know, and it would be a great pity if this was to spread to other countries. I hope you join me in praying that euthanasia won’t spread and that those who do allow it at the moment will stop doing so.

God bless,

My sister has been in a nursing home for many years and mostly remains in bed watching television and enjoying her food and making friends with the staff who look after her. She can’t walk and because it takes several members of staff to hoist her from her bed to get up and sit with others, she prefers to remain in bed as she doesn’t like to sit for long and sometimes she has to wait until enough staff are available to help her back into bed. She mainly gets up to attend a prayer service once a week.

I always pray that she is coping with this way of life. Her heart and liver are compromised and so we don’t know how long she has but it has been much longer than anyone anticipated. Her medicines seem to be keeping her comfortable and she does seem content with her lot.

My brother can’t see how she can cope with this life. He often says he couldn’t bear it and what’s the point of living if that is what your life consists of. I differ on this because I can see that she enjoys watching television and loves her food. She isn’t in pain and although she does get low sometimes, she very much wants to live on for as long as she can.

I don’t think we can judge the quality of another person’s life. Only they know how they feel about it. Just because they are in a bed most of the time and can’t do many things doesn’t mean that they are necessarily less happy than someone who can lead a full life.

I believe that God helps us to cope no matter what situation we are in and life is valuable in all of its forms. We are all precious to him.

God bless you and help you to know that you are ‘wonderfully and fearfully made’ (Psalm 139) and valuable to him and to others,

Matthew 10:29-31

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Having faith is so important in our journey. When we ask God for anything, one of the criteria is that we have to do so and believe that we will receive what we ask for. Of course, sometimes what we want may not be right for us and it doesn’t happen; but there again, faith should help us to accept this and not think that God has not answered: he has answered but not in the way that we wanted.

I have often been surprised at how many times God has answered me. It isn’t always easy to see this in the present, but with hindsight. He does things in his own time and at the best time for us. We are more impatient than God and feel we want an answer straight away. That is not how he does things. It isn’t easy to wait especially if our need is pressing: it could be about health, finance and other issues we are worried about.

An example is when I became a widow I had a lot of property to look after. My mother had gone into a nursing home and so had my father-in-law. I had to sort out what was in the properties and get them ready for sale or rental. My own home needed a lot of sorting out as well as there were damp issues and taking in a lot of items from other houses over time had cluttered it so much that some rooms couldn’t be used. Our property in France was also needing a lot of tlc. I felt completely overwhelmed and alone.

I asked God for help with sorting everything out and what happened was miraculous. It didn’t happen overnight but one by one people stepped in and offered their help. Some people from church came and helped me sort out my house and they also helped me find a builder to deal with the issues at my father-in-law’s property. Builders bought the house next door in France and my neighbours who speak fluent french helped with organising the things that needed doing on that house and came and spent a week with me when we worked really hard to get it liveable in and also up to rental standard to help with finances. I am so grateful to God for helping me with all of this at such a difficult time. It all took a couple of years to sort out, but he didn’t leave me alone in all that I was going through.

There have been so many instances where God has helped, sometimes in very serious issues and at other times with small requests. It is important to look back to see these to help build your faith in times of darkness and feeling isolated. God answers immediately but also sometimes over a long time. You can see these answers as coincidences if you are not looking in faith. He is usually subtle in the way he helps and it is very easy to believe that what happens would have happened anyway.

God bless you and do place your trust in God, he is always listening.

Matthew 21:22

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

It is a sad fact that we are now living in a society where telling lies and being dishonest seems to be the ‘norm’. Even when found out, it is just seen as something that happens nowadays and society seems to accept that this is baseline behaviour. Being truthful and honest is not as highly regarded as it was and you are probably in the minority if you are.

I don’t know how this all started and whether the internet hasn’t helped. A lot of lies are spread through this and cheating people out of their money is something that is happening all of the time and we have to be very wary. I look at the news and wonder if we are being told the truth: how can you believe politicians if they are constantly being caught out in lies and think nothing of using their positions to make money in ways that don’t bear scrutiny.

It is so easy to go with the flow and think that if everyone is doing this, then it’s okay; but it isn’t. There are many passages in the Bible dealing with dishonesty and lies and we are warned that this behaviour affects our relationship with God. I can’t believe that someone who lives a life this way can be comfortable with it ultimately; all sins will catch us out in the end. Our consciences should be ringing alarm bells and if they aren’t, then that is because we have journeyed far away from our God and need to repent and turn back to the righteous path he has made for us.

God bless you and may you fight against all temptation to lie and deceive others,

Zephaniah 3:13

They will do no wrong; they will tell no lies. A deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouths. They will eat and lie down and no one will make them afraid.”

As a way of spreading faith and educating and supporting those who choose to become christians, schools have been set up based on christian principles. This has been so over many centuries and in many countries.

It is now often the case that parents choose these schools because for the most part they do have good results and discipline is also better so that pupils can learn without being disrupted so much. They haven’t always chosen them for the christian faith but have been happy for their children to be taught that faith alongside other subjects and they understand that it is part of being in a christian school.

Parents will often go to great lengths to get children into these schools: they attend church and get to know the priests/vicars and the parishioners and take part in parish life. Some do it and do embrace the faith; others do it and leave as soon as their child gets a place in the school which is a great shame.

Whatever their reasons for wanting their child to attend these schools what shouldn’t and is starting to happen is that parents are trying to say they want their children separated out so that they don’t have to go to assembly or sing hymns; they complain about the Nativity play that is a great tradition with our schools. They basically want the standard education but don’t want their children to learn about the christian faith.

These schools only exist because they were set up to teach and practice the faith; the fact that they are successful shouldn’t mean that parents who have no intention of following the faith or allowing their children to, can ‘opt out’. The place their child takes could have been given to someone whose family is open to learning about christianity and taking part in all that this means.

I read the other day that the Church of England is planning on taking out ‘confessional words’ from traditional hymns so that children who aren’t christian don’t have to sing them. That is turning your back on the whole reason for these schools to exist. Shooting yourself in the foot is one expression that came to me. These school are great because they are christian and are built on prayer; taking away that aspect is denying your faith and letting others dictate when and how you will teach it. Parents shouldn’t be able to do that. They can choose non-christian schools if that is how they feel.

I’m glad my sons went to christian schools and have learnt so much about the faith I follow. They can choose now to follow the same faith and this choice is based on a full knowledge of what I believe.

God bless,

Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go and even when he is old he will not depart from it.