Category: Hope

It’s a busy time at the moment…and uncertain…but exciting!

Update on the move so far because we keep being asked. We sold our house subject to contract back in June, but have not yet exchanged, we have now sent the signed forms off so exchange of contracts can take place.

We are buying a cottage in Leitrim in Ireland (all being well) which needs a little work, but is liveable, which also has 3 acres of land with it. Our Irish solicitors are brilliant and are keeping us up to date well, they have asked the sellers a few questions and are currently waiting for answers. It is pretty certain we will be moving, we have paid the deposit and had an engineer’s report.

In order to buy a house in Ireland (it is Southern Ireland), we need PPS numbers, (personal public service numbers) and these should be coming either this week or next. An absolutely lovely lady rang me this week from Ireland just to check the details. She was very friendly and said she was originally from the area in which we are buying and seemed really pleased when I said we were moving there.

Another question we keep being asked is about work/jobs. The answer to that is, no, we don’t currently have jobs waiting there for us. We have subscribed to various sites which advertise jobs in the areas we would be fairly close to. To those who may worry because we haven’t got work waiting – don’t worry, we will be fine. Chris is an extremely hard worker, who will work hard at absolutely anything he does and has been in constant work for years and if necessary I would get part time work to subsidise us, but that will probably not be necessary. I do intend to be at home with the children as long as it is possible.

The last commonly asked question is schools – yes there are schools nearby, as far as I am aware there is a little village primary school about four miles away. It is also legal to home school in Ireland if it became necessary or we decided to do that. Unlike here, education is only compulsory from the age of six in Ireland, but apparently most children do go from the age of four/five.

We are really looking forward to moving but whilst we are still here we are trying to make the most of the time left. We have been going out as a family at weekends, talking together more, spending more quality time together really, making good use as far as possible of  our time here. We went to a place called Magna on Saturday. It was so good, J (our 3 year old) and Chris were absolutely enthralled and there is a really good playground there too, which we went to afterwards. It’s also good, because if you pay full price once, you can then get in for a year for free afterwards. We also belong to the National Trust so we have been making the most of being members, getting out to various places as a family.

I’ve also met an old friend today at a local playgroup at the Baptist Church Hall, it was great! There were also two ladies there who looked after my daughter when she went to the after school club maybe about 17 years ago and another fella called John who is part of the Baptist Church who may have taught her at school (I only realised this after he left, I never got a chance to ask him). It was a very friendly, relaxed group and we all enjoyed it. J doesn’t always like indoor groups but he seemed to quite enjoy this one.

Chris and I are also actually going out!!! tomorrow!!! It is our wedding anniversary so we are celebrating God’s goodness in our lives and each other. Five years! It doesn’t actually feel like five years, even though we have packed it full. I loved our wedding, it was a good, good day. God was in it completely and utterly. Thank you Lord Jesus.

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Be kind to yourself?

I was thinking this morning, learn to be kind to yourself, you don’t have to do, do, do, you don’t have to get certain things done by a certain time, you don’t even have to indulge in endless activities for the children – that does not make a good parent as far as I’m concerned. Giving time is better I think…However, I then started thinking, is this biblical? I thought, the bible tells us to “die to self” but then God’s grace is for all and he also says to love others as you love yourself.

How does he tell us to love? Love as he has loved us.

How has he loved us? An innocent man (God) died for us, in our place. Through this we have forgiveness of every sin, we have life – before we come to Christ we are dead in our sins and transgressions. We have restoration and freedom, we are back to how it was before the fall. We can walk with God in the garden. Jesus removes the barriers to God, all of them. We have healing, which seems to come in a variety of forms. The main one as I see it is of being restored to God, of the gap being filled, our purpose in this life being revealed. God’s healing is truly holistic, he heals the root causes and true healing then follows. God never papers over the cracks and is always truthful with us, lovingly truthful. God always listens to us and delights in us coming to him, he answers prayer. He delights in us being us (he made us). In short, he heals, he loves, he restores, forgives, accepts, changes us, listens, redeems, comforts us, counsels us, gives us wisdom and grace. I have probably left some points out, but you get the gist.

So how does this translate, before I go off at a complete tangent? How am I supposed to love myself and others without being self seeking and self absorbed? This is the famous scripture that is read at so many weddings:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind;

love does not envy or boast;

it is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends…

(1 Corinthians 13:1-8)

Doing this without the power of the holy spirit as far as I can see is hopeless. This is the template for love and how it is possible to love and as far as I am concerned it is an amazing checklist. No more fakey, kiss, kiss, type of love, but real, tangible, raw love. Love that requires sacrifice and perseverence, not fake smiles. Love that lasts.

I suppose all this love stuff, also goes hand in hand with the fruits of the spirit – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control” (Galatians 5:22-23). So, I guess the trick is, abide in God, know who he has made you to be, ask for the fruit of the spirit and follow him. Aha! so easy 😀 haha.

So, back to the original question? is it biblical to be kind to yourself? I guess it is as long as it is being kind and not just indulging your each and every whim. I know I need to look after myself and in particular get rest, because if I don’t everyone suffers! The aim of being kind to myself should really be to show God and His love to others…not just for me to sit here thinking of ways to indulge myself. Outwards facing, not inwards….

On another note, we are definitely off to Ireland next week! I am so excited, I’ve never been before! So many adventures this year, a very different year to previous ones! Life has most definitely been an adventure since knowing God, but this year, things have changed again. “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wonderful deeds…” (Ps 98:1)

 

 

 

Hello?..after a short break…

So I’ve not written anything for about a week and a half… what to write??

It’s been a fairly busy week or so, celebrating little one’s birthday, with the horrendous one year jabs the day after too. I had no idea until we got there that they now have one in each limb… We’ve also all been ill in some shape or form but are now better and have also knocked a couple of things off the “things to do before leaving” list – we went to Clumber Park, we paddled in the river, I made a very chocolately birthday cake, which was lovely if I may say so myself and just generally been busy with life. I also have a Sozo appointment that has come through and am trying to decide whether to do it.

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We have decided to go and visit Ireland soon to see what it is like and are just waiting on a passport coming through and then we will book. We’ve also had some questions through from our buyer’s solicitor’s and have answered them and are now awaiting a response to that….and hopefully a date at some point…we are still keeping an eye on the property in Scotland too, but nothing is drawing our attention at the moment.

Watch this space.

I just keep reminding myself that God is not just good, He is supreme and in charge and loving and kind. No matter what life throws at us, He is in charge. Our lives are not our own, they have been bought at a price. That price is Jesus. Just printing his name makes me feel better. Jesus. No longer a swear word but the love of our lives.

 

 

The story so far – August 2018!

Hi. I thought I would put together a bit of a summary of what has happened this year and what is currently happening.

March/April 2018 – we saw a farm/smallholding for sale on an Orkney Island and on further looking realised that property was fairly cheap in this area. We travelled to Orkney at Easter for a week (Chris had his birthday there) and viewed it and a few other houses. None were quite what we wanted but it was a great experience, we had never been in that part of the country before. We also realised it was a completely different lifestyle there, to where we currently are and! that it was doable!

We carried on looking online, monitoring the Orkney area property sites and then just on a whim decided to look at Shetland. We saw an advert for a croft and house, owner occupied, which is a definite bonus. It looked lovely but as we had not yet sold our house we thought there was no point in even looking.

May 2018 – The croft had a closing date advertised of 31st May, we resigned ourselves to the fact that it had gone.

June 2018 – Our house sold, as in went under offer whilst they did/do all the necessary stuff as in survey, searches etc etc. A cash offer so we were presumptive in thinking it would go through quickly.

The croft came back on the market as it had not sold.

We really liked the croft in Shetland, so we booked Chris and his dad onto the overnight ferry from Aberdeen and arranged for them to go and view it, which they did and on coming back and discussing it, we decided to put an offer in via a solicitor.

We also went on holiday to Orkney again for a week, the original plan was to view houses again, but we didn’t think we needed to and also, there wasn’t really anything going we thought was right. We had been spoiled as the land on the croft was quite extensive. Before, we might have settled for a detached bungalow and a plot of land around it, now we had our eyes set on more.

The survey was carried out on our house.

July 2018

Our offer went in to the seller’s solicitor’s at the beginning of July. In the Scottish system (or Shetland) the offer is an actual document, not just an offer.

On the 6th July we received an email saying our offer was acceptable in principle, so we rejoiced!

Chris had an encounter with God which was very powerful and thought God was telling him he would give us the croft. We are now wondering if he meant something slightly different, a different place, a different timing maybe.

But! the very next day we then also we received word that our buyer was now unsure whether to continue with the purchase of our house because of the survey. He decided to send a builder around to have a look and quote him a price for damp proofing.

A builder came round and seemed very positive, then we didn’t hear anything, we presumed no news was good news about selling.

August 2018

We didn’t hear anything on the croft until the 2nd of August when we got an email marked urgent and a requested date of entry being the 31st August (or another mutually agreed date), which was a shock because we had heard nothing for just under a month. When I said we could not yet really give a date because our completion date had not yet been given. The seller of the croft withdrew his acceptance of our offer. On that same day.

The positive thing about this is that we contacted our buyer who confirmed the sale of our house was still going ahead and that they were just starting the searches.

Future…

So, here we are, a potted history of our moving story so far. We are now looking a bit further afield, possibly at Southern Ireland, whilst still keeping an eye on what is going on in Shetland, Orkney and the Highlands. We thought about France, but Chris would need to find work there and we think there would be more chance in Scotland or Ireland.

Also, we keep pushing, but we don’t want to go anywhere that we are not meant to be. So we keep asking God and seeking him but also pushing those doors and seeing what happens.

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So we are moving out at some point, but currently don’t have a home to go to. So there is much more of the story to come. I am looking forward to this story unravelling every day and us learning to listen and be with God all the way. He has good plans…

faith and love

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

We keep thinking what do we do now?

I have to admit I keep thinking wait… which sounds mad at the moment because we will need somewhere to live…but I still keep thinking wait (for the time being) and I am wondering if it is God speaking.

We have been looking at other places to buy, there is nothing in Shetland currently that we are really interested in, or Orkney. There was one in Orkney that was nice, but it has gone under offer and it wasn’t really what we wanted. We have also been looking at some other places in totally different parts of the country and pushing a door or two. I love looking at property adverts. I love looking around homes as well, but unfortunately the ones we are looking at online are too far away to view at the moment.

So…what to do?… I think lean on the Lord and wait on Him. Keep pushing a few doors and listen.

I remembered today, one item that was on my bucket list “lean totally and utterly into God and come to know him more and more and deeper and deeper” – be careful what you wish for crossed my mind (haha). But it is the only way for me. Jesus is the only way for me.

 

 

 

Saturday morning is quite nice really, even though we don’t yet have a farm…

I have got up early with Mr Toddler, the baby is asleep and so is the husband. I’ve been searching properties and feeling a bit sorry for myself.  But also a bit excited about the fact the we don’t know where we are going. Is that weird? I like it in a lot of ways. We will keep looking and hopefully the right place will come up. In God we trust (often after trying to do everything our own way, haha), but He has plans we do not know about, they’re also more than a million times better/different than ours.

Although I have to admit I have had my moments of looking around where we live and at the allotment and thinking “what are we doing?!!” we have a nice place to live, somewhere fairly child friendly and an allotment just over the road. Then I think, but I don’t want to stay here, we want somewhere new. So new it will be.

Well, I’m going to start thinning down on our stuff today and hopefully spend some good time with the children. Josh is currently laid on the floor playing with some sort of construction set, watching tv.

It feels a bit weird that I’ve put in the opening page that this is hopefully the story of our family moving from Derbyshire to Shetland (or Orkney originally) when we actually don’t know that now. It is not the end of this story though…..

Loads of good has come out of it so far, Chris and I have travelled to Orkney twice (when normally we would not have even contemplated it and have never been before), Chris and his dad have been to Shetland. We have spoken to people we would not normally have spoken to, found out and researched information we would not normally have done and realised we were/are prepared to go into a life which would be totally different to the one we currently have. It has been quite an exciting year so far.

We may also have a gap where we don’t have a house to live in, when our house sale goes through. That feels strange…but freeing in a way, because we will have the money to buy somewhere without any hitches hopefully. Albeit not a massive amount, but some. It is so strange that we could have bought a croft on Shetland for the money we get for our terraced house but if we wanted to live in the Peak District we would need a lot more to even get a 2/3 bed house.

God bless you one and all! Time to get on with life here for the time being.

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well, we are now looking for somewhere new…

Unfortunately it seems it is now official. The acceptance of our offer on the croft has been withdrawn and they have accepted someone else’s offer instead. So! onto the new…God has good plans for us and we will try to follow him. I think he may surprise us..watch this space…

We are still selling, and we will still be moving somewhere…we just don’t know where yet…It would be stupid to lie and say we are absolutely ok about this. We are very disappointed, because it seemed so firmly in place and it went from we are moving in a few weeks at dinner time yesterday to being told we had lost it in the evening. So a bit of processing is needed. I would still like a smallholding/croft, and so would Chris, and the children but we will see what happens.

Thank you God for loving us and never, ever leaving us. That is the best thing ever. Thank you for family and friends, thankyou that you are in charge.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

(Ephesians 3:20-21)

 

The morning after!

So we are feeling a little bewildered this morning (and we did let it totally wreck our supposed date night last night). But in between feeling upset and thinking we are selling our house and don’t actually have anywhere to go (in theory). I am starting to feel more and more peaceful and secure. I believe God when he says he has somewhere good for us to go and I LOVE what a friend said yesterday which was “don’t cry over a Haribo egg when God has a box of chocolates”. (No offence Haribo, your products are lovely). So I am going to trust God in this, pray, see what happens and where we end up.

It is actually quite exciting and I am going to get on with the job of streamlining our stuff. Which I am generally not very good at and get lost in memories on looking at the vaguest of articles, for example – cups, old drawings, books, even old clothes and other things I cannot even think of at this moment. But a lot will have to go. We are contemplating actually selling most of our things and going up to wherever we end up in a van rather than hiring a removals company, but we are unsure about this and still contemplating it.

I don’t like wasting things either, so throwing things out is really not my bag. I like the recycle, make do and mend type life really. I also keep thinking what if it is false economy? but I do love the idea of not having a lot of “stuff” and going up in a van.

When I first moved out of home, I didn’t have much (not even a sofa) and I can remember it didn’t really bother me then. It was about 25 years ago though. So I think we need to make a list of what we could fit in a van and what we consider essential. I think some of Chris’s tools are probably more essential than a lot of the other belongings we have. So people who know us, you may see us selling things very soon! (more things).

Thank you for your support our lovely church family, who are praying for us, encouraging us and reminding us of God’s promises.  Thankyou to all our other lovely friends and family for your support too. We will keep you updated.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is not a certainty.

You know we all have thoughts that jump out of nowhere, they are often thoughts that are not even particularly unusual but they make us think.  I suddenly thought last night – today could be my last day here! I didn’t really believe it, but it is true, none of us know when our time is up in this life/body. So that got me thinking, so it could be said don’t sweat the small stuff, live for today, do what you want… blah blah blah…. or it could alternatively be said that the small stuff is extraordinarily important because that is what is important to people on an everyday basis in our lives.

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Strangely things like moving house, looked at from this perspective, actually don’t really matter. I think it’s personal things, caring for others, looking out for others, loving others, which is important.

It is not just important to us, it is important to God. He wants us to steward this life well.

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. (Luke 16:10)

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.  You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matt 25:21)

give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38)

He is a generous God. This gave me a little perspective I think, over the move. We really want it, but we tend to want it on our terms and in our timing (i.e quickly), but it’s not that important.  What is more important is how we do it and how we do life in general. God’s perspective is different to ours again. “give and it will be given to you” and he also talks a lot about helping people in need, about being there with them and doing nothing out of selfish ambition.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Phillippians 2:3-4)

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:16-18)

The only way any of us can do this is through meeting Jesus, making him Lord over all of our lives and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Then we will be changed, jealousy and selfish ambition will be changed (sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly) into love and compassion.

I pray for this process to continue and for our perspective to come from you Lord Jesus. Our perspective is often off, yours is not. We are and will keep asking for your wisdom.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:5-6)

 

 

 

 

 

Focusing on the good…

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phillipians 4:6-8)

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.  Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-22)

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

I just want to focus on the good stuff today and be thankful.