Illyria

I had been secretly dreaming about a summer coat, in a bright and brezzy shade…lime green or a strong lilac or candy pink….sky blue even. And last Thursday at work, a lovely lovely friend put an M&S giftcard in my pigeonhole saying ‘God told me to give you this, buy something for yourself’!!

So I dashed out and tried on every summer coat they had, and funnily enough the one I liked best was…

ORANGE!!!!

It looks quite red here but here is the link for the M&S page: http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/product/B001RJDUKK/sr=1-32/qid=1236887730/ref=sr_1_32/279-5217025-4381853?ie=UTF8&node=&m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&keywords=&mnSBrand=core&size=60&rh=n%3A43109030&page=1

It makes me think a crochet flower scarf might be good with it, slightly like this one from last summer:

Anyway, I am very excited and happy and even a bit giddy!

I have been considering these topics in a spiritual light for my Invest presentation on Friday, but here are some other senses of the words…

1. Family foundations. I love my families in the broadest sense - I even feel like my colleagues are family - sisters! Church family is blowing me away at the moment.  Mira has been so incredibly sweet and snuggly and kissy today - andI have smooched a lot of teddy bear fur! My sister came down to support me at the weekend and we will have a few very lovely visitors over the next fortnight.

2. Creativity  - both a foundation and baggage! Part of what I do is recycling, but I wanted to make hearts that would endure longer than card and I don’t have time to carve my own. These will be amazingly transformed when next seen…

However, to be honest, a lot of what I do is hoard  and collect, and stash reducing is a necessity. But I have bought this wire… so why? It is steel, and to buy this amount in sterling silver would have cost me over £200. The anitque colour is perfect , it cost me about £7 and should last for ages. So once my prelim marking is over, I hope to get started  - my head is buzzing with ideas. I also wanted some clear hard resin for jewellery purposes but that is proving harder to obtain.

As you may know, Ben and I have been on a bit of a spiritual rollercoaster ride this year - exciting, with ups, downs, and unexpected twists and turns. I’m going to try and share bit and pieces with you, and the Stir The Water site is one of them. It has really practical help for listening to God and the meditations are amazing. It has been a huge blessing to me, so if you want to know more, click the image on the top right here, or ask me!

I have been away on a couple of spiritual development courses lately, one with Streams and one with Invest. They were  both amazing and I feel very nourished! Many thanks to the grandparents who helped out with the little tiddler!

Tonight I am making cupcakes for a school coffee morning and getting to try out my new star nozzle for piping the top! I also hope to complete some creative projects. Maybe I’ll get some photos up at the weekend. I knowI didn’t get around to updating my Etsy shop yet but I will soon!

Right, off to cakeyness.

We had a great week at camp - lovely kids and even the rain couldn’t dampen the fun. The team were totally amazing and I loved getting to know them all better.

Off to my sister tomorrow, back to work on Thursday.

I am not going to be crafting or posting for a wee while as I am off to Lendrick Muir. My talk is on ‘pressure’ and I really want one of my illustrations to be the mints in the cola bottle, but I suspect I won’t get away with it! However, I know a fair bit about pressure although no one has yet offered to feed me to a lion or throw me in a fiery furnace, thankfully…

See you when I get back!

Here is a quick sketch I did last Sunday to express what I had been thinking about dealing with the gunk in life.

What “moving in the opposite spirit” means to me is that if you feel skint, give something away, or if someone is nasty, do something nice for them. It can be good to do these things in secret, and they always make me feel better and break any negative atmosphere.

Romans 12

I don’t normally blog about the day to day difference I feel being a Christian makes, but I just can’t keep this inside anymore - and it’s only a tiny part of how loved I feel! I hope it makes sense! And expresses my enormous gratitude to all!
Over the last few months, and this one in particular, we have had so many unexpected gifts that are specific answers to prayer.

This morning, Ben got £100 for Mozambique from an acquaintance at work!

The post arrived with an anonymous gift for a Valentine’s meal in the Ashoka!

My mum took me to Mothercare and bought me a pile of baby things! And helped me paint!
Two weeks ago we had a cheque from a relative for £500 for Mozambique.

The week before we had a cheque from another relative to help us get the bathroom done.

About the same time, we got our baby travel system, feeding equipment, clothes and toys from friends at church.

At Christmas we got these beautiful handmade gifts from Ben’s parents:

Before Christmas we got a cradle, cot, rocking horse, high chair and stair gates from the woman next door, and I got about £1000 of craft stuff to help start a new business from friend’s aunt!

And lots more! We literally are struggling with room for it all!

…see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it… Mal 3;10

After the wonderful weekend conference with JPJ and Mark Stibbe I was all excited about going to school on Monday. I have been back at work for two days now and no one has noticed my inner light yet! I have beamed and radiated and the only thing I knew about anybody was that someone was going to ask me for a lift!
Still I suppose it’s a start.