I nearly died this morning.

I was nearly trampled to death earlier this morning. At least, it felt as if it was just about to happen.

Walking the dog along one of our usual footpaths, we (Gracie and me) came upon a herd of cows; young bullocks, actually, not very large nor very old. All black, they were, grazing nonchalantly under the trees at the edge of the field. Even so, as Gracie has not come across cows at close quarters before, I put her on the lead, in case she charged at them.

Over the years of dog walking (my parents first got a dog when I was just 10) I've traversed many fields of cows with various dogs in tow - and have always found that cows will crowd you if the dog is on the lead - but they usually back off if you shout and wave your arms around, and allow the dog to run free.

I presumed it would be the same today. It was not.

As I passed the bullocks, they stopped grazing and began to stare. I  hastily let Gracie off the lead, and fortunately she had the good sense to race for the gate at the end of the field. Thanks, dog. You left me to it!  I turned and stamped my feet and then continued to walk on. The bullocks followed. Threateningly. More arm waving, more shouting, more walking on. But to no avail.

I suddenly remembered the news last week - of a man trampled to death not too far from here, as cows stampeded.   My fear grew and perhaps the cows sensed that.

Or perhaps they didn't like Matt Redman who was playing loudly on my iPhone so I could sing as I walked.

It certainly wasn't my singing as I had stopped when I saw them!

So now I have a shaped rearguard of black young bullocks at my back, and they are getting closer. And I'm remembering the man who was sadly killed. And I'm wondering what young calves are fed these days that makes them so vicious. Cows, even young bullocks, were sweet large-eyed docile beasts when I was young.

Now they are vicious killers.

I ran. In my blue hunter wellies I pounded towards the gate. And so of course the bullocks began to run too. And I think they run faster than I can. I am no runner.

Gracie barked - from the safety of the other side of the barred and locked gate.

I hurled myself at it and never have I climbed a gate so quickly.  With black bullocks running at it. At me.

Now there are ten thousand and one reasons for me to bless the Lord. Because I got over the gate and looked back to see the bullocks crowding the gate. I didn't even stop to take a photo. Heart pounding - fear? running? climbing a gate quickly? - I stumbled on throughthe farmyard. What DO they feed young bullocks? Do cows have more of a killer instinct than they used to?

I wish I could say I prayed as I charged for that gate! All I could think of was running fast enough to outrun the bullocks.

Thank you Lord. You had my back covered.

 Isaiah 52:12

You will not leave in a hurry, running for your lives. For the LORD will go ahead of you; yes, the God of Israel will protect you from behind. 

Psalm 139:5

You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. 

New Living Translation (©2007)

Bless the Lord, Oh my soul, worship His holy name ... sing like never before, Oh my soul, I'll worship your Holy Name.

You are needed!

some of the old wall paper we've found! 

YOU ARE INVITED:
	An invitation to come to MAYS FARM on Saturday!We will be there to have fun, begin preparation/decorating work on some of the bedrooms, dig up a few weeds, paint a gazebo ... AND CEREMONIOUSLY BURY THE TIME CAPSULE IN THE HOUSE!

TIME: Arrive any time from 9.30am.

Time capsule will be ceremoniously buried at 12.30 just before lunch

Tea/coffee/snacks provided all day, but please bring a packed lunch (or you can visit the village shop or the local watering hole which is called The Star)

Any little help which you can offer will be very much appreciated - and if you can bring any wallpaper strippers/anything to steam wallpaper, strip wallpaper, wash walls, sponges, buckets, sanders .... (and work gloves if you need them) and long long electric extension leads (15m plus) that would help enormously!

We plan to have some fun, sing God's praises as we work, pray for one another .. come and join us as we really begin to see the house come together in time for the start of this new ministry.

8 people are coming so far – so let me know if you’re coming too, and if you need directions.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

PENTECOST, PARCHED IN PETRA and PRAYING A DANGEROUS PRAYER

I had an interesting experience with water - or at least the lack of it -  a couple of weeks ago. My husband & I are celebrating auspiciously large birthdays this year; at Christmas, he gave me 2 books: the "Lonely Planet guide to Jordan",  and “I Married a Bedouin,”  written by a young New Zealand nurse who, in the late 1970’s, was on a gap year travelling, and met and married her Bedouin, who lived in a cave in Petra, Jordan.

I loved reading about Petra – it's been at the top of my bucket list since I first saw a photo of it when I was a teenager. Ecstatically excited to be going at long last, I devoured the books, amazed by Marguerite van Geldermalsen's account of living in Petra, where her children were born - including her son Raami.

And when I read the guide book and noticed "Raami Tours" mentioned,  we got in touch - and yes, it's her son, and a little local entreprenurialism. So we decided to do the "trip of a lifetime thing"  and  booked with Raami to have a local guide for each day of our stay. That decision led to 5 amazing days of things we would never have seen or done if simply following the guidebook!

Our local Petra guide was Ibrahim, who was also born in a cave in Petra, but  he doesn’t know when. He is perhaps in his late 20’s, has never been to school, but has learnt to speak English from the tourists. He and I developed quite a bond: he declared at one stage that I was like a mother to him!

On day four, we were scheduled to go for a hike  - a couple of hours in the Dana Nature Reserve. Ibrahim had only been there once before; so Nasser came too - and we discovered that Nasser, who speaks no English, is the son and heir apparent to a local Bedouin sheik, someone who is one of the advisors to the King of Jordan. Ibrahim and Nasser  took us for what turned into a long 6 hour hike:  down through the Dana Nature reserve to Wadi Araba.  From +1700m above sea level down into the desert at  -50M below sea level.

Down and down we slipped and slithered on the stony path.

After a couple of hours, Ibrahim decided it was time for tea - and he produced a kettle and glasses and black tea from his knapsack, lit a little fire and brewed up - throwing in a handful of herbs he gathered from the wilderness for good measure.

While it brewed, he showed me how to get colour from a little stone to paint my hands as the Bedouin women do.

Then we were off downhill again … as the sun rose higher and hotter and the oleanders bloomed beauty in the rocks.

The wild life was stunning.

But we were getting hot.

Hot. HOT. HOTTER.

Hottest.

Our water bottles ran out after four hours. We'd no idea we would be walking so far - in such heat - with nothing to do except keep walking.

Gradually we began to realise that we were parched. Dry. Thirsty. Miles from anywhere, with no water. And nothing to do except keep walking.

My husband began to overheat.  We were panting, longing, deeply desiring, desperate for, water.

WATER.

And into my mind came those words from the Psalms:  As the deer pants for the water ....

Words set to a sweet little tune, which belies the depth of the thirst and the dryness of the desert. We were parched and had a real problem.  The words suddenly came to life for me. THAT'S what the deer feels  - and that's what the psalmist was describing.

That dryness, that desperateness, for the refreshingness of the Lord.

That longing that only water, only God, can satisfy.

Do we know that deep desperation for the Lord? As the deer pants ....  are we panting, longing, dryly desperate for God’s Presence in our lives?

In the desert, on our way down to Wadi Araba, we – at least, Ibrahim and Nasser – stopped some passing goatherds – who were Bedouin too and who shared their cool water from the waterskins they were carrying. But we, thinking there was not too much further and wary of water whose provenance we didn't quite trust, refused it.

And began to wonder: will we ever make it?

Never have we been so glad as when we eventually saw Nasser's car in the distance, his brother driving it,  loaded with cold bottles of water. And oh the joy and the pleasure of sitting in the shade of a tree, drinking cold cold water. And knowing there was a ride in the car.

(to Nasser's house for lunch - but that's another story...)

Never will I forget the desperate parched longing for water. The deer panting and likely to die. The psalmist longing, panting, desperate  for the Lord in his life.

I need to stop God, to ask for cool water in my spiritual desert.

And don't we each need to do that?  To know the refreshment of His spring rains in our parched and weary and battered and bruised lives.

Sermon over!

But I now know that I need to pray: God make me want to want you like that.

It's a dangerous prayer. 

Psalm 42:

As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.  I thirst for God, the living God.

and in The Message -

A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek; I want to drink God, deep draughts of God. I’m thirsty for God-alive. I wonder, “Will I ever make it— arrive and drink in God’s presence?”

And this too:

As we wait in silence,

fill us with your Spirit.

As we listen to your word,

fill us with your Spirit.

As we worship you in majesty,

All fill us with your Spirit.

As we long for your refreshing,

fill us with your Spirit.

As we long for your renewing,

fill us with your Spirit.

As we long for your equipping,

fill us with your Spirit.

As we long for your empowering,

fill us with your Spirit.

http://goodinparts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/together-for-pentecost.html?spref=fb

And the winner of the time capsule competition is ...

  A while ago there was a competition on here, asking for suggestions as to what should be included in a time capsule to bury in Mays Farm. At the time, I couldn't imagine there would ever be a floor under which anything could be hidden!

There was mud everywhere this spring. Rain and mud outside; earth floors turning to mud inside. It looked like devastation to me - and I found it quite depressing. Would there ever be progress?

Friends kindly enquired - how is it going? Can you move in yet? Aren't you excited?

And I looked at the mud on our boots and the dust in our hair and I despaired. It was an utter disaster.

BUT

But there IS progress. Suddenly, things are happening in a different way. Instead of everything coming down, being taken apart, dug up or demolished, there is a putting together, a creating, a movement of new beginnings.

Progress is seen at last - look at the little store rooms being made into a kitchen.

So it still doesn't quite look like the finished kitchen ... but it's definitely improving.

And there's a similarity with my life and its ups and downs.

Sometimes it has felt that everything is demolished, devastated, depressed. 

For I too am a work in progress. Sometimes God has had to dig deep to remove the edifices I tried to erect, to dig out the imperfections, remove my all-too-easily constructed walls of pride and passions and perceptions. And it's painful.

Our workmen have been digging and demolishing  in order to restore and renew and recreate. And so has God -  He restores and renews and recreates my life.

If the LORD does not build the house, it is useless for the builders to work on it. If the LORD does not protect a city, it is useless for the guard to stay alert. (Ps 127:1)

Auspice Christo: built with the help of Christ.

I am learning to be patient about Mays Farm.

Please be patient with me, God hasn't finished with me yet!

There are other signs of new life everywhere around the Farm. And blossom in the Walled Garden.

Come and see! On May 18th & May 25th there are invitation days - details here.

And on May 25th we will be burying the time capsule under the elm beams of floor boards on the top landing. Come and pray with us for the new ministry at The Vine as we do this.

CHARLOTTE LEAKE: your entry was chosen by the MbD Trustees! Congratulations on winning a free retreat night at The Vine @ Mays Farm in September!

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!  (2 Cor 5:17)

Might you pray for us? Pray for The Vine @ Mays Farm to be built by the Lord; pray for the ministry  of offering retreats and spiritual sanctuary; pray that all will be auspice Christo. Me and Mays Farm both.

... to a day in the Cotswolds!

Lots of people have kindly said they want to come and help get Mays Farm ready for the new ministry - that they were disappointed not to be able to come on April 1st - asking when there would be another hands-on-and-help day. You are so kind! And you are right - there is a lot to be done before the house will be ready to receive the first retreat guests! (details of this summer's retreats HERE) The exciting news at the moment is that work is progressing well - the floors are going down and the underfloor heating put in.

The chapel floor

underfloor heating in the kitchen

And the walls are being stripped ready for decorating - this beautiful paper was found in one room:

So if you like stripping and discovering ... or weeding and recovering ... 

If you'd like to help bury the time capsule ....

then you are invited to come to one (or both!) of the next work days:

SATURDAY MAY 18

and/or

SATURDAY MAY 25

Arrive from 9.30, stay til  ....  as late as you like! Unlimited tea/coffee/snacks etc will be provided; there's a pub, a village stores and a vintage tea shop in the village so plenty of places for sustenance and rest (or bring a picnic!).

The walled garden 

We'll adjourn to the pub for supper in the evening.

And while you work, enjoy the peace and tranquillity of this special place.

Take time to laugh with friends old and new.

Spend some moments praying for the ministry here.

Ride the tractor ..

Enjoy the beauty:

Might you come? Bring a friend?

Please RSVP to

penelope@ministriesbydesign.org

And if you're unable to come - might you still pray? More is wrought by prayer that this world ever dreams of - and there is much need for prayer

- for protection and power

- for the Lord to be at work in the lives of those who will come here for spiritual sanctuary and renewal

- for this to become one of those special places where God's Presence is almost tangible.

Hope you can come and draw aside from every day life for a while! Let me know when you are coming and Gracie and I will be here to greet you.  See you real soon, as our American friends say.

Last chance to book a Preview (ie free!) Retreat ...

THE VINE @ MAYS FARM

There are only a VERY FEW places left for the Preview  (ie FREE !) Retreats  at The Vine this summer. So if you would like to apply to be considered, please contact Ministries by Design very very soon!

•  Guided Silent Retreat              July 22 - 26                    ONE space still available
•  Guided Walking Retreat         July 29 – Aug 2            THREE spaces still available   
•  Guided Silent Retreat             Aug 12 - 16                       fully booked
•  Guided Walking Retreat        Aug 19 - 23                     fully booked
• INDIVIDUAL RETREATS:    Weekend of July 19 - 21: ONE room still available.                                                               Mid week of August 5 - 9: fully booked

We have been amazed at the response already, and are praying for the “right” people at the right time. The House will not be quite finished, and the work available will be things such as painting and decorating, gardening, tidying, finishing … and praying! These are all PREVIEW – the House will not be fully finished! So there is no charge, but help around the House should be offered in exchange for full board & lodging & retreat.

A WALKING RETREAT - get fit spiritually AND physically! Arrive on a Monday afternoon, settle in with a cup of tea. First session, then supper. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings, after a buffet breakfast, Penelope will lead you on one of several local walks, each of about 6 miles, with opportunities for spiritual reflections and meditations as we walk. Return for lunch and spend the afternoons as you wish to make the most of this time - praying, sitting in the chapel, journalling, sleeping; and helping out manually for a couple of hours. There will be a short session each day before Supper, which will be followed by compline and early nights. Final session on Friday morning, and leave after a light lunch. Maximum of 10 people, in en-suite twin bedded rooms.

A GUIDED SILENT RETREAT - to concentrate on your relationship with God. Arrive on a Monday afternoon, settle in, enjoy tea. First session, then supper, compline and early bed, after which we will move into silence. Breakfast will be served in your room to allow time to rest, reflect, be renewed. Each day there will be individual time with a Spiritual Director, and there will be guidance if required as to how to get the most from this time. There will be opportunity to help manually around the Centre for a couple of hours each day. Meals will be taken in communal silence or you may take your meal to your room if you wish. Leave after a final time with your Director on Friday morning followed by a light lunch if required. Maximum of 5 people, in private en-suite rooms.

PREVIEW INDIVIDUAL PRIVATE RETREAT We are also offering space for you to come on your own private retreat, again Preview A minimum of 2 nights. Maximum of 5 people at any one time, in private en-suite rooms. Spiritual Direction available if required. AVAILABLE: July 18 – 21 August 5 - 9

SMALL GROUPS WEEKENDS:  Bring your small group any weekend Friday night – Sunday afternoon, Preview (free) but help out around the house too.

FROM SEPTEMBER 1st, the House will be fully open 

INDIVIDUAL PRIVATE RETREATS (Paying) The House will be open and fully operating from September 2 for private retreats or group visits. Dates for Walking Retreats and Guided Silent Retreats will be posted very soon!

Italy Pilgrimage on the Via Francigena, Tuscany: September 7 – 14  now fully booked, but there is a waiting list available

If you have any queries and/or would like more information and an application form, please email

penelope@ministriesbydesign.org

It's no sin to be sixty ..

Last Friday, you may have noticed, was my 60th birthday. The worst kept secret in history, said my sister, as various schemes and plans made by the family began to leak out. I knew there was something afoot!

My husband let slip that our daughter from America was coming to celebrate with me. Happy tears poured down my face when I discovered that! A picnic lunch, a special evening out with the family, some friends coming for lunch and a walk the following day .... Gradually the plan began to emerge.

I had not expected this present, however.

Nor this at the picnic lunch

Nor the fun in the sun

(good thing we have a long driveway for cruising ...)

Saturday. And the sun shone. Friends navigated closed motorways and horrendous traffic jams to get to Mays Farm - where there was tea in the orchard following a walk.

Later, some gifts to open.

A co-mother-in-law (tongue-in-cheek?) presented me with this:

It dawned on me that I really really am SIXTY. Apparently, no longer middle aged.

Third aged.

I am privileged to be there but be fit and healthy and embarking on a new season of life, ministry, home and house.

A quick scan of the little book reveals it to be a series of reflections, mini sermons, about ageing and faith, done with humour and grace. Just what I need to face this Third Age - humour and grace.

Christ was never middle aged.

Let alone Third Aged.

He was, humanly, always young. A young man in a hurry, places to go, people to meet, purposes to fulfil.

I am privileged to be able still to do the same.  But when the spirit continues to be willing whilst the flesh becomes weak, what then? What can I learn from the young Jesus Christ? A young man with a sense of urgency, of uncompromising attitudes and unrelenting purpose.

One day, one day, I will no longer be like that. I can already sense that I have lost energy, urgency - and, if I am honest, some of my hearing!  But God has not changed. He still has energy and urgency; he is still uncompromising and unrelenting in his pursuit of, and love for, me.

As Reinhardt Niebuhr wrote,

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

Meanwhile, I'm out to change the world one step at a time, one person at a time.

Coming to join me?

Today I encountered Grace - & Francis & Brennan & Sally

Grace first met with me over breakfast. And how I needed that encounter. 

We are reading aloud to one another, as part of our morning devotions, and right now it's Francis Spufford's book, Unapologetic.  Where, in Chapter One, he describes how the novelist Richard Powers wrote that the Adagio movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto sounds the way mercy would sound.

It's one of my favourite pieces. I'm listening to Andrew Marriner and the London Symphony Orchestra ... and just as Spufford mentions, it's a very patient piece of music. Unhurried, lilting,  the tune going round and round "in messageless tenderness .... it sounds as if it comes from a world where sorrow is perfectly ordinary, but there is still more to be said. It said, everything you fear is true. And yet. And yet. Everything you have done wrong you have really done wrong. And yet. And yet. Let yourself count, just a little bit, on a calm that you do not have to be able to make for yourself, because it is here, freely offered. You are still deceiving yourself, said the music, if you don't allow for the possibility of this. There is more going on here than what you deserve, or don't deserve. There is this, as well."

So it sounds the way mercy would sound - mercy, getting something kind instead of the sensible consequences of an action; something better than you could have expected.

And that was Grace to me. To us. And because we have been graced with grace, we can grace others with grace. A more literal translation of Matthew 10:8, which usually says something along the lines of freely you have received, freely give. We are graced - given mercy by God. So we extend it to others.

To read that; to listen to the Clarinet Adagio; to receive mercy.

Truly Graced.

And that would have been enough.

But there was more.

This time through Brennan Manning, who recently went on to Glory. His memoir, All is Grace, has a book video trailer which I happened upon later. I've ordered the book and await its arrival; but this snippet of Manning, preaching, speaking - interspersed with footage of him in his illness and incapacity; this story of a man, an alcoholic, but saved by mercy, extending grace. This, this spoke fathoms deep to me. Watch it soon, weep and rejoice. Grace met me with me through this.

And that would have been enough. But there was more.

Meeting face-to-face with Sally. She is not my Spiritual Director (that would be Joy, who is aptly named). She is a trained psychotherapist and counsellor - and the sweetest American I know, saved by grace and extending grace. I've been meeting with her for some time (you know already my PTSS and depression of the past 2 years.) As she prayed for me today, Grace came again.

Sweet Grace. Amazing Grace.

Have you encountered Grace today?

MONDAY MINISTRY

Linking up with Tania Vaughan's new blog series, to proactively take Sunday into the rest of the week. Sundays are suddenly different. Not better not worse - just different. After 33 years, my husband is no longer a full time priest; nor am  I on a church staff any more. I am just - JUST!  - a normal pew filler. Well, chair occupier. And it's different from the back row than the front one.

Especially where we are now going to 'church.' I say church advisedly - we meet in Komedia, "Bath's award-winning venue for comedy, music, cabaret and club nights " as it describes itself. So yesterday the floor was sticky - noisily sticky. It's a dark theatre with no windows. And we sit on theatre-type red plush velvet chairs.

Its not Anglican. We are even having a sabbatical from that.

Two baskets are passed around after the worship. One is to contribute financially if one feels prompted to do so - we are told there is no pressure and certainly not for visitors; the other is - oh joy!  - full of sweets! Help yourself to something to chew/suck/delight in during the talk. Red love hearts of dark chocolate. Miniature tubes of parma violets and love hearts. Lollipops.

Yesterday, I took 2 red shiny papered chocolate hearts. Smoothed the empty papers and folded and refolded as I tried to listen.

But MY heart was full of something else.

Something we had sung.

"And I - I surrender

All to you, All to you ..."

It wasn't the 'normal' surrender - me, my life, my desires, my possessions ....

It was the pain of the previous week.

Surrendering even that. Letting go of my right to the pain.

It was all I had to offer up. I opened palms up, imagined the pain leaning on them.

Here it is, Lord. It's all I have right now to give You.

* * *

Monday morning. Awakening to the memory of the pain.

And the memory of the offering. Offered once, now offered again.

The reality of Sunday's offering needed in the reality of the light of Monday morning.

* * *

And again, a certain relief in the offering. Remembering how it felt the first time. Needing to feel that again - 'seeing' Him on the Cross metaphorically leaning down to take my pain and add it to what is already carried in His body.

Died He for me - who caused His pain?

Yes.

And for those pains of mine and for those who caused them.

Amazing Grace.

I surrender all to You - even my pain.

And in surrendering, know His grace.

I will need it again tomorrow - and tomorrow - for I forget and the vision leaks.

* * *

Monday is the test of Sunday's reality. To God be the glory. All is gift.

A SHOCK - BUT GOD

April 12 and there was  a shocking setback,  a personal hit . No need to go into details; but there it was. It hurt and it was hard. But God.

That's one of my favourite phrases in Scripture.  BUT GOD ....

Because part of my daily devotional time includes reading the day's thoughts from a little Dohnavur book  - a collection of writings (notes, letters, thoughts) from  Amy Carmichael, entitled "Edges of His Ways." 

In the front, my handwriting boldly proclaims

Penelope J Walter. Cambridge. April 1975

I have been reading it on and off ever since then. Sometimes in the mornings, sometimes in the evenings. This past Friday, I read it in the evening. And read it again. And again.

I had had a shock; but God knew what I needed.  

Here's what it said:

April 12      2 Cor. 11:28  RV margin: Things that come out of course.

Sometimes things seem to happen contrariwise, on purpose. We are prepared for the usual trials of life, but these are not usual. They are things that come 'out of course,' and they are the most difficult of all to meet peacefully and to pass through peacefully. They are most upsetting things, as we sometimes call them, and they often continue to try to upset us.

It is very humbling to go through the list of ordinary things, as apparently they were regarded by the first missionaries - labours, prisons, stripes, stonings, shipwrecks, perils, travails, - and then stop and consider these added words, "beside the things that come out of course." What were they? We do not know, but judging by the things which were not counted as 'out of course,' they must have been a good deal harder than anything that comes our way.

Is there anything that you do not like and did not expect in your to-day?  If so, perhaps these words will help you to meet it with serenity.

So I went to sleep pondering those words.

And woke early to reach out and read them again. But by then it was Saturday and I needed new grace.  For Saturday was April 13 - the anniversary of my dear mother-in-law's death and my husband was feeling it right hard through the tears.

I read from Amy Carmichael to him.

APRIL 13  1 Kings 8:56 There hath not failed one word of all His good promise.

I have found in times of disappointment of any kind there is great help in these words. .....One of His good promises is, "Whatsoever is right I will give you." (Matt 20:4)   ..... Another is this: "The Lord will not withhold good things from them that walk in innocence."   (Psalm 84:11 LXX)  "No good thing will He withhold "  so that the thing not given could not have been good for us. He knows what is good.

It is just here that faith is tested sometimes very sharpely, and we begin perhaps to distress ourselves over the condition attached to the promise. Is it because of something in me tht this good thing - as I believe it to be - is not given? God, who searcheth the hearts, alone knows our need of the cleansing Blood for motive in prayer, but if by His enabling we will to desire His will, then we may leave all torturing thoughts and rest our hearts on Him. No good thing will He withhold - There hath not failed - nor ever can fail - one word of all His good promise.

We prayed for His good and perfect will. We  gave thanks for dear Granny Nancy and all she had meant to our family - and recalled the chain of events her death had started, which caused us to leave the USA , move to London and now on to Mays Farm, our new home.

No good thing will He withhold ... there hath not failed one word of His promise ...

Amazing grace, because all is gift, even if and when we don't deserve it. His promise will not fail; HE will not fail.

The blessings kept coming, all day,  in and through the hurt and the pain.

Ann Voskamp's blog with its photo

Someone wrote on Facebook: When you are going through something hard and you wonder where God is, remember the teacher is always quiet during a test.

Testing times for me; maybe for you too this week?  But God ..  ?

Preview Retreats

You liked the idea of coming to be guinea pigs and try out Ministries by Design for free this summer! I had thought there would be a small amount of interest and I would be able to allocate places soon after Easter. I was totally wrong!

The application forms continue to pour in and I am humbled, thrilled, excited, privileged, to read them, as you have shared so much of your journeys and reasons why you would like to come.

So I am working my way through them, beginning to allocate places, and feeling incredibly excited at what the Lord is planning for these Preview Retreats.  Some wonderful people wanting to come; soma amazing offers of help; some profound reasons for wanting a few days of spiritual sanctuary and solace this summer.

If you are wondering if your application has been accepted and you have been allocated a place - please grant grace? I am aiming to let people know by this coming weekend, so crave your patience for just a little longer.

If you are about to send in your application form , please note that

- there will be a waiting list for the Silent Retreats;

- there are still a couple of places available on the walking retreats;

- there is plenty of space for individual retreats.

Have a look at the dates and descriptions  and pop your application form in the post asap!

We look forward to welcoming you to The Vine @ Mays Farm this summer; and if you would like to go on to our mailing list with future dates please send in  your email address.

Please pray for MbD as we head into the exciting new ministry?

On a short fuse

Stress. Renovating projects and moving house and changing jobs are all rated highly on the stress indicator tables. Add to that the PTSS and depression of the previous two years, and I can excuse my instant explosions.

That angry tongue.

Those hateful words.

The impatient temper which explodes just when I'm not expecting it.

I even - yes, I confess to this too - I even hit the dog. Not hard, but still. I hit her, because she was leaping up at a visitor: trained already by our lovely workmen (they truly are, always cheerful and hardworking even in the recent freezingly cold weather) to leap as they tease her with their sandwiches. I've only recently discovered this and they do't do it anymore. But old habits die hard, especially in Labradors eager for any tidbit. Exasperated by her disobedience and desire to jump, I scolded and then lashed out, impatient, angry, on a short fuse.

And in front of a wonderful young Christian who had come on Saturday to help us work on the house.

So that's where I was last week.

On a short fuse.

It kept hitting me too, that short fuse.  Exploded externally, nagged internally.

But Sunday. And the sweetness of the Lord came pouring in as the tears poured out.

"This is the air I breathe ... and I, I, I - I'm lost without You, I'm desperate for You."

Worship at The Bath and Avon Vineyard. The Spirit convicting. 

Lord, change me.  I'm desperate for You to change me. I can't seem to get rid of this short fuse.

* * * *

He sent me Words. Words I have known for years but had forgotten. From Amy Carmichael's small but profound book IF  - 

If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word, then I know nothing of Calvary love. For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.

I need Calvary Love. HIS love, pouring into me, loving others through me, filling me to the brim with His sweetness and patience and grace.

So I kneel at the foot of His Cross, conscious once again of that all powerful Love. LOVE that died for me and my short fuse.  LOVE that can flood me. LOVE - the first of the fruit of the Spirit.

The Cross we found (in the floor joists!) is now in the Chapel

I welcome His love in and drink deeply. Oh, LOVE, that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee ...

I'm still on a short fuse.  But I've handed the fuse to Him.

* * * *

SATURDAY  was another work day. The final wall came down, to create the kitchen. And the ceiling came down in one of the attic bedrooms.  That's the end of demolishing; now we start putting it all together. YAY!