SEPTEMBER MINI BLOG

And because I've only just come up with this idea - here is September's mini blog from my Instagram mini blog posts (@rahabs_ribbon)

September 10th 2018

Loss is part of living, I know that's true. But grief is real and sore and leaves a tangible space in our chests. Be gentle with each other - be gentle with yourself. And burn the candles, use the good sheets, wear the fancy clothes. Don't save things for special occasions. Today is special enough.

September 17th 2018

I've been in a waiting room (as my mother calls these times) or the gap (as @marshawnevans calls them in her fabulous book 'Believing Bigger') at many points in my life. Sometimes these rooms are just plain frustrating, sometimes frightening but always they bring with them a sense of teetering on the brink of something. I find myself in such a room or gap now. Toes gripping the edge, unwilling to plunge into the beauty I see ahead as though unsure of the wisdom of the leap or my ability to stay afloat in new, uncharted waters - yet totally dissatisfied with where I'm still standing and determined not to settle for life on either the sidelines (to mix my metaphors) or, for that matter in the shallows. I long to be refreshed, challenged and reinvigorated. But yet, here I still am.........

September 21st 2018

I had my second visit to Sagrada Familia in Barcelona this week. The privilege to visit even once is not lost on me. My husband and I were looking forward to sharing this breathtaking basilica with our son who had never seen it before but I expected the emotion of my first visit to be diluted by familiarity. I was wrong. Mind blown - again.

As I stepped inside the cathedral, the majesty, colour and sheer enormity of the space took my breath away as if I was seeing it for the first time. And I wept - again. I wept with the sheer joy of experiencing the beauty of it. I wept in awe of the skill, artistry and ingenuity of its architect and its builders. And I wept in worship of the One it was designed to honour and all His awesome creativity, creativity which the cathedral's interior was intended to reflect. At the end of our visit we made a few purchases in the gift shop. Museum and heritage site shops are a weakness of mine. I bought a fridge magnet (a compulsory holiday memento for me), a jigsaw to enjoy during the Christmas holidays (by family tradition a large jigsaw takes over the dining room table on the 27th Dec until it is required again for New Years Eve dinner) and, as a complete impulse buy, a postcard of a section of one of the cathedral doors. There were 3 to chose from; one said faith in Spanish, one said charity in Spanish and the one I chose had the Spanish word for hope. Hope is an important word for me. In Jesus I have a hope that is eternal, a hope that surpasses situation or current circumstances. I have a hope in an ordained future which, although not guaranteed to be easy, is guaranteed to be part of God's perfect plan. I like hope. Hope is good.

September 30th 2018

Of all the seasons it is Autumn which screams CHANGE most of all. This year it did so with particular insistance, partly I think, because we headed to Spain for a week in the middle of September and returned to dramatic colours in our garden, a huge windfall of apples and a cold snap. Along with change comes endings and beginnings, both of which can be stressful and downright painful. Sometimes something needs to die before the new can come to be. We grieve what we have lost even as we embrace what we have birthed. As my husband and I walked the dog across the fields yesterday in the late afternoon sunshine, it struck me that along with the nip in the air had come the return of my walking boots. The leaves were a blaze of colour, some crunching under foot and some clinging precariously to their branches. And there in the hedgerows and in my garden were the fruits of the summer sunshine and Irish rain. "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" indeed. I'm ready to start moving forward, putting out fruit and embracing the change. Bring it on. In the first session of @melwigginsMovements course I was thinking a lot about the changes that have already begun in my life and how exciting and equally terrifying all this change is. And in the midst of this I was reminded very clearly that there is One I can trust utterly because He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 "For Jesus doesn't change - yesterday, today, tomorrow, He's always totally Himself." #changingseasons #jesusdoesntchange#fallleaves #autumnleaves #autumnfruits

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