Today is my wedding anniversary

Us at the old house, two years ago, three doors down from the Church where we serve. Must have been mad to move.

May 09. My whole great, big, beautiful family. My kids first and third from left at front.
Nine years ago I was married at Hagley Hall in Hagley where we were married in the church in the grounds called St John's, by an Anglican priest with a Polish Catholic blessing. My cousin played 'Make me a channel of your peace' on his flute and we danced the night away to a band with a sax. We then spent one night at The Brockencote Hall before flying to the Maldives on a jumbo jet and a small sea plane, and when I saw my island I cried for it was one of the most beautiful things I had seen in my life. And we recalled the events of our wedding day as we walked down wooden steps into the lagoon below, for ours was a house on stilts in the sea. And we talked of how my heart had raced that the bells were ringing for me and God was there and the sun shone and we prayed prayers of thanksgiving in the limousine on the way to our Hotel and we had clung onto each other in the small sea plane and then arrived by boat to marvel at the flowers on our pillow and the cake and champagne that awaited us. And we spent two weeks without shoes, taking photographs of flowers and swimming and feeding fish and eating and sunbathing and...well, you know.

And it was all blissful...so now nine years on, we look back, so happy that God burst into our lives with renewed vigour, purpose and direction. And tonight we listened to music and reflected back on houses and jobs and children and what the future might hold and then at about ten o'clock my husband found out he's got a job. So after four months of unemployment, with us down to our last penny, he will leave at 5 am and head for the big city to help some people who have been left in a bit of a spin after a worm infected their IT system. So this 4 month adventure moves on. My husband was around as I prepared for Bap, to see me come home high as a kite and then to hear my whoops for joy in the hall mid July as I found out they had accepted me. We took time out for New Wine and came to understand more fully the power of the Holy Spirit. He has taken the children to and from school as I worked at college and we have worked together on my return at a big glass desk side by side with our laptops staring out over the blossoming garden.

So...I am going to miss these times. God gave us this time to be together, to parent together, to laugh in the face of near poverty together and to discover more of God together.

A new horizon is dawning and I am going to have to trust Jesus more than ever to help me to juggle everything now that the other half of my 'one flesh' is going to be a little distant in miles and focus. Bless you, Father.