The last few years...

So we’ve a trip planned to India this summer and I decided to include in my testimony which we were asked to prepare, a little bit about me and the last few years. Here is a snapshot of my testimony,and yes- it’s cheesy, ultimate cheese, French brie to be exact, or possibly even your finest stilton..my testimony is still very much being written and will continue to do so until the day I pop my clogs!

I found myself changing nappies (or “diapers”- cheeky shoutout to Katie, Anna, Ellen and Jacob, and all of you from West Thompson) for the 4^th time that day and thought..why am I here? Is this really it?  I thought about my friends whose lives seemed to have carried on without me, like their clocks had never stopped ticking but mine had drawn to a halt.

 It was 2011 and I’d applied for university, but having started and got into the swing of things in Liverpool, life had stopped for me as I’d become quite poorly. After spending time in hospital, I realized university was going to be put on hold for a year, and I found myself working two part time jobs back at home with my family. Keighley didn’t sound as glamorous as Liverpool. Nappy changing and waitressing didn’t seem as exciting as university life, and living at home certainly didn’t seem as cool as living away with friends. But this was it, and life was life, but it seemed a little mediocre and generally dull. I was searching for some other work and then…

I received an email from a really good friend asking if I was looking for work and if so, she had a job for me looking after her Gran. I pretty much said yes on the spot.This was exactly what I was looking for! God provided in such an amazing way,far beyond anything I could have hooked up for myself- he was all over it like Jaws on a group of swimming children…too graphic?! Anyway…

I met this lady, my friends Gran. She was called Kay, and she was the first old person I had come across who still had a real sparkle in her. And she was funny! Over the following weeks and months I spent time with her, listening to her,chatting, and generally having a laugh, and I grew to love her. Her Alzheimer’s meant that she struggled remembering things, but still she would continue to crack jokes with me, and her previous crazy life in the West Indies was a world away from where we’d found ourselves in Ilkley, but the twinkle in her eye was still very much present!!

Kay had enjoyed her life. She was thankful for it! She was tired, but thankful! She loved her friends and family, and she inspired me to look at my life differently. I was inspired, in each moment, to at least TRY and be thankful for what I had, to thank God for his provision, and even when it was hard, when she’d forgotten who I was, and when I was still changing nasty nappies left right and centre, to choose to be thankful. I came across this verse the other day in the Message (thankyou Eugene) Colossians 3.17…

“Whateveryou do, whenever you do it…do it for the glory of God!”

So heck yesam I going to change dirty nappies for the glory of God!

Heck yes amI going to read the “Very Hungry Caterpillar”, for the 13^th time forthe Glory of God!

Heck yes amI going to make another cheese and pickle sandwich graciously for the grumpy lady on table3 who seemed to leave her manners at home that day FOR THE GLORY OF GOD!

Or at least I’ll try to anyway.

Over andout :)

Intentional Love

Today I’m writing this with a great friend. Together we have been chatting and thinking about who we want to be, and how we can be love (the verb) to each other and those around us.

Over the past few months, we have come to the conclusion that some people are VERY easy to love. Especially when you like them. We have also come to the conclusion that some people are hard to love, but often they’re the ones who need it our love most. They’re the ones we can choose to love intentionally. This is no mean feat, trust us. In those moments when all you want to do is snap at your parents, ignore the weird man asking for money, and escape from those who know exactly how to push your buttons, there is the opportunity to choose to honour, love and respect.

We live in a world full of people trying to impress others. We are so bothered about what the next person is doing in comparison with us. Are they better than us? Are they weirder than us? Am I cool? Am I funny? Where do I fit into this group? All of these questions; whether consciously or unconsciously thought, encircle our brains for a good percentage of the time.

And if you are odd, or strange, or wacky, or if you’re an average Joe or a conventional Margaret, God sees you, and he knows you. He’s MORE than ok with you, with your personality, your looks, and he says YES to you!

So, we want to be people that accept you for you. We don’t want to make you feel awkward in social settings, we don’t want to make you feel like what you said wasn’t good enough, we don’t want you to feel like you’re “out”, and we’re “in”. We want to be inclusive NOT exclusive. We’re not seeking to be cool, we’re seeking to love.

Here are some things that we want to see in our friendship circles and beyond. We want to create this culture- where we feel good enough, chosen, and totally accepted- whomsoever we happen to be with.

We want to…

-lift others up, and not patronize them

-honour those who are difficult to love

-be approachable

-be non-judgmental in word and action

-make people feel worthy

- love people the way God would.

-create an atmosphere of total acceptance, where nothing’s too weird, and nothing’s too wacky. It’s ok to be you, and wacky is good- but if wacky isn’t you then that’s good too!

As a closing thought, we would like to mention a couple of friends of ours here. This couple came to visit us a few weeks back. We were so struck by the love they showed everyone they came into contact with. They were accepting, non-judgmental, and honest, and it was so refreshing to be a recipient of their hearts and actions! They inspired us to do the same. How different would our worlds look, if we each loved indiscriminately? Maybe today you might just be challenged to do the same.

Over and out :)

Joshua Luke Smith, Sing Again

Welcome and a little introduction...

Hello!

Welcome to my blog. I have been inspired by my lovely sister to write a blog about some of the things I love, and hope you will enjoy reading the next posts and don't get too bored!

Firstly, thankyou for reading this. There would be no point in me doing it if no-one read it...

Secondly, I love cooking and baking. I'm a...haphazard sort of baker. The kind which lacks any obvious principal of organisation, and often after a recipe has been changed/substituted for missing ingredients/totally ignored, I find my baked goods are not what the original recipe predicted. Anyway, I'll post photos and my own recipes with what I used (i.e. no bulgur wheat- who even knows what this is? Or any other strange ingredients for that matter). All the recipes posted will be gluten free, and I'm 'trying' to be more healthy too, so they may just be a little bit healthier aswell! :)

Thirdly, I love music and singing. I find music touches my soul ;) Joking (I can't believe I just wrote that)..but I DO love it.I love to sing though. It's my way of getting pent up emotion out of my system without punching my nearest and dearest.

If I find any good songs that I'm really into then I'll probably put a link up on here too.

*Warning, may contain One Direction

Fourthly, I love my friends and family. You may know them already, you may not. You may even be a member of my friends or family category...in that case, congratulations ;-) There will undoubtedly be posts regarding them, sharing their deepest and darkest secrets for the whole of the internet to see. Watch this space, I may be revealing your childhood crush on here.........

Finally, and most importantly, pretty much the only reason I'm doing this is because of God. Over the next few months and years, I'm going to document what God is saying over me and I thought if I wrote it on here then I may be able to show others who I have found him to be in my life.

As a great and wise friend once told me...

"when life is easy, and when life is hard, God is ALWAYS good." 

Over and out :)