Thorns and Gold

It had been about four months since our lives had been irreparably split open and we were on the sofa together, watching TV.   It had been four months since I gave birth, since the exertion of labour tipped my illness into ‘severe’, since the world outside had become closed to me; friendships paused, visits [...]

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“We’re married,” I whispered, like it was a secret, and we peeked at each other over large brown menus, the evening air still duvet-warm.   It had been an early sailing and long drive, but we were here, and it was just as he said it would be. We were sitting in the square, surrounded [...]

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The car pulled up to the church, and the driver helped me out. I stepped onto the path, my silk-white high heels making the tiniest crunch on the gravel. And then I looked down at my dress. My dress! At some point on the journey it had turned yellow. It was bright yellow. My dress [...]

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Ruthie Davies shines with a passion for Jesus in everything she writes. It is a passion that goes deep, that has been tested in the considerable fire of grief.  She has a beautiful Welsh accent that can be heard in this moving interview. Here is her story:     For me, suffering cued neither the beginning [...]

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My family is crazy, and they drive me mad. They make me madder and hurt me more than anyone else can.   But don’t you dare criticise my family. You don’t have the right. They are mine to criticise and I’ll defend them to the hilt.   *****   It has been a strange sort [...]

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  Alice Buckley is the kind of person who makes my heart smile every time I see something she writes, whether on Twitter or on her blog. She writes imaginatively about how to teach the Bible to young children, and I love learning from her. Over to Alice:   Two kinds of suffering   When [...]

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Joining with Amber on Mondays for concretewords, where we practice writing by communicating the abstract through concrete things – a Horse, a book, stairs – and today I’m catching up and doing a double whammy: The Sweater and Frost. These concrete words posts have led me on a journey through childhood and nostalgia and spiritual [...]

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I don’t remember when it was – perhaps four or six months after the birth. I remember the place – sitting across from Jon, my arms on the big oak dining table, eating a tired dinner with tears.   “Why aren’t you mad at God?” I asked him. “You are going through all of this, [...]

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What’s your love language?   Love-languages are the ways in which we express and receive love. If you don’t yet know yours, I can recommend taking this fun quiz to find out! There are five love-languages, according to Gary Chapman: quality time, words of affirmation, gift-giving, physical touch and acts of service.   These are [...]

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I have had the pleasure of knowing Nick Parish since university days. His writing at that time was limited to the CU newsletters (which were surprisingly entertaining, as I recall). He is someone who always makes me see God afresh, genuinely cares for others and writes with a whimsical self-deprecating sense of humour. This combination [...]

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