I was allowed to be myself. I was allowed to be overwhelmed, and I wasn’t rushed to the tidy, theologically correct end. I was discovering a God who could handle all my upset and questions, I was discovering a God who was not placidly unconcerned about our world—in fact, this God of the Bible seemed to have some very intense emotions too.
We think we know the momentous and portentous events of our lives, because we have them mapped out with the big things – proposals, births, funerals – but love and grief have their own rules, and they funnel their potency into the little details, the ordinary objects of life, so that we are caught unawares by our emotion even whilst we are going about our daily business.
When I look back on 2013, it feels surprisingly full, and I am so thankful for that. But I am also feeling the need to rest. I see the ‘one word’ exercise as a conversation between this year and the last, which is why this year’s word is ‘retreat’.
“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 […]
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 […]
“I don’t know – maybe I should call my flute teacher, the one who teaches me,” said my flute teacher to my mother. “It could be that she’s taking a little longer to get the knack of the tone because she hasn’t got the right shaped mouth. Some people don’t.” I stood in my […]
(For American readers, larder = pantry). Mum christened our house ‘Kia Nyama’, which means ‘house of meat’ in Shona. Our friends assumed that ‘nyama’ was spelt ‘yummer’ and thought it most accurate. It was the house of food. On a sunny day (because childhood is perpetually sunny), we three kids would tumble in […]
It’s been a year!* Many happy returns to me! (*actually it was a year on 6 Jan 2013, so I’m a month late. But hey! I’m writing my blogoversary post anyway.) It’s something that people ask me quite often nowadays: have you always been a writer? And the truth is, I am […]
Sign up to get my newsletter with exclusive updates and offers six times a year and receive your FREE e-book. Click HERE
Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]
