Reflections and Inspirations

This is my photo for day 3 of 365. A day for time to reflect and Inspire. Enjoy.
I have been looking back over my journal and reflecting on some of the wonderful things that has happened in 2009 and how the Lord has been so faithful to me.

It helps to reflect on 2009 as I look forward to 2010 and some of the ways I might FLOURISH in 2010.
I hope these 9 Reflections from 2009 inspire you too.

1. I started the year with 2 bugs that led into post viral fatigue which lasted for months and I have had to pace myself all year - and yet, I thank God for such amazing times of rest and some things he taught me whilst snuggled under a duvet. He reminded me of how I am safe with Him, loved and accepted and how rest is part of God giving us a chance to get our breath back - as it says in the message Bible in Psalm 23 - and then He sets me in the right direction. Yippee!

2. Last year, the Lord gave me the word CHANGE. I had been busy doing lots of voluntary work over the years, being involved with pioneering and developing some work with Special Needs for children and young people and their families at some national events here in the UK. I sensed the word change I felt it was time to pass on the baton for 2009. The scripture that colleagues had for me was - Isaiah 54 - which really is about change and enlarging and thinking Big!

3. This word ENLARGE and think big had me begin to ask God to help me apply it to all spheres of my life. Life was quite different with post viral fatigue and with no planned or specific ministry in 2009 it really was a year for laying things down and having time and space. I began to dream dreams for some of the things in my life that have been hidden and pushed to one side in my life. A time to look at my creativity, time to begin to de-clutter, tidy, dream, plan, prepare. I wrote my list too of things to do in this next year before my next birthday - and called it my wish upon a star list.

4. I have had it on my heart to write some things down for a while over the last few years but it hasn't really been much of a year for productivity, more a time of being. I was desperate for some creative outlet, though, so I began blogging! A way of bringing to re-birth, fanning into flame some of my CREATIVITY. A friend at church gave me this verse from Timothy, as she had been praying for me - fan into flame the gifts that God has given was a timely and significant verse of encouragement. I have so loved joining bloggy land! I have so loved connecting with Make some art Mondays, Turn the page Tuesdays and gaining fresh inspiration and fun and finding some great new friends in bloggy land. Thank you Rachel at myslightlycrazyworld for a lovely day spent with you, playing pass the baby to start my blog here at creative tails.

5.It has been a time when God has proved himself faithful and the God who cares deeply about the details in my life. I was in touch with a guy for a few months and hoped it might lead somewhere. I wasn't sure if it was leading anywhere, except up a dead end alley, so I and my girly cake chick friends prayed and asked God to honour a deadline day. He did and it was great to know the TRUTH and for the truth to set me free! He is such an awesome God and a time of experiencing the kindness of God. When God speaks, release comes. Isaiah 45 v 3.

6. Also, I have been on a job search as my hours were reduced and I needed to find full time work as part time work wasn't a long term viable option. It was a hard search at times, seemingly relentless and almost soul destroying journey. I asked God if something could please be just dropped in my lap. I shouldn't have been surprised when a few weeks ago it did just that but I was! It reminded me of the WAIT and the NOW. The wait can seem like forever but, in God's time, when God says now it happens in an instant.

7. It has been a great year for quality TIME with friends and family and with God too. Practising hospitality, friends coming round and sitting on the sofa when I have been tired and spending time with me. Friends have come and stayed here, rather than me travelling to see them and each and every visit has been a blessing. Lots of time to pray and think, to journal and to ask God more of what this word change means for me. Psalm 84 and Song of Solomon 2 v 4 has been great ones!

8. A great family holiday, a few parties to dress up posh and wear my lovely pink and red shoes that carry the label GORGEOUS, time to begin to look at some of my family history and roots and DISCOVER new things. FASCINATING. My NEW kitten Tudur arrived - his Welsh name means divine gift and he really is!

9.It has been a year of REFRESHING in ways that have taken me out of my comfort zone. I read this - Exodus 2 v 15. to be sat down at the well (refreshing) is a desert experience. God lovingly draws us apart for a season and strips us of our busyness and our ability to operate in our strengths. He has not abandoned us and he is not judging us. These are precious things when we listen with a new intensity. We can recognise anew our dependency on Him and our intimacy with Him is deepened.
"In the desert He found him in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him. He guarded him as the apple of His eye. The Lord alone led Him."

It has been my special 1:1 support time with God this last year. I will take these 9 truths from 2009 with me into 2010... and looking forward to FLOURISH very much indeed.

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year!
I wonder what the new year holds for you? Time for change, count your blessings, move forward....
More relaxing today for me with TV - Willy Wonka, The Railway Children and Miss Marple - all loved classics for me today! A day made complete with my cosy new slippers that I was able to use my staff discount card to get from the bling shop when I worked there!

I also drank hot chocolate made with Liquid chocolate from the Hotel Chocolate store!
I braved the shops to do my food shopping ready for the week ahead and had a quick walk in the cold before going to tea with my friend Abbie. Yummy lasagne.
I have been also giving myself some more time for reflecting on last year and looking forward to new hopes and dreams for 2010. More on this later...but for now I am following this advice - check it out here - and choosing one word for this year. Quite a challenge for me too, Beth, to only choose only ONE! I could write quite a list of favourite words! Thanks for the idea.
I am going to choose the word FLOURISH for this next year ahead.

I read in another blog about recording each day of the year ahead with a photo - Project 365- read all about it here and where it seems to have all started. A brilliant idea to try!
I am having 2 photos for today, my new slippers and my soon to flourish Lillies I bought today to remind me of my new word for the year 2010!
What word will you pick for this year?
Let me know and blog about it and post a link so others can hear too.

A Relaxing New Years Eve!

A bit of tidying up and cleaning and re-cycling, relaxing, TV, sorting through the lovely Christmas cards, catching up with emails, updating address books and my new calendar and diary for 2010.
I put away all the Christmas decorations and chopped up the Christmas tree for re-cycling!Tudur watched the proceedings, carefully. I usually throw the tree into the back of the car and take it to a park where they chop it up to re-cycle. After I did it last year, I heard that they had apparently stopped it. Oops. So this year, I am attempting to re-cycle it with our usual re-cyling scheme with all the weekly rubbish collection. I hope that my tree counts as "twigs and small branch" for the re-cycling criteria!
I have also been chasing the air in my radiators around the house. I tried to bleed them the other day and obviously didn't do it right as this morning was woken by monsters making lots of noise in the boiler and the radiators. It scared Tudur!
I am writing down thoughts and reflections of this last year 2009 and some hopes and dreams for 2010 in my journal and praying about some things too as I go. It is all good, which I will share in 2010!
Which is very soon!
It is proving to be a fab pyjama day to watch Murder on the Orient Express and Madagascar... and now there might be time to watch a few more classics! I love movies to relax to. don't you?Tudur is really enjoying time to relax too.
I wonder how you will be reflecting and celebrating the end of one year and the start of a New one?

How to make a cake impression

My friend Rachel from myslightlycrazyworld.blogspot.com sent me a message and link today - about a fabulous picture of an amazing cake she saw here...
I am impressed, are you?
Monet eat your heart out! Literally, I guess.
thanks Rachel for the link!
I am beginning to relax now for a few days. Hurrah!
Today was the last day in my other job I have had recently, in the "bling shop" as I have been calling it! When my shift was about to end my niece and her husband and 3 children came in to the store. They were all very excited and pleased to see me at work! They then came back to my place for a while to play with the growing kitten, Tudur! They love him but he is a bit overwhelmed by their eagerness to make friends with him. Especially the youngest,Rebecca, who is 1. She is very mobile now and can corner Tudur very well indeed! She shrieks with joy as she tries to stroke him. He tries to oblige and not move backwards. Good boy. The eldest,Luke, 8, loves to throw things up and down the stairs for him to chase, which he loves. It was going well, until he nearly slid down the stairs with his socks on. Then the middle niece, Hannah, 5, just likes to follow him everywhere too.
They did try and follow him out of the cat flap at one point!

I now have a few days off before starting my new job in the New Year.
New Year - that is soon!
I am planning a quiet new year. I want to do some scrapbooking, watch TV, catch up with cleaning and laundry and tidying the Christmas decorations away and any other things I can find time to tidy away or throw out!
After reading that list, it could be quite a bust few days, after all!
Either way, it will be quality me time with me and Tudur and my new slippers from the bling shop. Aah. goodtimes.
Have fun in whatever way you celebrate the new year.
Happy 2010!

Remember to be thankful for unlikely places

I have been reading a book, recently, that encouraged me to ask God to teach me in unlikely places. I really love that phrase, don't you? The suggestion was to have a humble and teachable heart into each day and to be open for God to speak to us in our daily lives and to keep a journal of this for a week.
I quite liked the idea of asking God to speak to me in new and fresh and probably simple ways. So, last week, I did!
Here are some of the things I think the Lord reminded me of and taught me, based on what I wrote down at the end of each day.
I hope that it encourages you to see things in fresh ways, how God speaks in and through us in simple ways and teaches us in the unlikely places.
A bit like a breath of fresh air, really!

Please let me know if you decide to do this too and let me know what you have learned in the unlikely places too. Id love to hear.

Day 1
Girlie chick cake group night. As we shared our gifts and encouragements for Rachel for her birthday, I was reminded of the power of words - to give life - to speak words of truth and life, as we encourage each other.

Day 2
I have been blessed to read comments on my blog! I am blessed to be a blessing by encouraging and inspiring others to start their own blog too! Who would have thought?
Thank you!

Day 3
Sat chatting with my big sister, over a cuppa and she enlightened me to the significance of fig trees in the Bible. It was where people sat under them to read and study The Word of God. It was the story of Nathanael - I saw you under a fig tree. God sees and He knows. what a great way to be reminded of my desire to "sit under His shade", whilst drinking tea with my sis!

Day 4
drinking tea - again - and eating teacakes with my friend Abbie and we decided to start a girlie cake chick journal, to encourage ourselves as we look back on it, that God, faithful God, answers our prayers.

Day 5
I went for an interview! I said that some of the bright accessories they sell could act as a great mood lift and brighten any dreary rainy day! It reminded me that words of encouragements and kind words really do lift the soul. I then went out for coffee and cake with a friend. I am very thankful for my friends here. I am not isolated and I am experiencing the love of God and the gift of friendship unfolding before my very eyes. Immanuel, God with us. My coffee with cream.

Day 6
Friends coming to stay. The joy of hospitality. I really do love it and love the way that friends actually like coming to stay!

Day 7
Shopping day! I love shops and going with a friend too, for fun. I went to Liverpool too. A beautiful and special city, for me. I led an amazing outreach team there a few years ago. A city famous for the Beatles, has a history of trade, slavery, gangs, china Town, trafficking, crime as well as God's heart for the people of this city to be full of vibrant colours of life and creativity, to go into the nations. A reminder too, of how great it is to relax with friends and to enjoy coffee and being there for each other.

The book, is called Punk Monk: by Andy freeman and Pete Greig
It is about "New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing." I have loved it and will write more about other bits of the book soon.

Remember to be thankful for friends and neighbours

Today I went to see my friend Fiona. We drank tea and laughed and talked and talked about our lives, memories, lists, things that break frustratingly(she has quite a list and my washing machine is now broken),men, art, family, church, God. She generously shared her chocolate cake with me too. She is an amazingly creative and talented artist, amongst other things. I have known her and her family for ages, as we grew up in the same town, we both moved away and now we live close by again. One of the things to be thankful for less hours work in my week at the mo is time to be with friends. I am really enjoying re-connecting with Fiona now we live close by again.
If you are in the UK, Fiona is showing some of her work as part of an exhibition 21st November - 24th from 10am-4pm at Styal Lodge.
You can see Fiona's work here
Then my lovely new neighbour, Mel, called round to cut my hair! (Don't worry, she is a hairdresser!) She is also a diamond, because she is very funny and friendly. She called me last week, when my house alarm was going off... Tudur!!!!
It really was very noisy! I heard it halfway down the road. The kitten was very subdued when he appeared from behind the door. He slowly wandered off for a while, no doubt with his ears ringing!
When he returned, he was very purry and pleased! At least I now know my house alarm works! I guess that makes Tudur a cat burglar!
Earlier today.... Tudur brought in his first mouse. I was sitting having my "quiet" time, waking up and he ran in very excited. Then I realised what he had brought in!
The mouse, Tudur and I all ran around for a while!
Later, I un-packed the new china that arrived yesterday, with the money I got for selling my old Denby to china search. I was very excited! one plate is smashed, so I called the store (John Lewis)and they are sending a new plate out to me :-) Tudur, like any youngster, was far more interested in the box!
Thanks, Fiona and Mel and thanks Tudur for your well meant gift!

Remember to be thankful for quality time

I wonder what your language of love is? If you have no idea what I am on about, then maybe check out Gary Chapman - he has written several books about this topic, the 5 Love Languages, where he helps people work out their primary Love Languages - the Languages we speak - to give and receive love.
There are 5 love languages - gifts, words of affirmation, touch, quality time, acts of service.
I wonder which language of love you speak?
One of my Love Languages is Quality Time. I love spending time with my friends.
It is quite the week for it, so I am loving it! :-)
My friend Louise came to stay last week. She is very creative with writing words amongst other lovely gifts she has. She was one of our groovy girlie cake chicks last year, but has sadly moved away. She came to stay last week and it was lovely to spend some time with her and to have her visit the girlie chicks too.
This week sees the return of another girlie chick, Ruth, who arrived today. We shared some laughs and a cuppa, before walking into town to go for coffee and cake!
One of my very favourite things to do.
Tonight we are going round to visit one of the other girlie chicks, Abbie! She is fab and very very creative too as well as being a lovely and gracious person to be around. She has recently moved house from a tiny flat, so Ruth can't wait to see how the house is taking shape.
She loved it :-)