Awards, Awards, Awards

In the last week I have received 4 awards

It feels like boasting to say this but I am in fact very honoured and humbled

It makes the time spent at this desk so worthwhile to know that my posts are appreciated.

If I took the rules literally I would be passing on almost 40 awards

This felt daunting so instead I chose to post on 3 for each award category

I get great pleasure from visiting and reading all the names on my sidebar and many more and it is always hard to come down to just a few

I have given it a lot of thought but if your name is not here it does not mean that I do not appreciate and value you and your blog, I do, very much so

This "Blogging with a Purpose" award came to me from Mob

I pass it on to Susan of Adventurous Living. Susan is a writer and speaker and uses her blog to share her faith

I pass it on to Barbara of The Book Blog. Barbara is an Editor and writer and uses her blog to share on home decorating and art

I pass it on to Stephen of Inspired. Stephen has been through some very difficult life circumstances and uses his blog to share his faith and show the pride that he has in his

2 little Boyz.

I received this "Amazing Blogger" award from Isobel of the Cosy Corner

I pass it on to Vanessa of Yahweh's Retreat. Vanessa is a widowed Mother of 3 boys and while going through some very difficult life circumstances manages to work, take care of her boys and still blog where she is very much keen to share her faith

I pass it on to Paula of The Baby Journals. Paula has adopted a beautiful baby girl and uses her blog to chart Hannah's progress. She also offers advice on the adoption system

I pass it on to Maddy of Maddy's Glasshouse. Maddy blogs on a variety of subjects while keeping us in touch with the progress of her autistic son. She also found time to help me with my family tree.

I received this "You make my Day" award from two blogging friends

Willow of Willow's Cottage and

Sara at Much To Do About Something

Before I recieved this from Sara I had already chosen her blog for this same award as a result of my receiving it from Willow so I saw no reason not to send it back to her

I pass this award on to Sara (as above) of Much To Do About Something. Sara makes my day with her lovely photographs, interesting words and knowledge and her sharing of her faith

I pass this award on to Linds of Rocking Chair Reflections. Linds makes my day with her amusing writing on everyday life. She has kept a great sense of humour throught some very difficult and dark days in her life

I pass this award on to Marion of Reflections Through the Seasons. Marion makes my day with her beautiful photos on Wales where she lives and her lovely garden. She has continued to do this even through some difficult health issues

So thank you one and all and blessings to all who visit this blog

MY STORY Chapter 14 - From Darkness to Light

During the time timescale of the last chapter there were a couple of significant times of enlightenment that began to make a difference in my life. The first came in 1982 at a time when I felt so inadequate and depressed. I was looking out of my bedroom window when I saw a lady from my church walking down the street looking so happy and ‘together’ and striding out with great confidence. It had an immediate affect on me, why could I not be like that? I now know that I was only seeing at the appearance level, but at that point I just sank to my knees and cried out to God. I suddenly realised that my dialogue with God was coming out as a poem. The poem has since been a help to me and many others and was later published as an “editor’s choice” in a book of poems called “Praised Voices”.

THE MIND OF GOD

O my God, why do you leave me in despair and desolation?
When all around is seemingly glory and triumph
The very essence of life appears and disappears
As though they were just puppets, on a string
You mock me, You tantalise me, You hide your face.
Is it a game that you are playing?

Child, you have forgotten your prayers of yesteryear
What, me give up the things I hold so dear?
Lord, you know I want to change
But, how can You and I achieve the impossible?
It only seemed impossible to you
Because you did not have My infinite mind.

Remember the prayers that went unanswered at the time
The prayers you prayed that were impossible for me
For had I answered in the way that you had wished
Those other prayers of yours, the most important ones
Would have vanished like a vapour in the sea
And never would have brought you the life you long to see.

My love for you is more than just a fleeting feeling
To lose you would have been too great a price to pay
Your suffering has been your greatest treasure
To keep you close to me so come what may
THE MIND OF GOD WILL BE INSTILLED WITHIN YOU
So that you can live the life for which you pray.

Barbara Rogerson 1982

I continued to seek God and for a long time spent many night hours unable to sleep. I was getting more desperate and as written in the closing lines of the last chapter, I came to the point where I felt that nothing was working, God didn’t seem to care and it was too hard to go on living like this another day. I told God in the middle of the night that I was finished, I was giving up. Whereas to me it felt like the end, it was really the beginning of some new enlightenment on my journey. I clearly heard God say, “That’s all I have ever wanted of you, for you to give up your self effort and striving and allow me to be your life” He told me I was dead and it was only His life in me that would make a difference. I ran upstairs, woke Alan and said “I am dead, God’s told me I am dead!” Alan’s reaction in his sleepy state was to say “Oh! Yeah” and turned over and went back to sleep. I was excited for the first time in months and knew that something significant was happening, even though at that time I did not understand the living out of this revelation. I said to God, “I will not do another thing until I know that it is You doing it”.

On a practical level all I knew to do was give up all my activities and I stopped going to meetings and just waited on God. Initially I stayed in bed for two days as I did not know how else to stop, or what to do next. It looked like a breakdown but it was God’s way of getting me quiet. One enlightened preacher came to visit me and prophesied that as I came to the end of myself God would use my experiences to help others. This meant nothing to me at the time.

Our fellowship had grown quite large by now and we had been involved and deeply committed for 10 years. However this was also the time when there were many splits and breakaways in the house church movement worldwide and ours was no exception. We were pioneering, it was a time of learning and mistakes were made, particularly in the area of shepherding. I need to say that our then leader has since publicly acknowledged the mistakes while also recognising the good and positive that came out of this time. I know that God uses everything and nothing in our experience is ever wasted. All is a growing process. We felt that we needed to break away and see what God was saying to us personally.

We were for some time alone and without ‘formal’ fellowship but this was the time when God started to make Himself real to us in a new way and also the time when I started to really listen. A very simple lesson came one day when sitting reading in the garden. I was reading the book “Rees Howells – Intercessor” and began to think that I could never do what Rees Howells had done and the old condemnation soon reared it’s head. God clearly said, “I’m not asking you to do that at this moment, you only need to do what I ask you to do.”

One day we planned a visit to a preacher/friend of ours who lived about 2 hours drive away. On the day all my old fears came back as I started to think about the journey and we left late as I had spent so much time in the bathroom due to anxiety. We eventually made it to our friends house only to find he was in a similar situation being a very anxious and nervous individual himself. When we both shared how we were feeling and why he insisted that it was all an attack of Satan. I did not enjoy my day and when we arrived home late at night I fell into bed feeling as defeated as ever.

The next morning I was standing at my kitchen sink thinking that if Satan had such power to paralyze me and wreck my day, what chance did I have of fighting this. I would always lose. Suddenly the light came on and God said, “You are not meant to fight, you are meant to believe” He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world, 1 John 4:4. Here were Scriptures I had read all my life being made real. Yes, all I was meant to do was believe the truth. The truth that the only power that the enemy had over me was the power that I gave to him through my wrong believing. For me it was a revelation. I then began to see that I was not a depressed person, that I had the Creator of the universe living in me. I might feel depressed but that was not my identity. My identity was Christ in this earthen vessel.

I asked God right there, “ OK, how does this relate to right now?” I was still feeling depressed. God’s answer was to tell me to just do the next thing which happened to be clearing the dishes. In asking again, it was to make the beds. I lived like this for the whole day, taking one step at a time and trusting the next moment to God. I chose to stop seeing myself as a depressed, inadequate and defeated person and started to trust God in a new way no matter how I felt or how it looked. He showed me how to take one step at a time, just doing the next thing. I’m sure it would seem very elemental to some, but for me, having struggled in my own strength for decades I learned a lot in those days. As I stopped the self effort struggling and just listened to God He continued to show me through the very mundane activities of life.

One day I heard of an acquaintance who was feeling very low and depressed and I felt to go and visit her. I arrived on her doorstep and felt dumb. All I managed to say was, “Hi! I hear you are feeling bad and I just wanted to tell you that I care.” On the way home after a cup of tea and a chat I felt frustrated when all the things I could have said to her came flooding into my mind and as I questioned God as to why He said “I only asked you to go, and you did, you can share that with her next time”. God was showing me the difference between relying on Him and self effort. I was wanting to run ahead of God and do His work for Him. He knows what is needed and unless we are listening to Him we don’t.

Very soon we had a small group of friends meeting in our home for fellowship and God started bringing various ministry teachers into my life who confirmed all that God was showing me. This was not overnight but over a couple of years. This brought increased healing as I began to believe Galations 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ, but it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me”.

We will see in future chapters the difference this made in my life. During this time there were some dramatic and distressing events in my extended family but they will have to wait until the next chapter.

My IMMEDIATE Neighbourhood

I like to walk as often as I can and as I wanted a fairly quick walk yesterday I decided to take you with me around my immediate neighbourhood.

I invite you to show me around your immediate neighbourhood if you have the time.

It is fun to see where others live.

Yesterday it was cold and the weather was very changeable as you will see from the photos.

My hands got so cold when I took my gloves off that it was not easy to use my camera

We are turning right out of my front door here

Then left at the top of the road
My area is a mixture of bungalows and houses
Detached, semi-detached and terraced


We walk about 50 yards and turn right into the park

The buildings that we see on the horizon behind the tall block of flats

are part of Canary Wharf in East London
We are looking here a little to the left and can see
the rolling countryside of Kent on the other side of The Thames

On the horizon is Hainault Forest and the golf course
The park is deserted, schools back and folk are at work

We are leaving by a different gate

A vandalised telephone box blights the scene

Across the road and down the hill

As we continue down the hill you can see the town on the horizon

And the gasometers - not pretty but necessary

We have turned round now and are nearly home

We will turn right at the top of this hill

the sky is brighter than on the way down

And we are back home
Time for coffee

Catching Up

I am feeling frustrated - everything I have tried to do with blogger today has not worked

A real waste of time

Even everything that was saved kept getting lost

January Bleakness

I was out walking, wrapped up against a biting north easterly wind, from Siberia apparently, when I came to our nearest wooded area. This winter bleakness has it's own beauty but come Spring it will look so fresh and new. If we get snow it will have an altogether different beauty of course.

January for us is quite a quiet time and I like it that way.

Apart from regular committments I do not make any arrangements. If something comes up then that is fine but I don't go looking for it.

I like to do a little catching up and de-cluttering ready for spring cleaning.

I have this week been sorting lots of papers, the kind that just get put aside for some future date. The benefit of leaving this chore so long is that most can get thrown away as they are no longer relevant.

I have also been updating address lists on Excell and cleaning months worth of rubber stamps from card making.

I have also begun trying to replenish my much diminished stock of cards. I don't have to tell you why I have not been keeping my stocks up.

Printing and transferring photos to C.D.'s in another behind job, not to mention writing.You know the sort of thing, too many to mention really.

Concerning blogging,I forgot to mention that before Christmas I telephoned Marion in Wales.It was such fun to have yet another chat with a dear friend made in cyberspace.

Also I was approached last week and asked if I would be willing to have one of my photos published in a book. As it would be credited to me I agreed.The book is all about safe places to swim in England in fresh water. My photo of Ulting Church on the banks of the Chelmer Navigation Canal is going to be used.I will post on it when I receive a free copy in the Summer. Blogging is certainly interesting.

Where I am sitting right now

And the other side of this little work room of mine where I make my cards
These are a few that I have managed since Christmas

Cotswolds Pt. 16 - Cottons Farm, Nr. Broadway

The farm was near to the village of Dumbleton and this is the

old village Well
It was my Cousin Pam who recommended this farm and this sketch
was done by her husband Alan when they stayed there.

Sixteen posts for one week away!

Well I guess it shows how much there is to see in the Cotswolds

I could not finish without showing you where we stayed

Many farms now have self-catering holiday accommodation

and we found this one to be particularly good

They had five cottages in all of differing sizes and all converted from old farm buildings

Although ours had only one bedroom, the kitchen was so well fitted out that I could have planned a dinner party for 10

There were even new toothbrushes in the bathroom

Everything we needed during our stay was supplied

even down to cellotape, flowers and pretty candles

On arrival there was a pretty welcome tray complete with Marks & Spencers cookies

It was a few days before we realised that the tea, coffee & sugar jars were full

There was just one thing I did not like

If I put the light on in the kitchen during the night

there would be a large spider running across the floor

So here is a peep into Cottons Farm

It was a sheep farm

Our accommodation

A converted cow shed and yard

To the left out of sight there was a patio with patio furniture















The master eating an apple and watching TV

Cotswolds Pt. 15 - Hidcote Manor Gardens

Can't believe it is January already, having taken these photos in September.

This was one of the gardens we visited while in the Cotswolds

These gardens were created by the American horticulturist Major Lawrence Johnston in 1907

Hidcote is famous for it's rare trees and shrubs, outstanding herbacious borders

and unusual plants from all over the world.

The garden is divided by tall hedges and walls to create a series of

outdoor 'rooms' each with its own special and unique character

It was certainly a place you could easily get lost in

So here are just a few of the photos I took

Looking out towards the Welsh foothills on the horizon