Personal Blogs

Something really great happened to me this week.
My eldest son who lives in a nearby town, and  who has learned French at school GCSE level,  began to talk to me, and has texted me in French every day! 

This is really helping me to keep in touch with the French language, while studying English. It helps us both because he is learning to improve his French,  while I am trying to improve on level 2  French at the same time. 

I never knew that taking this DegreeCourse would encourage my own children to be interested in learning a language too. This is a bonus!

I am reminded of what my aunt once said to me;

" When you educate a women, you educate a family"
This is certainly turning out to be true!

🌊⛵⚡

The Wind howled, lightening flashed! All of a sudden it was blowing a gale. We were caught out in a storm one day walking back from the nearby village. 

🌲🌳🌲⚡

I honestly thought I was going to die. Terror filled my heart. The sky had become black, lightening bolts were crashing all around us and I didn't feel safe at all!

I just began to pray aloud, I prayed the our father and I asked God for his help and protection. The storm didn't weaken but we made it back home safely. I must have ran as fast as an olympic runner that day!

I just don't know how we made it back in one piece but I felt a sense of blessed assurance of God's presence at that time as we reached home.

It reminds me of when the disciples had been in the boat with Jesus on the lake when a terrible storm arrived and tested those rugged fishermen. They too thought that they would die but Jesus spoke to the storm he calmed the storm and the elements obeyed him.

Likewise, the Lord invites us to trust him in our storms. Sometimes he miraculously stills the winds and the waves or sometimes he does something else miraculous; he steadies our hearts and helps us to trust him. He asks us to trust him because he has the power to say to the waves "Peace! be still!"

When the tempest rages may he speak to our soul as we trust him especially at this particular time in the trouble of the pandemic. May he reassure us of his presence.

" Trust in God, Trust also in me" said Jesus.

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Set your minds on things above not earthly things. (Easier said than done!)
For you have put on the new self, which is being renewed daily in knowledge, in the image of God the creator.

🌺🌻⚘🌼🌾

"The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night... so let us not be like those who are asleep but let us be awake and sober"

We have been looking at family photographs lately from husbands side of the family. When we first moved here from a city in northern Britain, to  rural east- midlands,  my husband's aunty told us a little about the family history,  when we came here to live in the Lincolnshire countryside.

The family  had come from a farming background being prominent farmers in this area at one time, so that was interesting,  then some of them had been cottagers and wheelwrights. I hadn't heard of this before so I looked it up in the dictionary, to find more information about it. 

Cottagers were people who own some land with a cottage on it and work that land. I suppose it was a bit like a small holding, but something smaller than a farm. Many cottagers had another job too, making and repairing things. I don't know if there are any of them left around here from the family, because a lot of the family  have emigrated to various countries,  like to America and Canada.

Our aunty herself(she trained as a secretary)  left the area at one point to live in London with her husband, who was also from around here,  and a
Skilled carpenter. When they lived in London,  he became a Cabinet maker and he lost some of his fingers in accidents, over  the course of his work. They then came back here to retire in their old age. All that side of the family have died now including aunty. I believe there are still some other relatives somewhere around  here,  but we have lost touch,  and some of them have moved away or emirated.

We (husband and myself) were ,both brought up in the city and my husband has lived and worked abroad in Europe in France, Holland and Belgium at one time. I have relatives who have emigrated (my uncle went to Australia) and so they  were immigrants to that country, when they went to live there at first. They had to find their way in a strange country,  so that must have been difficult,  until they found a way to earn a living and settle down in a strange new country.

So even if we think we originated from this country,  we should not get too smug,  because our ancestors may have been immigrants at some point in history,  or may have come from other countries,  as Anglo- Saxons we probably have some German and European blood in our veins.!  

I believe some of my own ancestors may have been Scottish or Irish in the way distant past, so spare a thought for our ancient ancestors,  who first came here to start their new life!
  It was good for my husband to come back here and re- discover his roots.I will often say things to him like,  I am sure your father and grandfather used to walk up this very road at sometime, especially when we pass nearby to what used to be their little village !

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:

Beneath the shadow of thy throne,
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting thou art God,
To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guide while troubles last,
And our eternal home!

(Isaac Watts 1674-1748)

           ✝️

  In Flanders Fields
    In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow
         Between the crosses, row on row,
       That mark our place; and in the sky
       The larks, still bravely singing, fly
    Scarce heard amid the guns below.

    We are the dead. Short days ago
    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
       Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
                              In Flanders fields.

    Take up our quarrel with the foe:
    To you from failing hands we throw
       The torch; be yours to hold it high.
       If ye break faith with us who die
    We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
                                In Flanders fields.

A Poem by John McCrae
Lieutenant-Colonel

This tree was so huge , that I couldn't fit it all into the photograph! Trees are like the lungs of the earth, Trees are great!