Christmas has been packed away....

Christmas has been packed away once again, however the messages we received from David during Advent are still relevant for us today and in the months and years ahead.

During this blog post I hope to be able offer some Advent reflections from my perspective.


No I haven't lost the plot... I am aware that Advent was in December and we are well into the month of January...however, the thoughts and sermons that David brought to us throughout December are just as applicable for us all regardless of the time of year.


Our first Sunday in Troon and the first Sunday of Advent.......what was this going to look like in practice? What was this going to mean to me this year? 

I love Christmas, and all the traditions that go with it. 
I love Advent, and part of my personal tradition is to buy myself an Advent book. Not just a Christmas 'Chick Lit' novel, but a book which takes me through each day of Advent, giving meaningful reflections and daily readings. 
I love the anticipation, the 'tradition' and the discipline of taking time out to read my Advent book. 
I love waiting to see what will be revealed from the pages, reflecting on Jesus birth and thinking about His return. 
All very nice to have time to sit, read and reflect when you are surrounded by the familiar... your own home, your job, friends, family, church, traditions, but what happens when all that has gone? When you find yourself in a new home, new town, familiar friends and family miles away and a church that you are now calling your own, yet you still don't know where the light switches are? 

This year, the season of Advent became slightly disorientating for me. I had my new book so all should have been well; however, I can only liken my confusion to the feeling you get when experiencing a power cut. In my head I had a sense of familiarity, yet I was stumbling to find things in the place where I thought things should have been. 

So a timely word from David on the first Sunday in Advent, began to put things back into perspective. 
David brought us a message of Hope! 

 'Light in the Darkness - Hope in our Hearts'. 

 Angel of Hope

My feeling of being disorientated with my Advent preparations was very short lived and is nothing compared to the 'dark' times in our lives, times when we can feel totally disorientated and can't see the way ahead, a total feeling of hopelessness. 
What do we do? Who do we turn to? 
What I took from David's message is that we don't need to fumble around trying to work things out for ourselves - we just need to have one flicker of 'light' to eliminate the confusion and in doing so give us hope.

Maybe I just needed to hear again how Jesus is the Light in the Darkness - and this gives us Hope in our hearts. 

On Sunday 10th December, our second Sunday in Advent, the focus of David's message was Peace - 

Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

I did wonder where David was going with this message when there projected onto the screen at the front of church was the front cover of one of my favourite Children's story books - ‘Five Minutes Peace!' by Jill Murphy.

I was in danger of letting my mind wander. At times I let my imagination get the better of me - a wandering imagination and not focusing on the preacher is maybe not the best attribute for a Pastor's wife. I think I need to borrow David's L plates! (More about those in another blog.)

Having been given some examples from the pulpit of what 'peace' might look like in all its forms (including Mrs Large!) I began to consider what it meant to me. Could I define peace if asked? 

I can offer some kind of description, but must admit, I cannot put into words a definition of the kind of Peace that knowing Jesus gives to me. David warned us of the battle going on for our 'peace' and it was good to be reminded of the verse from the Bible (New Testament, Phillipians 4 vs 6-7) which tells us not to be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer, petition and thanksgiving  - let God know what you need. Doing this we will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand.

Our third Sunday of Advent focused on the theme of Joy.

Good news - Great Joy!

Rebecca's hand made gift tags

On Sunday 17th December we heard about the angels visiting the shepherds. Can you imagine in reality what that must have looked like from the shepherds perspective? Here I go again - my wandering imagination getting the better of me... but here they were doing probably one of the worst jobs you could imagine. Now I don't for one minute presume that the sheep were kept on pretty farmsteads like we see in the Yorkshire dales, but more like roaming on unenclosed hill country, rough terrain and open to the elements - no pretty dry stone walling there!  An unforgiving job, bleak, cold, smelly, scary - I mean there were wolves and wild beasts around I would imagine, not discounting the canny thief either. The shepherds would need to ensure that the sheep were supplied regularly with water - where would they get that from? I suppose the shepherd's job would be to guide them to running streams or wells dug out somewhere in the wilderness - no 4x4 Land-rovers bringing supplies in. They were charged with making sure that the sheep were safe both day and night, a rather responsible job I would say. Did they do shift work? Pretty tiring if not.Can you imagine at the end of a long shift....suddenly a blinding light and an angel appearing! The Bible says the shepherds were 'terrified' (New Testament Luke 2 vs 9)- I feel that would be a bit of an understatement.

But what follows is remarkable - The shepherds are told not to be afraid, then told they were being given 'good news of great joy' and here's the crunch line.....

"that will be for ALL people"

How many times have I heard this over the years? Far too many to remember, but what struck me was the ALL people included me! It wasn't Good News for certain people, or Good News for people in those times - but no - Good News for everyone! 

So David had three questions he wanted to answer on this particular Sunday

1. What is this Good News? - It is that we might know forgiveness and a relationship with God.

2. What is the source of Joy? - It is that relationship with God

3. Who is this for? - well I think I must have been listening as I have already answered that question. 

It's for EVERYONE!!

However, it got me thinking - why did the angels give this message to the shepherds? Of all people, why the shepherds? Well why not?

Maybe because empowering the shepherds with such a commision would ensure that the Good News was spread - for such a lowly employment status, you need some pretty remarkable qualities and attitudes - brave, diligence, dependable, hard working, equipped, caring, protective, responsible, trustworthy. 

So who better to trust to bring Good News of Great Joy!

Phillip (pseudonym)
 He is a youngster in his career
 but showing great potential
at becoming a leading shepherd!

 Our fourth and final week in Advent.

Love - Love came down at Christmas

Handmade with Love by Naomi

A lovely family service which was very 'hands on' in more ways than one!

Together we heard about how "Love comes from God, because God is Love. If we want to know what love is then we need to look to God." We heard how God is the very source of Love itself.

So how is this Love demonstrated? We look again to the Bible (New Testament 1 John 4 vs 9-10) these verses tell us of how God showed his love us to us by sending his son Jesus as an 'atoning sacrifice'.

Then once again the challenge...

What should be our response to Love?  That we should love God with all our hearts, souls and minds and to love one another.

Love was evident in many forms on that morning -from the friendship and hugs offered to those whom had been away from church for some time and had returned; from the uplifting words of encouragement to myself from older members of the church; from the simplest of prayers written on a cut out hand shape by those innocent hearts of the youngest children in our midst. 

Our church family prayer and thanksgiving wreath

As I said at the start of this blog, Christmas has been packed away once again, however the messages we received from David during Advent are still relevant for us today and in the months and years ahead.

I am going to take the liberty of sharing some final words taken directly from David's message...

May our hearts be stirred afresh with HOPE
Filled with PEACE
Overflow with JOY and 
the LOVE of God will be set ablaze in our hearts that all might know the wonderful experience of being in a relationship with the Creator of the universe, who came to us born as a baby, but reigns as King of kings.

Before I leave this blog post I must say that it is a real blessing to be here in Troon. I hope to be able to share some photos and info about new places we have visited and what we have been doing, in addition to blog posts about 'life as a Pastors wife' and 'thoughts from the pulpit'. 

Additionally I must give credit to my lovely girls for sharing some of their brilliant photos with me. I only have to ask for a 'random' photo and just like magic a picture appears!

So to all my blog readers whoever you are, thank you for taking the time to read, and we would love you to hear from you.

Next blog post is already in the making...so bye for now, God bless.