How to make a house a home

We are on day 20 of married life. I have spent the afternoon and evening building my version of home. All of the little bits and pieces that have made this flat feel messy, now have definite homes. On the walls!

Collecting elephants is one of the things I do and you can't really miss that if you spend 2 mins in my house. I have another love that has been fed by receiving gifts due to getting married. Art. Now I have a very beautiful mishmash of stylised words and pictures and bunting that have turned my blank walls of two years into a dynamic space. My very light blue wall has hand made contrasting bunting to bring out the blue. I have a gold frame with the word Skudder (new surname) to contrast the white wall next to it and several other things to help me feel at home. 

Having Ray as a permanent fixture in the house is not a bad thing yet. He does do the tidying. He helped with putting the new bedroom furniture together and then squeezed it all along one wall! (No pictures sorry, you can use your imaginations or pop in!)

Our wedding was brilliant and we've only heard good things about it from other people. We were so pleased that we could spend the day with everyone! Looking forward to the first year of married life. Since day 13 I have been 'an old married' strange thing that... I feel like I have been one for much longer.

Counting the days

I am a week away from getting married.

All of the conversations I have start with 'are you excited?' And finish with 'see you on your big day'. I get to talk about the things I am doing. I am thinking in equal quantities about work and wedding. I am trying to make sure things run smoothly in my longest absence during term time since starting my job. People are reassuring me 'if it's not done now don't worry about it' 'you will find a way to it figure out'.

I am organised... 4 months has flown by, but by the time I am married it will be it will be less than 1 hundredth of my life that I have spent planning for it. 

I am ready... I looked back at the post titled 'a decade' and wrote how I had one of the biggest surprises of my life as I turned 28. My 18th birthday was my only surprise party to date, my 28th birthday was my surprise cake from my now husband to be. Exactly 10 years apart, 2 incredible things happened and love played a major part in both. God played a major part in all of it. And I can see his hand all over it... From the tiny details to those events I consider to be the big events.

I know I am blessed to be in this position. I know I am looking forward to it. I know God is with me as I start married life.

Why I am getting married...

I'm sat on a bike in the gym*, pondering why I am getting married in a months time. I was also listening to John Ledgend's song about love. The bridge is this 

Cards on the table, we're both showing hearts

Risking it all, though it's hard

Why am I getting married? The other reasons John Legend gives are perfectly viable for me. Love is for me not about risk any more though. I am certain that I want to go through the hard things with my husband to be, life isn't that easy any way! I really don't feel as though I am risking anything by saying 'I do'. I don't know how I am going to feel with the church looking at me, I hope that I will be standing on my feet able to say 'share life with me, in the fullness of Christ'.

I can understand where the risk factor comes from, a fear of losing your 'other half' the part that makes life better (not sure about 'being complete'), the fear that you give all of yourself only for it to be handed back to you in pieces at the end of the relationship. 

So why don't I think marriage is risky? I think it's because we chat... We have a discussion, not just about the flowers at church but about life after the wedding. It's not risky for me if I know how each of us will react in a situation or how many children we'll have etc... The list is endless, and we haven't exhausted it, and I hope we never will really. I am getting married because I would really like someone else's opinion every day, on decisions that have a major effect on my life. My husband to be does the things that I struggle with and I think I have a similar effect on him.

I think the world views it very differently though and we have created a bit of that fear, that risk factor, by dishonesty and pushing people to marry when it's not right. Jump in with two feet, pay huge amounts of money and risk it all for the love of your life, not necessarily caring about the consequences. I have been there... Thankfully I realised what was happening and stepped away. Had I have gone through with it, young and naive, I perhaps would be writing in very different circumstances. (Read my 2005/6 stuff)

Everyone has their own opinion and I am getting married for my own reasons... Sometimes I don't feel ready... Others I am wishing days away, wanting to jump the gun. On most occasions I know that it is not a risk, but a defining chapter, the beginning of the end, because this is the rest of my life...

*half was written at home, my thoughts are too long to fit into a 20min cycle!

Street Pastors in Billericay

A couple of years ago I posted a comment from a reader after I posted a blog about the need for Street Pastors in Billericay. They were against the idea of Christians being in the town and I, having seen the value of the SP's in Chelmsford, really wanted it to start happening as soon as possible. 

Well now it is happening and I see them nearly every Friday night. I hear the stories and I see the work that they do and it really really sounds as though it is working. On Sunday, the leader of the group stood up during Billericay's first Civic Service and said that some 1,500 volunteer hours had been given since November. The vicar who have the address then talked about the occasions where SP's were on hand to help those who were in distress. 

Personally, I know people who have had positive encounters with SP's and I see how people are drawn into the hub - a brightly lit church in the centre of town. It has created a community that is incredible. One that does draw people from all walks of life and means that no evening is the same.

I am very much on the fringes of it, but it is making a positive impact on the people who visit, the people who speak to them and the Street Pastors themselves. It is hard to stay away and I am not even a volunteer!

I am praying that the difference is felt across the town.