The Start of a Whole New Adventure

It's been a couple of weeks since I last blogged. If you have been checking in regularly, my apologise for the lack of information. Alot of my creative thinking and general typing has been invested in (mainly) work.

After about four months of being in the wilderness, I feel like I am strolling in the meadows of a lush landscape. There is some provision to get the journey started, but as I said in my last post, the best is yet to come and I am looking forward to seeing the real fruits of this land my family and I are now in.

The other thing that has happened since I last blogged is that my wife and I feel it is time to sell our house and move on..... down. Six years ago, we moved into a very large house in our hometown and started to serve the Church family by being a Mum & Dad and Brother & Sister to people who needed a home. During that time, thirteen different people lived with us from various walks of life and for varying periods of time.

Many people have asked us how we have done it; how we have 'coped' on a day-to-day basis. There is a grace. It has been a privilege and honour to serve people and love them, but their is a grace for it. Some people have the grace to feed the homeless every night; some people have the grace to raise two/three/four children alone; some have the grace to work as teachers or doctors and put in long hours. We had the grace to do what we did, but now it has gone. That is not a bad thing, but when the grace to do something has gone (the unshakeable willingness to give of yourself without hesitation of question), it is time to consider the future.

For some time now we have been talking about whether our time was up. Whether our season had come to an end and whether it was time to move into something smaller and focus on our own children. In the last ten days, that has been confirmed again and again - it is time to focus on the core family so that their future is secure. Don't get me wrong - there is absolutely nothing wrong with our family life or our friendships. Quite the opposite. But that is partly why we want to focus on just the four of us.... to ensure that the future is better than the past.

We have started the process of getting the house valued. That has been fun. It is amazing how one estate agent can value the house at one price and another be different by as much as 20%. I am sure that by the time they have all reviewed and estimated, we will have some idea of its true value.

My wife saw a friend today who was really excited for us. "The start of a whole new adventure", she said. And she's right - it is. The best is (still) yet to come and we are starting on a whole new adventure. Life should be like that.... it should be one big adventure to be enjoyed. Our adventure is now going to be with our children and then our wider Church family.

Whether you are thinking of moving house, moving jobs, moving the furniture or simply changing your view on life, I hope you enjoy "the whole new adventure" that awaits you. There will be a grace for it.

Being Dad - The Big Adventure

I played rugby in the garden with the boys the other day.

We were going to play 'tag' rugby but they decided it should be 'full-on-take-down-Dad-rugby!'. I happily obliged, allowing them to take me down at will, but also giving them a little Dad-push every now and then to remind them who is stronger. :o)

They won.

My rugby skills are not what they once were and when you have two boys against you, it can be difficult.

But it didn't matter whether I won or lost. That wasn't the point.

What mattered was that they wanted to 'take me down' and bundle with Dad. Over those thirty minutes (that was all I could manage), we laughed, shouted and celebrated. For much of the time, Mum watched from an upstairs window. She loves to watch all of her boys playing - it gives her a real sense of security that all is well with her children and that Dad is totally engaged with bringing up the kids. It's good for her, not just for me and the boys.

Even though we only spent thirty minutes together, the boys loved it. They will talk about that for weeks to come - how I was handed off by my 11-year-old; how my 8-year-old side-stepped me; how I dived for the line with both of them clinging onto me; how they passed the ball forward to score the winning try (at least I was sure it was forward).

I was recently watching a TV programme where James Cracknell, two-time Olympic rowing medalist, spoke about how raising a family was his "next big adventure". Whether you have boys or girls, whether your kids are big or small - enjoy your time with them. Let them play what they want to and throw yourself into it with all you have. Let it be your next big adventure.