Amazing grace, blessings, Woolies candles, wow moments!

Hi you gems and amazing people

(if anyone can tell me where this is, there may be a prize!! A very

smart city gent was a real star in opening the door for me when he could easily have gone through ages before I got there and I was in my green mac and not looking that smart!! That spoke volumes to me and said alot about him and not just instinct but heart)

So here we are with only two months left before the end of the year! For me it has not been a spectacular year as I have not been away since last October and many of you know I could not get a seat to Singapore on 24th to go to Burma so... I had prayed that by 6th the ticket would be mine and on 4th I met a Burmese pastor at Watford Junction who has just been appointed to a church in Watford and lives 5 minutes away!!! The timing seemed right but alas still no ticket. Now I must be patient but also open to a new country capturing my heart as the flight alone is appallingly high and unless I KNOW for certain it is right it seems like the country is closed for me at the present time! I want to be open to new horizons but it is so hard to put Burma down. I feel that He COULD be speaking to me about a country in a very different continent which DOES NOT APPEAL to me one bit!! However as I have been in that situation so often do not be surprised in 6 months if I am off to there!!

However despite not been away there have been plenty of wow moments and brilliant things to celebrate during the year and it has been a great joy to get to know some people slightly better. It has been such a gift to spend time with countless amazing friends this year and of course I give thanks for that as well as being open to new people all the time and I think that has happened throughout the year. Thankyou to each one of you who have blessed my life beyond measure.

I picked up James Patterson's Sam' s letters to Jennifer on the 1st day of half-term and, despite having a VERY low boredom level, it kept me reading for the next 2 hours and I finished it very quickly It was based on a grandmother writing to a grand-daugher and avoided ( I think) too much sentimentality and sickly sweet stuff and would definately say it had some great points in it and certainly a celebration of life. I also had the great joy of hearing no 7 of the Chandos Anthems at St Stephen Walbrook an 18th century church with the sun streaming through and that awesome line from Psalm 89 I will tell of the loving kindness of the Lord. Following that I had a brilliant conversation with a guy about Buxtehude who I have just discovered and a guy who served me coffee from Somalia before setting off for the Dulwich Picture Gallery which I have always wanted to visit. With the sun streaming across the park and awesome autumn trees what more could one ask for in one day. Thank you Lord.

It was brilliant to see you Sue in Salisbury. We have been friends for 30 years and still find plenty to talk about and laugh about and I found the purple life shop in Salisbury too. Thanks so much for my purple Salisbury mac even though I did not go to Burma I will wear it with joy.

Congratulations to my wonderful niece Francesca for getting into Lancs U21 and probably playing at the same ground I played for Lancs juniors about 33 years ago! How amazing. You totally deserve the place as you are such a great player and so much more calm than auntie on the pitch. Well done!!!

It has been great and challenging to be praying with 4 of you classy, funny, passionate women of God once a month. You are all so real and thankfully we are all on a journey with Him and He loves us to bits and is patient with us all. Actually He is patient and merciful with you three as I am already perfect of course! Old joke but I have no new ones.

Congratulations to Mary you classy, gracious and esteemed colleague and dear friend who hit an important birthday recently and what a fantastic venue to celebrate in!!The ambience, music, wine, food and meeting new people definately held the wow factor for me as soon as I walked in. We also managed the Grove too with the heart table, which I will remove one day! How far we have come in a year!It was such quality time for me! If you are reading this, which I doubt as you are not THAT sad, this is all true and not rubbish. Trust me! I never get these things wrong!

I will not labour the JR incident on the BBC accept to say that I did ring them and say they should have sacked him!! I know I will be unpopular saying this and I also complained about Mock the Week too about a comment about the Queen. I also thought the wonderful John Humphrey's was superb in trying to get Sir Michael Lyons to stop taking such a spineless stance !!! After Desert Island Discs with Ian Bostridge, which was quality and uplifting, why would they give 18 million to an odious little man who treats people with such disdain. Get rid of him I say.

Thanks to Mala and your mum for cooking Sri Lankan curry and Kim for your amazing hospitality as ever for us yesterday. You are both real stars. Thanks Pat and Anita for meeting recently and to Katarina one of the 3 people I have got to know better this year. Always brilliant to see you all and I love spending time with you as you know. Well done to Lizzy about getting the job in London and hope it is going well.

I am praying about what I would like to do before I am 50 next year and what is important to me. Time will tell. There is hardly anything I would do differently in my life but I want to be open to what He wants to lead me into that I am not already in and what I might need to cease doing. I am sure I will know.

Many of you keep recommending The Shack to me which is on the New York best seller list and Waterstones and Tescos are doing reductions on it! I respect the opinion of those of you who have recommended it, but not sure if it will speak to me or not.

I have had so many freebies since the last blog or maybe it is on the last blog. I should check. These include coffee, tickets for the Royal Ballet, bus rides, Dulwich Picture Gallery, breakfast at Cafe Rouge, 2 for 1 at Sazio and one other thing which has escaped me.

I also spotted a guy with a purple and green umbrella at the shops near school and found out it was from a local school. I rang the school and will purchase one of their umbrellas which will look so cool with my HEART wellies( which I bought to commiserate with myself for not being in your know where) and my green mac. How cool I will be!!

I will now watch Amazing Grace again as, even though I have seen it once, it is a good film. Wilberforce was a remarkable guy- charismatic, highly intelligent, a gifted speaker, loved his friends and could keep people entertained for hours with stories and humour. He could have been Prime Minister too but God had other plans for him.I need some inspiration as I do always find December and January the most difficult months. Mark Greene the Director of the Institute for Contemporary Christianity gave 4 inspirational talks at Soul Survivor recently which was definately what I needed and I have recently re-read his book Thank God its Monday.I have been thinking about his quote that" giving encouragement dispenses grace." I am challenged again about what it means to be a Christian in the workplace when I KNOW I blow it so often. Ah well. Thank goodness for gracious people who God has put alongside me! He knew what I needed and made provision before the world began. How cool is that!

I might listen to Clive James first who makes me laugh out loud. I cannot find some great quotes but will add when I have time. I wonder how the American elections will turn out although it seems obvious. Far too much money spent on this and how many lives this could have touched if it had been chanelled to other things. The events in the Congo and Pakistan are appalling too and Afganistan faces severe shortage of food. In the Congo (apparently the size of Western Europe) they have seen 5 million people die which is an outrage. Could we imagine that happening in Europe and everyone turning a blind eye? I was also tempted to buy Nick Danzinger's book on Afganistan today but refrained and there is a real crisis of food shortage. I also read an article today " The brink of extinction" in the CSW magazine about the appalling situation of the Muslim Rohingya people in Burma who are facing extinction. Also the events in Orissa where thousands of Christians are in hiding and the most disgraceful acts have been committed in the name of religion including cutting out the mouth of a pastor, rape, torture, people deliberately being burnt to death. All too sobering and makes me wonder why I get so irriated about minor things in life!! Remind me next time!

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On a lighter note and also reality much love to you all and may love, joy, peace and many blessings be given to each of you in the last 2 months of the year. Woolies candles are easily the best on the market. Such a shame they do not do diffeent colours as they last for ages and bring such peace. They go well with Monteverdi's Vespers which one kind person gave me as they already had the C.D. What a gift! I will also investigate Buxtehude and have one from Radio 3.

I know that GRACE has been shown to me so much this year by remarkable people who are probably reading this and an awesome God, so the picture seems fitting!

Much love

Flissxxxx