Happy weekend, world!

It has been a really good first week back. It gets 8/10. It’s always a shock to the system the first few days, but I’ve got back into the rhythm of things pretty quickly.

Because we came back from the cottage a day early, I had a big sleep in on Friday morning. I only got dressed to have my nails done in the afternoon! It was a lovely last day of leave.

Saturday was a day to get on with all the housework that had built up over Christmas and on Sunday I took the service at St Michael’s, and then cooked a roast for lunch. Monday was fab with a productive morning in the office and a visit in the afternoon. Tuesday was much the same and on Wednesday I took the two mid-week services. Yesterday there was a big funeral in church and in the evening Mark led the final starting theology session.

The weekly star this week is my Mum. On Sunday, she told me that when she was doing the flowers for a wedding in my home church, a little girl and her Granny came to the door. The little girl, about two, had come to see if she was allowed to know what was inside the ‘castle’! Mum got chatting to them and, of course, let them come in for an explore. She even found a dragon to show the little girl, because there is a picture St George in one of the windows. My Mum could be my weekly start every week, to be honest, but I just love how good she is at welcoming people into church. She is the most gentle and natural evangelist I know.

The highlight of the week for me was preaching on Wednesday morning. I feel like I spent a lot of Advent telling people not to get too excited too early in December, and to wait for Jesus to be born. But now Advent is over and Jesus is here! The readings this week are of Jesus’ baptism when God said: This is my child, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life*. I have used this sermon to talk about how, through Jesus, God speaks these words about us too. I got everyone to close their eyes and hear the words being spoken over them. I’ll be doing something similar during my sermon on Sunday, and it’s just such a lovely message to give.

*Matthew 3.17, The Message