It’s been a week of huge extremes, as my last two blogs show.

There have been many tears shed for Southport and the families of those three beautiful girls. I try to imagine what they are going through, but I can’t. It must be like a nightmare they’ll never wake up from.

I led church in praying for them by placing pink ribbons on the empty communion table on Sunday morning, and then sharing communion together. We had a baptism too, and it was powerful to see such a mix of people, members of our church family as well as visitors, coming and placing ribbons on the table.

I’ve also felt so much anger at the people who made a terrible situation about themselves with selfish acts of vandalism and violence. What a world we are living in.

And yet, it has also been Sophia’s birthday. She’s three now, and she is brilliant. We’ve had various celebrations with different people throughout the week, finishing with her party and visit from Elsa yesterday. Sophia was completely enthralled! Some days feel like such a slog, but seeing her face enjoy moments like this make all the hard work worth it. It’s been so wonderful to celebrate Soph this week! I never take her for grated, and I feel so very blessed to be her Mum, and that she is healthy, safe and happy.

A huge thank you to everybody who made this week so special for us. A big thank you to Granny and Grandpa who came over to Liverpool early yesterday to watch Sophia during the service. The ASSF team are used to keeping an eye on her, but many of them have other jobs to do in the service. I knew I’d be able to concentrate better on taking the big baptism service if there were people there specifically to keep her safe. Just for this week, I needed a bit of extra support, and I am grateful.

As ever, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading.