I've been doing lots and lots of talking today. ("What's new?", friends and family enquire).
Presided at 8.00, preached at 10.00 (rather excitingly, assorted people said it had "made them think", which is kind of the point - but happens less often than you'd hope), spent an afternoon frantically trying to sort out India photos, and this evening gave the inevitable Illustrated Talk to the Parish.
What startled me was
a) how incredibly nervous I was, - public speaking outside the context of worship still feels like a really Big Deal
b) how many people turned out on a damp February night to listen (and, bless their hearts, donated £70 for the New Life for Girls Project too)
c) how absolutely wonderful it was to talk about India, once I'd actually got started.
They were a warm and responsive audience, which clearly helped, and I found that in sharing my stories they became real for me again, and I woke up once more to the joyful experience of my stay. Indian friends seemed very close...
No prizes for guessing who is the focus of my LLLL candle prayers this evening.
Spir Dir course tomorrow, then straight off to Llan.
I'll try to post the LLLL actions before I go, but no more blogging now till Thursday.
Have a good week, peoples :-)
I think you should give the apple to your horse (am I right in remembering you have a horse? actually I have a feeing you posted about selling the pony so perhaps this is a really, really bad suggestion, sorry. But in that case you could feed it to a different horse in memory of all the happy times with yours)
ReplyDeleteAnimals deserve to share blessings too!