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Christianity

My Testimony

1 February 2016 by Naomi 2 Comments

Ephesians 4:5

Yesterday morning I was finally baptised by full immersion in front my whole church, full of friends and family. It was a wonderful experience like no other I’ve ever had. Before my baptism, very nervously, I gave my testimony and I want to share it here too. I know my testimony will likely change and grow over time but I always want to remember the first one I ever gave and I pray it might encourage someone out there who reads it. (I have edited it slightly for the internet for privacy’s sake.)

I have always referred to myself as a Christian.

I grew up in a very small community and for probably the first 10 years of my life I attended a Baptist chapel with my grandparents, parents and brother. I went to Sunday school classes, heard the bible read regularly and knew all about who Jesus was. I had a child’s understanding and a child’s belief.

I don’t really remember why but over time we stopped attending. Although God was still present in my life through my family, particularly my Nan & Grandad’s faith. But the next few years passed without me giving much thought to it.

It wasn’t until my mid teens that I started going to church again. Like most teenagers I had a boyfriend and his father was a local priest. I started attending weekly with his family and thinking about my own beliefs again. I decided when I was 16 that I wanted to be baptised and confirmed and started to take steps towards that. However life seemed to get in the way, over the next few years people close to me died, important and influential relationships in my life broke down, I moved away to university and once again away from the church.

I see now that this was God acting for my good. I am so glad I wasn’t baptised then as it would have been for the wrong reasons, or at least reasons I still hadn’t fully understood.

Around this time I met Vince and we eventually started a relationship and were married and thinking about children. It was only after Emma was born I started thinking about going back to church; I wanted a church upbringing for her as I had. But this time it was different and I see now it was God leading me back, I wanted to read my bible; I had real questions that I wanted answers too. We were by now living in East Sussex and I started to look around and enquire into different churches and denominations trying to find what felt right and true.

One of the churches we visited was [our local church] and 12 months later we came back and I knew we would be staying. We had such a warm welcome and were made to feel totally at home even with our noisy 1yr old in tow. Eventually I asked our vicar about baptism, having Emma in mind not myself, and he suggested instead that Vince and I took part in a course called Christianity Explored.

The course was good and each week I felt like I was just having confirmed what I already knew and believed, but it was as the course ended that I finally realised simply stating a belief in Jesus wasn’t enough, I had to start living for Christ. I realised that Jesus so lovingly died for me, for my sins, and this should not only be influencing my life but directing it and not the other way round as it had been for 24 years.

In the 2 years since then my life has changed in many little ways. Some changes have been more challenging than others, through the holy spirit my conscience is much more heightened and this usually shows at home where films or tv programmes that we used to watch I no longer feel comfortable watching, or even music that we listen too. But it has changed so much for the better too. I have a wonderful church family here that I am so thankful for, I have been able to join a home group who have helped me to learn and grow in the Lord, I am able to pray more confidently and understand its importance in a way I couldn’t before, and I can finally say with confidence that I am a Christian and Jesus is my saviour and king.

Naomi-16

 

 

Posted in: Faith Tagged: baptism, Christianity, faith, happy things, January

Five Fact Friday

26 June 2015 by Naomi Leave a Comment

1. Jabs are horrid things. I’m not particularly great with needles and my little Matthew had his 8 week immunisations this morning. I know that he has certainly already forgotten it but they are such heartbreaking cries that stick with me for ages.

baby book and toes

2. Sea Shells. Emma has quite a collection of shells from the beach that she likes to play with. We stack them, sort them, paint them and make pictures but I feel there must be more we can do. Does anyone have any good ideas for toddler friendly shell crafts/games?

sleepy morning family

3. Vegetables. Emma is an incredibly fussy eater and I worry about the absolute lack of fruit and vegetables in her diet. This week has been better though, she has eaten carrot, red pepper and sweet potato. I am finally convincing her to try things again… now if we could just add some greens!

tapestry bookmark

4. Crochet. I am playing around with some bits here and there when I find a few free minutes. I am also working on a new pattern but my goodness it is slow progress. It requires more concentration than my sleep deprived brain can cope with right now. Simple small projects for fun are my go to for a while!

Matthew 8 weeks

5. Quiet time. I always struggle to set aside time in the mornings for my bible study. I tend to leave it for the evenings by which point I am too tired to really concentrate – especially these days! However as I am now usually up between 5.30-6.30am to feed Matthew I am trying to use that as an alarm call. I have been using the She Reads Truth app this week from the comfort of my bed but next week I am going to try taking the Hello Mornings Challenge to get me up and at it!

Have you ever joined Hello Mornings? Or can you recommend something similar that has helped you? I would love to hear!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Naomi x2

 

Posted in: Lovely Little Family Tagged: baby, Christianity, craft, crochet, faith, family, home, June, motherhood, parenting, quiet time, toddler

6 Random Things

1 May 2014 by Naomi 5 Comments

It has been one of those weeks where I feel like we haven’t really been doing much of anything and yet at the same time I’ve felt ridiculously busy.

I feel like my brain has been preoccupied for days with odd and ends and random things. So I thought I’d share a few here in an attempt to empty them out of my head!

1)

morrisonsmum

I have been selected to be a #MorrisonsMum for this coming bank holiday weekend! YAY! I was a little bit too ridiculously excited when a letter came with £80 to spend at Morrisons this weekend. I mean YAY! I can’t even tell you how much happier our weekly budget looks now! I will be posting all about this next week at some point so keep your eyes peeled 🙂

2)

courgette pasta

Tuesday night I made us a meal for dinner that had been on my ‘can’t wait to try’ list for a few weeks. It was a raw courgette spaghetti dish from a Paleo magazine I had bought a while back – in fact it was the front cover dish. We have had successful courgette ‘pasta’ in the past so I was really looking forward to what looked and sounded to be great – on paper. Actually it looked pretty great in real life too – courgette, tomatoes, avocado, poppy seeds – awesome. The thai style dressing however… well lets just say it was a miss… a total miss. Vince and I ate what we could before giving it up and making emergency tuna melts :/ The disappointment was real my lovelies.

3)

crochet dress monpetitviolonI came across this little drss and tutorial on pinterest (of course!) and am totally besotted with it. There is definitely one of these in Emma’s future…. as soon as I can get through my other WIPs… or not! The original image and tutorial can be found here.

4)

twin sandals

I made these gorgeous little sandals for a lovely lady in Chicago last week. I went through a phase of making so many of these they became a little tedious so I took a break from commission work for a while. When I decided to make these pairs I fell straight back in love with them… there is actually something very therapeutic about working something you know so well 🙂

5)

IMG_20140501_155018Last night Vince and I started a course run by our church. I am excited for it as a Christian to be able to really examine the life of Jesus Christ as an adult. More than this I am truly excited that Vince wants to explore my faith and have his own questions answered.

6)

emma chairs

This is what my ninja child gets up to when I go into the kitchen for 2 minutes. In genuine silence takes the most non-grip chair we have, stacks it onto the slipperiest chair we have and climbs on top… just because she can. Heart failure doesn’t cut it! (I told her to sit very still before taking a very quick picture then immediately lifted her down – just thought I’d clarify as Vince wasn’t initially too impressed that I stopped to take a photo! Ooops!)

BONUS:::  My facebook page has nearly 500 ‘likes’! So I thought when it reaches 500 I’ll hold a little giveaway over there for a pair of flower power sandals or a crochet bow tie (winner’s choice!). If you are interested please pop over and Like & Share the page! 🙂

I hope you all enjoy the upcoming bank holiday weekend!

Naomi x2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in: Lovely Little Crochet, Lovely Little Family, Lovely Little Home Tagged: #MorrisonsMum, April, bank holiday, Bible, Christianity, Christianity Explored, church, crochet, Emma, facebook, family, giveaway, happy things, May, random things, Spring

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