When time goes by ...

It is 30th April. Exactly one month to the day since I first started my 'garden' post.

There is no hammock to lol about on or comfy swing to sit upon, and I have to now reflect, 'Well, why not?' Guess it's because I started digging in this space and could not figure out just what to do with it! (Where's Alan Titschmarch when you need him??) Where do I place the turf, and how do I arrange the plants? Will my garden have a deck, where I can bask in my thoughts on those glorious days when the sun is shining? Should I install a creative revolutionary water feature to help stimulate my thinking when my thoughts dry up? And where's the pergola to go? Enough with the garden metaphors!!

This month has just ripped by with activity, and God's presence has been hovering over me in a variety of ways. I'm glad God hovers ... is He waiting for me to make a move I don't yet know about? I have felt like something's up. There are several options He's presented to me. All enticing. Have just come from the 4th Arrival Day put on by our diocese (Rochester). It was terrific, and the training superb. I feel so blessed by all the new brothers and sisters in Christ I met; by those pastoral and spiritual leaders from the Cathedral who came to teach; by the four courses of ministry explored today. But mostly by God's presence. I felt it so keenly! He is responding to my many queries lately about where He wants me to go, and what He wants me to do. How, Lord, can I get out of the confines of this little box that seems to grow tinier? Well, I'm beginning to get some answers. One of the answers has been why the diocese call their 'training day' an 'arrival day'. God has 'arrived' in a special way to showcase all the fabulous opportunities He has yet to offer. With His continuing guidance, I will 'arrive' eventually. I marvel at the new adventures God keeps in store for us at each age in our journey with Him. Some He likes to spring on us, in surprise.

Some of the things I've had to consider since my first post here are:

• How and what exactly do I post on a page that might be read by people who either know me, or don't? Should this become just a general comments/op-ed page? Or should I, like I've read from the blog pages of my American friends, just lay it all out and go for broke? I have yet to read any blogs from British friends, mainly because none I know are blogging. And they wouldn't let many know if they were, for fear of being sectioned. I suppose one blogs so that one's thoughts and opinions can 'go public'. Was this new literary sport dreamed up by an American in the first place? Otherwise, one's thoughts and opinions (and all that information!) would just stay under lock and key inside one's private journal.
• How much do I reveal? Sharing openly about one's innermost feelings is not a British passion. There seems to be no need, and my family and friends here are masters at the art of understatement. How do they do it??? If I were still living in America, I could probably write a lot more transparently about my feelings than I feel I can here in the UK. It presents a stifling dilemma for me. Family and friends will turn several shades of red by what I could write. So shall I go the 'softly, softly' approach and try to please others, and save myself from humiliation? This whole 'creative writing project' would make a great exercise for me to learn to be, hmmmmm, more frugal with my thoughts. Thinking about the discipline of that does take extreme effort.
• Should I write an entry every day, or when my thoughts are wise and lucid? Eh, eh. When are they ever? Even at this age, I still get 'Earth to Debi'! The daily entry does not seem all that feasible a promise I could keep. Once a week is a good goal, but once a month seems a long wait between entries. We'll see ...

Thanks! to Rochester Diocese for affirming what I have suspected for a few decades. Today, I took the Myers-Briggs for the first time this decade, and learned yet again that I am an ENFP. Did God realise this when He created me? He likes details. More than I am supposed to, apparently. This time around I am married to a wonderful guy who just found out he is an INTJ, and now thinks he has the keys to know how to handle me. We are having a fun re-think about our relationship. And we are rejoicing at the confirmation that God meant us to be together in spite of it all! God's grand sense of humour has certainly not been lost on this day. What tremendous ways He has of gifting us, eh?

So because I am now emboldened by my ENFP status, I feel I may post anything I need to write. Others will just have to choose the shade of red they might turn at whatever they may read. They can even choose a different colour if red is not a part of their own MB scheme.

Those of you who know me well know what I mean: it's hard to keep an ENFP down!

YIKES!! I just looked at the time!! Tonight was the night the Daleks return on Dr Who, and I was supposed to record it for John while he has been diligently out in our real garden painting our new fence. He had planned for us to watch it with our jacket potatoes after he was finished in the garden. Well, as I've been blogging away in my literary garden, the Daleks and Dr Who have departed and won't be back until next week. I am so in trouble!!! Pray for me ...

Blessings all!