Happy Birthday Duncan!

As I write this blog I am also looking at a photo on my desk, a photo of Duncan on his birthday last year - as happy as Larry in the bookshops of Hay-on-Wye! We had an overnight stay and 'did' all the bookshops and Duncan really was in his element. 
This year has been different - for a start off he is at work three days a week and Wednesday is one of them, so we celebrated when he'd finished a hard day at the chalkface and joined us at the end of our Ladies' Meeting in church for a cuppa and a birthday cake. (See below).
What a lot has happened to us in a year! Birthdays always seem to make one sit back and take stock, don't they?
This time last year Harvester Reformational Church Halifax didn't even exist!
Duncan didn't have a job.
We were wondering what the direction of our lives would be after leaving Elim and spending three months in Cape Town. Everything seemed to have come to a standstill. What were we to do now? 
There were several possibilities but we were praying and expecting God to say exactly where we were to be when all the time, we realise now, God was saying one word: "Reformation!" and as for the where? Well, where did we want to be? 
As soon as we admitted that actually, we wanted to be here, in this place, in this house, everything slipped into place like a well-oiled machine and now we know we are exactly where we are meant to be, doing exactly what we are meant to be doing, in exactly the way we should be doing it! A couple of round pegs in a couple of round holes! And there is such peace in this. 
Oh there are still trials and tribulations - as we were always promised there would be, (1 Peter 4:12-13), but we know we can overcome them and come out better and more mature because of them. We are not standing still; not treading water. We have righteousness, joy and peace! What more could we ask for?


Well, for the calorific value of a slice of birthday cake to be the same as a stick of celery!