Hello everyone,
How are you all doing? Is that a collective ‘we’re doing great’ I hear. Maybe! Or maybe it’s the Belfast wind outside. Anyhow, for all you wonderful people who are interested, we’re doing well. Life is good, we are happy etc etc. Today is the 18th February. And I know you all know what that means. That’s right, Sarah and I are married exactly six months. How great is that. I know that’s as big a deal to you as it is to us, and I’m sure you’re good wishes cards are simply caught up in the postal system somewhere (or something).
Anyway, six months married also means six months through our first year married sabbatical thing. Thankfully Sarah and I decided we would take the first year married to do nothing except whisper sweet nothings to each other, and so far its going pretty good. We’re getting to know each other a lot better, and learn to have good proper arguments (about nothing really). Its like, you get to know people when you lean where their limits are of what they can tolerate, and then you begin to push those limits. Isn’t that the inevitable process of long term relationships. Well I think so, and its very good. Its fun and its enlightening, and you learn to love the other person so much more. My friend Richard advised me before getting married to never settle an argument by caving in for the sake of the peace. Its much better to preserve the feistiness and explore being ourselves. And that’s what we’re doing. So taking the year out, really was an inspired move. Several people mentioned to us before we got married about how Israeli soldiers have to take a year off when they get married (not sure if it still applies, probably just a biblical reference) just to spend time with their wives. For us that looks like not committing our time elsewhere in any regular way outside of our working lives of course. Obviously we commit to meeting people and having people going round for dinner etc, on one off’s, but its been more about trying to avoid those commitments to do things on a regular basis, or doing things that take us away from doing stuff together. So that’s where we’re at, and its great. We’ve been doing all sorts, from visiting friends in Lincoln to wandering round waterfalls in the Glens of Antrim (see pics). And we’re hoping our life after this year will just grow naturally from where we’re at now and God just continues using us together in the ways we see him using us now. Either that or we’ll get stupendously busy and be ships passing in the night (but I doubt it, I hope).
This attitude to life seems to be generally acceptable to most people, except it does seem hard to explain to church people sometimes. Getting married for us meant moving to a new place, and starting to go to a new church (which we’ve been at now for approx 4/5 months). And City Church is brilliant. Loads of young married types and trendy fun student types and a few fun older people types. Sometimes though we meet new people and one of the first questions is; So what are youse involved in? Or, what cell group are you in? And the answer seems to either confuse or disappoint (I’m not sure which). We’re not doing anything. Its funny, I think we in the church have a long history of making relationships activity based or project based. We get to know people through involvement and doing stuff together, rather than by just pursuing simple friendship. Hanging out for no purpose other than you simply like the other person/people and want to get to know them, and/or encourage them. And thankfully we’ve had some of that too. More Lord!!
This weekend we had my mum and dad down at the for dinner, and Sarah’s folks are over for a few days from now; so apart from in law hosting, that is our week. Hope you’re all well. Leave us a comment if you have the time. God bless. Love, Sarah and Raymond.
