Gladness

This is part two of one of my assignments for a creative writing class. Part one was to write down ten things that made me angry this week – not in a short few words, but a little more descriptive. Part two are the things that made me glad. Here we go:-

• Someone wrote to ask my permission to use one of my poems in a sermon they were going to preach. They have just got back to me that the congregation appreciated the simplicity and depth of the poem.

• The sound of Joe’s voice on the telephone brings a smile to my face.

• My sister in law has a small cottage industry – although she lives not in a cottage at all, but a flat in Glasgow. She compiles hampers – lots of little gifts and nick-nacks in a pretty box, cellophane wrapper and a big bow. She gave me a pamper hamper. From the top of my head (shampoo) to the sole of my foot (a pumice stone) I am ready for pampering.

• I sat down this morning, and asked God to talk to me through His word and He did! The passage was so familiar, and as with all familiar things, I wondered if I would see something new and challenging – and I did.

• Dunfermline 2-4 Celtic means that my husband is glad, which in turn makes me glad. Watching Celtic play is never easy on the heart. My fears for Tony Mowbray’s job security were unfounded.

• I saw my friend Kathryn today. I had been praying for her regularly, and from what she shared with me, some of my prayers for her were spot on. The temptation to isolate ourselves when things are not going well, is something that we all have to deal with.

• Playing footsie in bed with Joe, wrapping my toes around his, what delight!

• Snowdrops in my garden tell me quietly that winter is nearly over and spring is most definitely on the way. It reminds me of the last verse of a poem I wrote:-

Beneath the cosy coverings
Of hats and scarves
I catch the scent of new growth
Discarding the layers
I skip and dance through puddles
And spring rainbows

• Discovering that not all birds fly south in winter. Not for me a glimpse of a single robin posing on a snow-decked gatepost as I walked to church this afternoon, but a whole tree’s worth of birds, sitting on branches, swapping noisy gossip. It was a bit like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Birds” minus the silence and the threat.

• I ate a Bounty Bar! My only regret is that I wasn’t standing in front of the weight machine at Tesco when I did it.