Spiritual Gifts

Growth group over the passed few weeks, unintentionally (from our human pov) the topic of Spiritual Gifts has come up multiple times, and how we should be using them for the church. God has given each of us at least one gift, and it is our responsibility to use it. I do believe this. However, I struggle to identify what my gift(s) are.

As an administrator you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by organizing, administering, promoting, and leading the various affairs of the church. … You will put a plan on paper and start delegating responsibility. You may lean toward organizing things, events or programs, ... you usually organize details and have people carry them out. ... You are serious minded, highly motivated, intense, and have an accurate self-image. You tend to be more interested in the welfare of the group than your own desire. 


As a teacher you are one who communicates knowledge, guides, makes known or relays facts. You are likely more in-depth than the average Sunday school teacher. ... As a teacher you live to learn and teach (or perhaps write if you teach through the written medium). ... You love the Word, enjoy reading, may be a little shy of strangers, are creative and imaginative, and prefer teaching groups over individuals. You are generally confident, self-disciplined, and sometimes technical. You probably love charts, graphs, and lists. … The use of a verse out of context upsets you and you question the knowledge of those who teach you. You are organized and enjoy studying.
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When I was a teenager I used to attend Good News Crusade’s summer camp as part of their Maintenance Team (now called EdgeFest). I used to really enjoy working hard for God, whether it be erecting marquees, setting out chairs, tidying litter, helping in the kitchen, or my favourite job – operating the OHP screen. Not only do I love worship music, but at camp the worship would seamlessly flow as God’s presence became almost tangible amongst us, and the worship band would go off-course and sing songs that they didn’t plan to. My job, then, was to hurriedly look through the lever arch file of acetates with lyrics on them, and find the correct song, hopefully before the end of the first verse.

As the Holy Spirit was moving throughout us, many people were experiencing and enabling various gifts such as speaking in tongues, healing, prophesying etc. I don’t speak in tongues, and one year I cried out to God about it. I am authentic, and yes, I could have babbled “Lalala Alleluia Lala Rum Tum Tugger Alleluia” just to fit in, but that’s not me. And having heard people speak in tongues, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Speaking in tongues is clearly a language, even if I can’t understand it, and is so beautiful. Anything I attempt to make up would fail in comparison.

So, I prayed to God. All things are possible with God. So, why couldn’t I?

Anyway, God answered my prayer. I spoke in tongues and couldn’t believe it. It was not me, I was simply letting the Holy Spirit speak through me. And then God said to me that all things are indeed possible for Him; however, speaking in tongues is not the gift he has chosen for me. I’ve not been able to recreate it since, but am happy to know that God is in charge.

One of the books I am currently reading recommended an online quiz that can help identify what your spiritual gifts are. I do enjoy a good quiz, whether it be “what colour nail varnish should you wear?”, “what My Little Pony are you?” or something a bit more serious like “what’s your IQ” or “how neurotypical are you?”. I finally got around to doing this quiz this morning. It was a lot quicker than I expected, helped that each question only had three options – yes, no and maybe. The quiz does ask for your email address, but it did email me my results. The quiz itself is totally free, but if you want to know more information or dig deeper into what the spiritual gifts are, then you would need to pay for that.

The quiz separates spiritual gifts into three categories: Miraculous Gifts, Enabling Gifts and Team Gifts; and is used to determine what Team Gifts you as an individual have – split into service, ministry, task-orientated and activity (such as teaching).

The website says:

Three categories of spiritual gifts exist 

CATEGORY ONE: The Miraculous Gifts, generally known today as Charismatic Gifts (apostles, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, and miracles). 

CATEGORY TWO: The Enabling Gifts, which all Christians have the ability to develop (faith, discernment, wisdom, and knowledge -- qualities possessed rather than activities performed). Many scholars combine these gifts with others, based on the similarity of these gift characteristics and the synonyms used by Paul to describe them in Scripture. For example, some scholars combine Discernment with Prophecy, Knowledge with Teaching, Wisdom with Exhortation, and Hospitality with Serving. 

CATEGORY THREE: the Team Gifts, which are service-, ministry-, task-oriented or are activities performed such as teaching. The Team Gifts are functional and involve speaking or ministering. Chances are, you have several of these gifts that vary in degrees and intensity. In many cases, spiritual gifts may complement your secular employment. The Spiritual Gifts Analysis you took identified your dominant TEAM GIFTS, which will help find your place on God's team in your church.

The results are scored according to the following categories so you can see which gift or gifts are dominant for you: Evangelism, Prophecy, Teaching, Exhortation, Shepherding, Showing Mercy, Serving, Giving, and Administration. Now, I don’t know anybody else who has completed the quiz, so I don’t know if it’s considered roughly accurate or not, but I thought I would share my results with you, so at least I now have a starting point.

My dominant gifts are Mercy Showing, Administration and Teaching. The results then give a long paragraph about each gift. I will quote snippets that I think do apply to me, though it may be that there is some sort of bias in the phraseology such that everybody can pick out bits that apply to themselves? I don’t know.

Mercy Showing

As a mercy-shower you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by identifying with and comforting those who are in distress. You understand and comfort your fellow Christian. … As a mercy-shower you are willing to deal with and minister to people who have needs that most people feel very uncomfortable working with. You seem to say the right thing at the right time…. You are easy to talk to, responsive to people, a good listener, peaceable, and agreeable. … In your burden to comfort others, your heart goes out to the poor, the aged, the ill, the underprivileged, and so on.

Administration

As an administrator you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by organizing, administering, promoting, and leading the various affairs of the church. … You will put a plan on paper and start delegating responsibility. You may lean toward organizing things, events or programs, ... you usually organize details and have people carry them out. ... You are serious minded, highly motivated, intense, and have an accurate self-image. You tend to be more interested in the welfare of the group than your own desire.

Teaching

As a teacher you are one who communicates knowledge, guides, makes known or relays facts. You are likely more in-depth than the average Sunday school teacher. ... As a teacher you live to learn and teach (or perhaps write if you teach through the written medium). ... You love the Word, enjoy reading, may be a little shy of strangers, are creative and imaginative, and prefer teaching groups over individuals. You are generally confident, self-disciplined, and sometimes technical. You probably love charts, graphs, and lists. … The use of a verse out of context upsets you and you question the knowledge of those who teach you. You are organized and enjoy studying. 

My heart does go out to others: I have been technically homeless as a child (we lived in a Women’s Refuge for 6 months), and have had little money, so I do pray for those less fortunate than myself, and give to the foodbank and charity shops when I can. I do love admin; organising events, groups, anything. At this very moment I am organising a residential trip for fellow home educators next year, I am sorting out (and will be purchasing) what people want to do with the vouchers we won for coming first place in Beat the Street, I volunteer for an online home education website that I co-founded; I am admin for multiple facebook groups and a yahoo group, and there’s probably more that I’ve forgotten. I do genuinely enjoy organising (especially if I get to organise other people). And teaching is something I always wanted to do as a child. As I grew up, I went into industry, and now I have gone back to my roots and have been a private tutor for nearly 10 years. Whilst I don’t feel like I’m qualified for teaching within the church (not least because I’m aware that some of my beliefs are not traditional), teaching “through the written medium” aka this blog, does make sense to me and my passions. And researching and studying? Love it!

So what am I going to do with this new found knowledge? I don’t know yet. I will pray some more, asking God for direction. I will also talk to my church leader about how best to use my skills for the benefit of the church, whatever form that takes.

Inner Engineer

If you’re at home, sans kids, and want to watch something on TV, but not long enough for a film, what do you choose?

I think this is my geekiness at play, but atm I’m recording (yes, recording because I’m usually out when it’s on TV) Air Crash Investigation and Engineering Disasters, both on in the middle of the day on Blaze. Similarly, if there are programs on Extreme Weather or Natural Disasters, I’ll be watching.

I find it fascinating the things that can go wrong, especially things we take for granted. How technology advances, often due to accidents in the past (though the recent series of each include disasters as recently as 2014), to make things safer for all.

I enjoy flying, and if given the chance I like to sit next to the window but behind (but close) to the wings, so that I can check that the flaps that aid lift and slowing the plane are working properly (as if I can do anything about it), as well as when they are lifted you can see all the electronics underneath, which is quite cool. The only time that I would get afraid before a flight would be in very cold weather when there is snow, and perhaps ice, on the plane. I’m a Manchester United fan, and though it is well before my time, I still know about the Munich Air Disaster of 1958 when 11 from Man Utd died, including 8 players. One of those players, Duncan Edwards, was allegedly one of the best players in the world ever.

Even when I was younger, I found programs like these to be interesting and wanted to go into it for a career. I have a Masters in Engineering Science, have worked on a building site in Construction, worked in the Aerospace industry and worked for a Semi-conductor Manufacturer, so I do have some knowledge behind my interest, even if my career path has since taken a different direction.

Love me, Crazy by Laura Burton

As I read a fair bit (understatement of the century, lol) a fellow blogger Laura’sBeautiful World has asked me to read and review her book.

The prologue starts just before Sophie’s wedding when her mother Audrey reminisces about how she met Sophie’s father and it wasn’t as simple as ‘meeting him at a party’ as Sophie was led to believe. The main story starts when Audrey was working as a teacher in a private girls’ school in Bristol and she meets Reverend Tom who falls in love and then obsession with her.

I’m not someone who has had a lot of boyfriends (in fact, before my husband, my longest relationship was only 6 weeks) and yet I’ve had not one, but two boyfriends threaten to have my name shaved in the back of their head and I’ve had yet another boyfriend who told me that we were going to get married because he could tell by the look in my eyes. Err, yes, umm, well, this is awkward...

The author describes the book as:

A bride catches a case of cold feet on her wedding day, she’s not sure if she could really have a happy ending. What if things fall apart? Her mother shares her story that things can get pretty ugly but love conquers all. This is Audrey’s story, and prepare yourself for a bumpy ride, things are about to get pretty crazy! 

The book is an easy to read chick lit. It’s very enjoyable, and by halfway through I was addicted. There are some twists and turns, so isn’t a straight romance, but would come under sweet or cosy romance subgenre. I’d recommend it for women of all ages from 18-80+, because no matter where you are in your life, you will either empathise with the protagonist at the age you are, or you will look back on dating, funny experiences and remember your first kiss.

It’s not been released yet (Click here to Pre-Order) BUT you can win a signed copy in this competition here.

Edit: the book has now been released: https://amzn.to/2SJ4OKo

Oops, I did it again!

Not singing Britney (though I have been known to do that after I've had one too many...) but I stopped tracking what I've been eating on my Facebook Page and the results haven't been pretty.  I have been pretty stressed (and I am an emotional eater) which has resulted in me eating far too much of the wrong things, and not enough of the right things.  There's nothing wrong with having a treat; indeed Treat not Cheat is one of the 2B Mindset mantras, but we should still be sticking to Water First and Veggies Most.

I have been following the 2B Mindset for nearly 2 months now and have not lost anywhere near 2lbs a week. So, with the holiday season approaching (Happy Thanksgiving for my American friends) I'm taking stock of what I have achieved. 

Other than a couple of occasions, I have not been posting my daily weigh-ins.  Weight does fluctuate daily, but the scale is a good indicator of what is going well and not-so-well.  I have plotted my weight over the past few weeks, both individually, and I have basically smoothed it out by looking at a 5-day average.

The good news is that my weight is clearly dropping.  It may not be dropping as fast as I would like, but then if I were that eager to lose weight, I would be more mindful of what I ate and more determined to always drink water first, etc.  If you have been following my tracking for the barely-two-weeks when I was writing down what I was eating, you can see that I haven't always had mostly vegetables on my plate, and have eaten too many 'silly carbs' and sugar.  So, though I am reprimanding myself, I am conscious that had I been more mindful about what I was eating, then I could have lost a lot more weight. 

So, looking at the graph, I am taking a positive that I am losing weight, I am heading in the right direction, and this is something I can do.  As Ilana says:

"Positive People, Positive Weight loss"

Halloween and Gardening

Yesterday was Halloween, so we did the obligatory pumpkin carving.  We had left it quite late to buy pumpkins (the day before) because previously we've had carved ones go mouldy before Halloween!  This meant the ones that were left were fairly small, but the girls still had fun designing and carving.  Usually my husband carves the pumpkins, but I had to do it yesterday.  Carving - fine! Good fun and creative. Removing seeds and string - horrible! It was really hard (yes, I know pumpkin is a hard veg [pedant me: fruit], but I thought this was an activity kids were meant to do!) so the girls gave up, and left it for me to do.
But, we're happy with the results.

As it was Halloween, my church does a Light Event each year instead.  Rather than the usual party, they set up a table on the street and gave out "Bags of Hope" - party bags containing sweets, colouring pages, a leaflet about the church, and John's Gospel.  They also were doing hot dogs, and party games.  Despite having 100 bags (actually they had 200 in total, as this was set-up in two locations), they had run out after an hour, so had to pop to Tesco to buy even more sweets.  Hopefully the response they had is encouraging.

So today, we have the job of using up the rest of the pumpkin.  As the shells were on the floor outside last night, we're not going to use them, but I'm going to roast the seeds for a snack and use the flesh we did manage to retrieve to make pumpkin bread.  I'd like to make cornbread, but I'm not sure I have any cornmeal left, in which case I'll make a more normal loaf.

Also, some new plants that I had ordered arrived yesterday.  We got a knock at the front door last night, so the girls ran to the front to offer sweets to the trick or treaters, to discover a tall box standing alone on the doorstep, as the delivery driver drove away.  The box contained 2 standard patio roses, to replaces the ones that never grew last year; 40 plug pansies and some basket raisers.  I currently have the last of my dying cherry tomatoes in the baskets out the front of my house, so thought I would replace them with the pansies for some winter colour.  As the baskets are high up, and even on my kitchen steps I can barely reach them, I bought some basket raisers to make my job easier. Unfortunately, it's pouring with rain today, so I don't fancy doing the gardening now.  It's been very dry (but freezing) recently.  I was glad this morning when I awoke and it wasn't so cold, but I have a day free to do gardening and I don't want to miss it.

I'm sure the neighbours think I'm crazy though.  All summer, whilst other houses had beautiful flower displays hanging out the front, whilst I had mainly empty baskets.  When the tomato plugs arrived, they were half dead, so didn't grow as bushy as I hoped they would - not helped by there being a heatwave when we were on holiday for a fortnight so when we returned they were half dead, again!  The tomato plants were still fruiting until very recently, which is why I hadn't removed them sooner, but now I have baskets of dead/dying plants out the front - very in theme with Halloween!  The pansy plugs are tiny, though, so when I do plant them it will look, yet again, that I have empty baskets hanging out the front.  Oh well!  Hopefully they'll bloom.

I'm Back!

With a new laptop, so can finally connect to the world again - phew!

What's new with you? Seemingly not much has happened here, though I know I've missed writing, so it is probably more to do with my memory due to getting older, than anything else; as at some point in the past little while I have had something to say.

I had a mini-cancer scare.  Not a big one, and not anything I was actually worried about, but because I'm BRCA1+ I need to be extra vigilant.  The skin on one of my breasts has changed, so I had to make a GP appointment. The system at my local surgery has changed, so all calls now go through to a call centre that is centralised to many surgeries.  As a result, even though I phoned first thing in the morning and was on hold for 30min, when I got through there were no appointments left.  After a bit of a mix-up, I got a call from a GP and managed to get an appt the following day.  When I saw the GP he said it looked like dermatitis, which is what I suspected anyway, but better safe than sorry.


I'm actually 'on hold' at the moment to the same call centre.  I need to make asthma reviews for myself and the girls; but this new system is a nightmare.  I have opted for a call-back this time, but I've no idea how long that'll take and I daren't go to the loo in case that's when they choose to return my call.

I'm still going with my 2B Mindset training course.  I've had the virtual F2F session with Ilana, and am now finishing up going through the videos and the coursebook before I take the exam.  Fortunately, it seems that you can take the test as many times as you need, before you pass, as long as it's within 3 months; so that's a good sign.  But, I do want to complete it asap, so I don't have it hanging over my head over Christmas.  Speaking of which, I finally completed last year's tax return for HMRC yesterday.  Normally I like to do it in April, but I wasn't up to date, so kept putting it off and putting it off... Even though the deadline isn't until 31st January, I was still getting nervous that I wasn't doing it, so I'm glad I can feel relaxed now.

And this weekend starts yet another dance festival, so we'll be driving to Pershore and back, repeatedly, over the next week.  Both girls are dancing, and  it is good experience for them, even if it uses up all my time and money!

Hopefully, next time I write, I'll have something a bit better to say.

A bit about Me

I'm going to start with a confession - I'm not middle-aged.  At least, I hope I'm not, as I'm only 36yo.  But, it sounded good being alliterative, between Musings and Mum.  I am a mum to two girls (DD1 and DD2) whom I home educate, and I muse often, having random thoughts, ideas, projects I start and don't complete, and general rants against the government, companies and individual, mainly within my own head.

I read **A LOT** (I currently have 6 books on the go!) and have recently started MosaiCraft, which I love. I tutor Maths, around HEing my girls and driving them to dance/gymnastics lessons - which between them they do 6 days a week. And I'm working towards becoming a 2B Mindset coach/mentor.

I have the BRCA1 gene mutation, so am planning to have a double mastectomy in a few years as I currently have an 85% chance of developing breast cancer. I've already had a total hysterectomy to reduce my chance of getting ovarian cancer (it was previously 40%). I occasionally dream of going back to uni to study Genomics and Oncology when the kids have left home, but that's a few years yet as my youngest has only just turned 8yo.

Oh, and I've recently self-diagnosed (after being prompted by an expert) as autistic, which explains a thing or two in my past.  I'm also a Christian, and a Naturist, so am a collection or random labels, and am trying to be real and honest in these posts.

As for why I've started this blog- DD1 wants to become a vlogger, after watching many hours of Stampylongnose, SB737, and UnspeakableGaming, amongst others.  So, I thought it would be interesting to see what it's like to have a blog that I'll link to a FB page and see whether people actually look at it or not. To make things more difficult for me, I'm not going to show a photo of my face (unless it ridiculously takes off and is calling out for me to make a profit from this page <unlikely>), nor share with friends or family as a starting point for likes/followers. Anyone who finds this page and likes it, have found it randomly. Otherwise, I'm just using it as a sounding board for myself.

Once upon a time I did have a different blog (A Laid Back Parent's Blog) and managed to keep it up for a year, before life took over.  Surprisingly I still have 4 followers from back then (Hello, if that's you!), though for this new adventure I've changed my username from Laid Back Parent to Middle-aged Mum, as it seemed more fitting.

So yeah, that's me in a few paragraphs. I' sure you'll find out more about me in time. If you are reading this, feel free to ask any questions you have - at worst I simply won't answer.