Perfectly Unfinished Me

Tag: perfectly-unfinished-me

  • Perfectly Unfinished Me DEVOTIONS🌿| We All Want Abundance. But Where Are We Going to Put It?

    Abundance sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

    More time. More money. More opportunities. More creativity. More freedom. More of God.

    Without much thought, at first I’d say, yes please. I’ll take the lot.

    There’s just one small problem.

    Where exactly am I going to put it?

    I’ve realised recently that I already have an abundance of quite a few things. Ideas, for example. I have an extraordinary number of those. Unfortunately, I don’t necessarily have an abundance of time, money or space in which to do anything with them.

    I also have an abundance of thoughts.

    I just don’t always appear to have access to them. With an abundance of factors blocking their access — brain fog, menopause, busy lifestyle, medical factors — take your pick.

    I can be halfway through saying something genuinely profound, stop for approximately three seconds and discover that the entire thought has apparently locked itself away somewhere in the building.

    Perhaps this is not the kind of abundance I had in mind.

    Then there’s my piano.

    I own a piano. I love playing the piano. At present, however, actually getting to the piano requires a degree of logistical planning because of how we’ve had to arrange the space in our house.

    So there it sits.

    An abundance of piano.

    A slight shortage of access.

    And yet, if I did have access, would my procrastination lose its grip long enough to let me focus, or would my motivation actually kick in enough to play it?

    And sometimes I wonder whether that’s what we do with abundance generally.

    We pray for more. We work towards more. We talk about prosperity and living abundantly. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting more.

    I would quite happily have more money.

    There. I said it.

    I don’t worship money, but I can think of plenty of things I could do with it. Things I could create. People I could help. Ideas I could actually develop rather than adding them to the increasingly overcrowded waiting room inside my head.

    But perhaps the more important question isn’t simply, Do I want more?

    Perhaps it’s:

    What would I do with it if I got it?

    Because abundance needs somewhere to go.

    It needs a container.

    And if the container isn’t big enough, organised enough or ready enough to hold what’s being poured into it, abundance can start to feel remarkably like overwhelm.

    And that’s where Solomon comes in.

    “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” — 1 Kings 3:5

    Imagine that.

    Anything.

    Solomon could have asked for riches. A long life. Victory over his enemies.

    He didn’t.

    He asked for a discerning heart. Wisdom to govern God’s people and to distinguish between right and wrong.

    And God was pleased with his answer.

    Solomon was offered anything he wanted, and he asked for the wisdom to steward what he had already been given.

    Because he already had something enormous.

    A kingdom.

    What he recognised was that having something and having the capacity to carry it well are not the same thing.

    And because Solomon asked for wisdom rather than riches or honour, God gave him the wisdom he asked for — and also gave him riches and honour that he hadn’t asked for.

    That challenges me.

    Because I’m quite good at asking God for the next thing.

    More time would be lovely.

    More money would be extremely useful.

    More opportunities? Absolutely.

    More ideas?

    Actually, perhaps we could put a temporary hold on those until I’ve dealt with the existing backlog.

    But maybe sometimes the prayer I need isn’t:

    Lord, give me more.

    Maybe it’s:

    Lord, give me the wisdom, the tenacity and clarity to know what to do with what You’ve already given me.

    Because information isn’t enough.

    I can know exactly what I ought to eat and still eat something else.

    I can know I need rest and still fill the time with noise.

    I can know I want to write and spend the time I could have been writing scrolling through my phone.

    I can have an idea that genuinely feels as though God has given it to me and still need discernment to know whether it is for now.

    Not every good thing has to be done today.

    Some things need wisdom.

    Some need clarity.

    Some need capacity.

    Some need tenacity.

    And all of them need stewardship.

    Jesus spoke about this too. He said that whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.

    There’s that uncomfortable word again.

    Trusted.

    Because if I’m asking my Heavenly Father for more, perhaps it’s reasonable for me to look at what I’m doing with the little — or actually, the considerable amount — that I already have.

    Take time.

    I frequently feel as though there simply isn’t enough of it.

    I work full-time, which means around forty hours of every week are already allocated before I begin thinking about writing, creating, exercising, building things, spending time with the people I love, playing the aforementioned inaccessible piano, or simply sitting still long enough to remember what I was thinking about five minutes ago.

    And yes, there are times when I would very much like God to release me into something different.

    But then I have to ask myself an irritating question.

    What am I doing with the time I do have?

    Because apparently telling God I could accomplish extraordinary things if only He gave me more time becomes slightly less convincing when my phone can produce documentary evidence to the contrary in the form of my screen-time report.

    There are moments when I wonder whether I’m waiting for the next season while failing to properly inhabit this one.

    Perhaps there are things I’m learning here.

    Gratitude.

    Discipline.

    Patience.

    Consistency.

    How to do something when I don’t particularly feel like doing it.

    How to steward small pockets of time before asking for enormous ones.

    That doesn’t mean we have to pretend to love every season we’re in. Nor do I believe wanting change automatically makes us ungrateful.

    Sometimes we really do need things to change.

    But I don’t want to spend so much time staring at the next mountain that I miss what God is teaching me on this one.

    Because if I don’t learn it here, will I simply carry the same habits into whatever comes next?

    Will I finally get the time I’ve been asking for and discover that I still don’t know how to use it?

    Will I get the opportunity and discover I haven’t developed the capacity to carry it?

    Will I get the abundance and then wonder why it feels so heavy?

    Maybe before we pray for bigger harvests, we sometimes need bigger barns.

    Not necessarily bigger physical ones.

    Bigger capacity.

    Greater wisdom.

    Better discernment.

    The tenacity to actually put into practice what we already know.

    And perhaps contentment belongs somewhere in all of this too.

    “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” — Philippians 4:12

    I appear to have achieved plenty and want simultaneously.

    I have plenty of ideas and not always enough money to execute them.

    Plenty I want to do and not always enough time.

    Plenty of thoughts and, as previously established, occasionally limited access to them.

    But when I stop looking exclusively at what I don’t have, I realise how much abundance is already sitting around me.

    I have a husband I love, whom there was a time I never knew I would meet.

    I have an extraordinarily loving dog who would presumably like an abundance of treats.

    I have a home.

    I eat every day.

    I have choices about what I eat — something I’ve become much more aware of since changing my diet and discovering both how much money I used to spend on things I didn’t need and how little we actually need to be satisfied.

    I can rest.

    I can create.

    I can worship freely.

    I can complain about working eight hours and getting paid for it while people elsewhere in the world work far harder in circumstances I can barely imagine, sometimes without freedom, security or enough food.

    That doesn’t mean my frustrations aren’t real.

    Gratitude doesn’t require pretending something is perfect.

    But it does require me to stop occasionally and recognise what is already here.

    And yet, strangely, when I think about all the things I want more of, there is one abundance I find myself craving more than the others.

    Jesus.

    His presence.

    Intimacy with Him.

    Time to sit with Him and hear Him properly.

    I miss those moments when He gives me pictures, when something suddenly becomes clear, when I recognise His voice and know He is showing me something.

    And perhaps sometimes when I feel as though God has gone quiet, the problem isn’t that He has gone anywhere.

    He promised never to leave us or forsake us.

    Perhaps sometimes my life has simply become very loud.

    I can ask for intimacy with the Lord but intimacy needs a container too.

    Time.

    Attention.

    Stillness.

    Space.

    A willingness to put something else down.

    “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.” — Psalm 84:10

    The writer goes on to say he would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

    That puts abundance into perspective.

    Because I could have an abundance of money.

    An abundance of opportunities.

    An abundance of possessions.

    An abundance of ideas.

    I could finally acquire all the time, space and resources I currently think would make everything easier.

    But Jesus asked a rather sobering question:

    “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” — Mark 8:36

    The whole world.

    Now that really is abundance.

    And yet Jesus makes it clear that even that can amount to nothing if, in gaining it, we lose what matters most.

    So perhaps the question isn’t simply, How much can I gain?

    Perhaps it’s also, what is it costing me to gain it?

    If my pursuit of more money costs me my peace, is that prosperity?

    If more opportunities leave me with no time for the people I love, is that abundance?

    If I’m so busy trying to fulfil every idea I’ve been given that I have no time left for the God who gave me the ability to have them, have I really gained anything at all?

    Maybe prosperity has more faces than we realise.

    Maybe abundance does too.

    Perhaps the question isn’t whether it’s wrong to want more.

    I don’t think it is.

    Perhaps the questions are:

    Why do I want it?

    What will I do with it?

    Do I have the capacity to carry it?

    Am I stewarding what I already have?

    And most importantly:

    What am I becoming while I wait for it?

    James tells us that if any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask God, who gives generously.

    Perhaps that is one prayer for abundance we can make without worrying about where we’re going to put it.

    More wisdom.

    Wisdom to know what deserves our time.

    Wisdom to know which ideas are for now and which can wait.

    Wisdom to recognise when we genuinely need more and when we simply haven’t noticed how much we already have.

    Wisdom to create the right containers for whatever God entrusts to us next.

    And wisdom to remember that the greatest abundance I could ever possess isn’t something I can put in my bank account, squeeze into my diary or somehow find room for beside the piano.

    It is knowing Him.

    Everything else is temporary.

    One day, this life — with its crowded diaries, unfinished projects, financial limitations, inaccessible pianos and mysteriously disappearing thoughts — will be the briefest part of our story.

    For those of us who belong to Christ, eternity awaits.

    So yes, I still want abundance.

    I still have dreams.

    I still want more time, more freedom and enough money to do some of the things I believe have been put on my heart.

    But perhaps before I ask God to pour in more, I need to look at the containers.

    And perhaps the wisest prayer isn’t simply:

    Lord, give me more.

    Perhaps it’s:

    Lord, give me the wisdom to steward what You have already given me — and prepare me to carry whatever You choose to give me next.

    Jesus said that whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much (Luke 16:10), and told us to seek first His Kingdom (Matthew 6:33). Perhaps those two things belong together. We are called to steward faithfully what God has already placed in our hands, while remembering that our first priority is Him. Before all the projects, plans, opportunities and things we hope He might entrust to us next, He wants us close enough to know His heart. Because abundance without wisdom can become overwhelm, and abundance without Him can leave us strangely empty.

    So perhaps before we ask God to fill our lives with more, there’s a better question:

    Lord, am I making room for You in the abundance I already have?

    Lord, I need You. I can’t do any of this without You. Help me make room for You before I ask You to make room for more. Fill me with Your presence, give me Your wisdom, and let everything I do flow from knowing You first.

  • When Everything Goes Wrong At Once…And You’ve Just Had Enough

    I haven’t posted for three weeks. And if you’ve been wondering where I went — here’s the honest answer. Life just did that thing it does.

    Some seasons just come at you. Not one thing. Not even two things. Just wave after wave after wave, until you’re standing at your front door trying to get your husband to work and the door won’t lock because of the heat, and you think — of course. Of course that’s happening as well.

    You know you’ve hit a certain level of done when you walk to the shop and realise halfway there that you’re still in your slippers, look at the reflection in the window and see your hair looks like an alpaca’s because you haven’t brushed it. And instead of turning back, you just think — you know what, I genuinely do not care. The slippers are staying on and the hair can just stay alpaca style. I am getting my thing and I am going home. There’s something almost liberating about it, in a completely rock-bottom sort of way.

    That’s what a long run of hard things does to you. It turns you into a version of yourself that just… keeps going. Not gracefully. Not with your hair done. Just going. One foot in front of the other, slippers and all.

    I’m not someone who wants the biggest house. I genuinely don’t have enormous expectations. I just want to pay my way, live comfortably, and do what I’m called to do. That’s it. But right now, even that feels like it’s asking too much.

    People let you down financially. Prices rise. Petrol goes up. Doors you thought were opening shut quietly in your face. Lodgers move out. The laptop breaks. The car breaks and then the front door! One thing rebounds off the next until you genuinely don’t know what’s left in you. Some days the wall just stares back.

    And if that’s where you are right now — I want you to know you are not on your own.

    That Voice

    And then there’s that negative voice.

    From a Christian perspective, there’s an enemy out to kill, steal and destroy. We call him Satan. Sometimes it’s him, sometimes it’s just our own inner critic with the volume turned up. But it comes in quiet, and it starts with two words. If not coming from that perspective, call that voice what you want but it’s still there. Gnawing at you with that question.

    What if.

    What if it doesn’t work out. What if the door never opens. What if this is just how it is now. What if, what if, what if — and each one leads to another until you’re so far down that road you can’t even see where you started.

    The only time “what if” is ever useful is when it goes the other way. But what if it does work? What if the door opens tomorrow? What if what I can’t see yet is already in motion?

    I don’t want to be better than anyone else. I’m not built for competition. I just want to be the best version of me — the one I believe God called me to be — and I want to crush my comfort zones getting there. That’s enough. That’s all I’m after.

    But when everything is pressing in, the doubt gets louder. And into that quiet the voice says things like — you’ve failed. You’re irresponsible. You can’t do this. Who do you think you are? The promise was a lie.

    And here’s what I’ve learned to say back:

    How is investing in your future a failure? The only failure is never trying the thing you believe you were made to do. If I try and it doesn’t work — so be it. At least I tried. And if I somehow end up in a cardboard box — well. At least it’ll make a good blog post.

    But seriously — you cannot take my mind. And if you can’t take my mind, you can’t take me.

    But there’s also another level to go and we’ll go there with the word of truth from my favourite book.

    Hope Deferred

    There’s a verse that does something most Christian advice doesn’t — it tells the truth about waiting.

    “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12.

    Not hope deferred makes you stronger. Not hope deferred is character building. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. And if you’ve been waiting for something — a door to open, a situation to turn, a promise to land — and it keeps not happening, you’ll know exactly what that sickness feels like.

    It’s the wind going out of your sails. Your whole persona deflating. That gut-drop moment when another thing goes wrong and something in you just goes quiet and dark.

    I know that feeling. I’ve been sitting in it.

    And when you’re there — go and find someone else to encourage. I know that sounds counterintuitive. But when you encourage others, something shifts. You stop staring inward at the darkness and start looking outward. It forces you out of yourself. And sometimes that’s all it takes to get through the day.

    Because you’re not the only one going through something. Not by a long way. Let me encourage you. There’s a second part of that verse which says: a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. So there is hope. We must always believe for that no matter what. It can come just at the 11th hour in a way we weren’t expecting. I’m speaking to myself here too.

    The Word That Speaks Life

    Have you noticed how much easier it is to default to the negative?

    We are so good at it. The world is good at it. Bad news travels faster than good news, criticism lands harder than encouragement for most of us — and when things get genuinely rough — most of us have the potential to go down that road. The spiral is always there, waiting.

    Which is exactly why the Word of God matters so much. Not as a rule book. Not as a list of things you should be doing better. But as something living — something that speaks life back into you when everything else is speaking death.

    That’s why it needs to be drilled into our souls. Read it, know it, sit with it — so that when the moment comes and you have nothing left, the Holy Spirit can bring it back to you at exactly the right time. A word you read six months ago suddenly meaning everything right now. That’s not coincidence. That’s how it works.

    I won’t pretend I always do this perfectly. I don’t. Some days I manage it well. Some days I fail spectacularly. But I keep coming back. Keep trying. Keep running my own lane, not anyone else’s.

    Dangerous Songs

    There’s a song — Oceans by Hillsong United — “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, and I’ll walk upon the waters, wherever you may call me.” And we sing it. We really sing it. Hands in the air, completely meaning it.

    And then life delivers the answer to that prayer.

    And you think — oh. Oh no. I didn’t mean it quite like THIS.

    I don’t think the people who wrote it knew exactly what they were asking for either, if I’m honest. I think they sang something like it, got absolutely taken apart by life, came out the other side with their faith changed forever — and THEN wrote the song. Out of the fire. Not before it.

    Because you don’t become a diamond by being comfortable. The diamond is made under pressure, under heat, with everything that isn’t the real thing burned away. All the dross, all the chaff, everything that was never going to last anyway.

    Nobody enjoys that process. Nobody. But you can’t skip it and still get the diamond.

    And the people who’ve been through it? You can tell. There’s something in them that wasn’t there before.

    Saint Paul

    I have a friend I call Saint Paul. That’s not his real name — he’s called Paul — but if you knew him, you’d understand why I call him that. He’s kind of like a spiritual Dad in a way.

    He prays for what feels like a hundred people a day. Always remembering. He is the most genuinely grateful person I have ever known. Not because his life has been easy — it hasn’t, not by a long way. He’s had his trials. Real ones. But through all of it, there is this quality about him. A graciousness. A steadiness. A way of being grateful even when there’s every reason not to be.

    He sets a standard, without even trying to. Just by being who he is. And I’ve learned more from watching him than from many sermons.

    One of the things he’s taught me — and I’m still learning this — is that you can’t always trust your feelings. You might feel hopeless today and completely different tomorrow. Your emotions are real, but they’re not always telling you the truth. You have to just keep going.

    I look at him and I think — he knows who his anchor is. That’s what it is. That’s the difference.

    And then I look at my dog, Zeb. Who has absolutely no idea what’s going on, but looks at me with such complete and uncomplicated love that I think — okay. Tomorrow might be completely different. Let’s just get through today.

    Then there’s my husband who has this way of bringing himself round from discouragement also. I’m grateful for him. See there is always something to be grateful for though sometimes it’s very hard to dig down.

    Sometimes that’s enough.

    Find Your Anchor

    Maybe this is all a bit too biblical for where you are right now. Maybe Jesus isn’t part of your story yet — or hasn’t been. That’s okay. I’m not here to tell you what to believe.

    But I will say this — find your anchor. Whatever holds you when everything else is pulling. If it’s your dog, your friend, a word of encouragement you stumbled across, a piece of music that reaches somewhere words can’t — hold onto it. Use it to get through today.

    And if you’re ever ready to find the true anchor — the one that holds in every storm, not just this one — He’s not going anywhere.

    The Promise Is Still There

    And when the faith feels thin — and it will feel thin sometimes, I won’t lie to you — remember that Jesus said faith the size of a mustard seed is enough. You don’t need a mountain of it. Just enough to take the next step.

    And if even that feels like too much, there’s a prayer in scripture that I think is one of the most honest things ever said to God:

    “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”

    Not I have it all together. Not I’m completely trusting you. Just — I believe. Help me where I don’t.

    He can work with that.

    The apostle Paul — the biblical one, not my friend 😄 — writes in Romans 8:18:

    “Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed.”

    And this, from Jeremiah 29:11:

    “I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.”

    In my darkest hours I’ve often been sarcastic with that verse and said “Yes, I know YOU know the plans you have for me but would you like to tell ME what they are?”

    But if He did, that wouldn’t require faith would it? Because it says in Hebrews:

    “Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the conviction of things not seen.” (Faith even as small as a mustard seed, remember.)

    But think about it — the promise IS that He has plans.

    Not maybe. Not if you get it right. Plans. Already made. Already in motion.

    Hold on to that. Even on the wall-staring days. Even on the days you’ve got nothing left and the door won’t open and everything is conspiring against you.

    Tomorrow is another day. And today has enough of its own troubles without borrowing it.

    Until the race is won.

  • A Year of Love, Chaos and Unscripted Interruptions

    A candid photo of me and my husband Blod, smiling together.

    This year was my first year of marriage — marriage itself has been a gift, even if the year wasted no time throwing everything else at us.

    My husband, who I usually call Blod, it should be said, handled it like an absolute legend — in the sense that you’d like to believe people do,

    after weeks of that strange New Year build-up where everyone keeps asking what you’re looking forward to,

    whether you’ve got plans, and gently implying that something excellent is about to happen.

    Don’t get me wrong, I understand why we do it —

    hope matters, and it does arrive in many different forms.

    Good things do come.

    Growth comes.

    Unexpected kindness comes.

    But there is still something quietly absurd about how we repeat the same ritual every year: gathering round a countdown, making declarations of health, happiness, and fresh starts,

    and acting genuinely surprised when life doesn’t follow the script exactly as imagined;

    Only to be met almost immediately with a very emphatic reminder that life doesn’t consult your expectations

    before making its entrance.

    Instead, it turns up like a well-meaning but slightly intrusive relative, interrupting the conversation mid-sentence and asking,

    “Chickenpox, anyone?”

    Blod got it.

    Not the polite, childhood version — the full adult edition. The sort that looks unnecessarily dramatic and teaches you very quickly what “in sickness” actually means.

    I learned how to care properly, have a few quietly unhinged moments of panic (mostly kept to myself), and discovered that Googling symptoms at 2am is never a neutral activity.

    At first, we were convinced it was an allergic reaction to my lemon shower gel — which he is actually allergic to.

    The shower gel was immediately thrown out, obviously.

    We even ended up in A&E;, fully prepared to explain our theory, only to find out that no, it wasn’t the shower gel at all.

    It was chickenpox.

    Proper chickenpox.

    An unnecessarily dramatic opening act to the year.

    And that was how the year introduced itself.

    (Understandably, the lemon shower gel was sacrificed. However, please respect the grief of Lemon Source shower gel. It had no warning of such a brief goodbye after all its years of service. We had plans!)

    Not long after that, we felt led to move on from our church. There was no drama and no blame — just a clear sense that the season had changed.

    The church family I was part of in Norwich, before I met Blod, are still very much home to me.

    They saw me grow through singleness and into marriage, and they’ve been nothing but warm, accepting, and encouraging of Blod and me together.

    Their prayers, support, and steady presence have continued from a distance, and they’ve been a genuine source of strength this year.

    Since then, we’ve been walking through a season of trusting God without neat answers.

    Letting go of what I thought things were supposed to look like has been uncomfortable but necessary.

    Staying grounded in faith while variables shift, standing on God’s Word when clarity hasn’t yet arrived — that’s been real faith this year.

    Then we got chickens.

    Then — because apparently we enjoy escalation — we got a dog.

    The garden did not survive.

    There was one moment that perfectly summed up this season:

    Blod accidentally dropped a KFC chip on the floor.

    What followed can only be described as a full Benny Hill–style chase scene, with chickens sprinting incircles, flapping wildly, chasing each other with complete commitment over one stolen chip.

    I stood there watching, laughing, and quietly accepting that this was now my life.

    My marriage to Blod has been one of the most grounding and joyful parts of the year. It’s full of affection, laughter, and genuine friendship.

    After years of mistrust in relationships, I’ve been learning how to manage conflict without immediately fearing rejection.

    We’re human, flawed, and learning to fully become one— but learning together, which makes all the difference.

    Also, Blod is an elite-level sleep talker.

    Not the mumbling kind. The confident, articulate, fully conversational kind.

    I’ve been given instructions, asked questions, and informed of urgent matters in the middle of the night — all delivered with absolute conviction.

    He remembers none of it.

    I unfortunately for him,

    remember all of it.

    I find this endlessly entertaining.

    He remains blissfully unaware.

    Marriage comes with perks.

    Our dog Zeb, meanwhile, has absolutely no understanding of personal space.

    None whatsoever.

    Hi, I live here now. This is my face.

    However, he is learning calmness — roughly one minute at a time. Progress is still progress.

    Running underneath everything this year has been a quiet, persistent discomfort — the knowing that there is more than our jobs.

    Knowing what God has spoken over your life, yet not seeing the when or the how, can be deeply frustrating.

    But Scripture reminds us:

    “Though the vision tarries, wait for it; it will surely come.”

    In November, Blod encouraged me to go to a money-making summit. We both went. I signed up for mentorship with their Inner Circle.

    Later that day, I encouraged Blod to do a property course.

    That’s how we work — he believes in me,

    I believe in him.

    That season is where this blog began — alongside a few other creative ideas that are still finding their feet.

    We are all birthing something, whether we realise it or not.

    Maybe 2025 was the year the concepts were formed.

    Maybe 2026 is the year they’re born.

    For now, this is still unfolding. A little chaotic. Often funny. Deeply meaningful.

    And very much

    Perfectly Unfinished.