Fifteen years ago today, I made my ordination vows.

Since then I must have prepared around 750 Sunday services, including around 250 bespoke Communion Liturgies, before I start on the midweek and 'special' services etc.. I have conducted something like 150 funerals, around 15 weddings, about 10 infant blessings and precisely 9 Baptisms!

I have led carol services in pubs and care homes.
I have conducted marriages in a cow shed, a library, a couple of castles and a hospital ward.
I have led communion on hillsides and in people's homes.

I have held the hands of people who were dying.
I have prayed with people who were frightened of surgery.
I have sat wih a ninety year-old whose grandson had been murdered in front of his teenage daughter.
I have been asked by Roman Catholics, agnostics and atheists to conduct their funerals.

I have had my theology challenged, changed and informed by people who are LGBTQI+
I have been told that my ministry is in-valid, defective and even demomic
I have sometimes gone home from church on the brink of tears feeling an utter failure
I have sometimes been so full of joy I thought I might burst!

Fifteen years on, there is nothing else I would do, no one else I would be.

As the saying seems to go, 'for what has been, thank you, for what's to come - yes!'