Today is the Coffee Club annual outing to the seaside, and the sun is shining... this is a bonus as last year it poured with rain!  This is a great group of folk who support and encourage one another simply be meeting and chatting over coffee once a week.  It will seem very strange not to meet up with them for a whole three months (though actually for various reasons I've recently missed several weeks) but I know they will continue to meet and minister one to another.

Betwixt now and then, a bit more admin and chasing up of sabbatical related stuff.

I am still debating how best to blog though that time... do I carry on here, or do I set up a dedicated blog?  Each has pros and cons, but at the moment I am leaning towards staying here, at least as it's better the devil you know!

The view from my living room at midnight 24/25 June (i.e. last night)... the last vestige of sunset still visible on the horizon and the sky not quite dark (no, it's not light pollution).  Past the longest day now, the nights are drawing in (just thought I'd get in ahead of the west coast Eeyores!!)

Last day off on a Tuesday!  When I return to normal patterns in October, my day off will revert to Monday.

Have to let a plumber in to do an insurance inspection of the water-related stuff on the manse.  Otherwise, planning a pretty lazy day!

Very odd knowing that after this week I will not cross the threshold of the Gathering Place (barring a planned wedding and any major pastoral crises) for three months after this week.  Even during my sick leave two years ago I came to church more Sundays than not, so the thought of not being here is incredibly odd.

So, with one week to go, it is the final tidying up exercises, administratively, pastorally and practically.  Today is 'blitz the vestry day' - much needed as the remnants of Christmas and Easter, and assorted other events from Student Welcome to Flower arranging evening, are scattered around the place, having been abandoned in here for convenience (so, for example, I have the Sunday School nativity costumes!).

De-cluttering a vestry is, of itself, an act of reflection - the spare copies of litrugies and Bible studies, discarded drafts of sermons or prayers, left over 'cut-outs' from some interactive act of worship, notes from random phone calls. outdated prayer guides and directories...

So 'Seven' is not just a practical clearing out exercise, it is a reflection on the two and a half years since the last major de-clutter.  

I had better get on with it then - the vestry won't declutter itself!!!

Scarily it is now just over a deacde since I emerged from the 'minister machine' or 'vicar school' or whatever name it may, or may not, have been known by (at least it wasn't the "evan-jelly-mould" a name given to another Baptist college).

This book plate is pasted in to the front of the Bible I use most Sundays when preaching, a leather bound, gilt edged, NIV-inclusive language edition.  This Bible is held together with selloptape (other brands are available) having been dropped more than a few times.  The gilt is rubbed away ion many places, pages a creased and some are a bit ruckled (sp?) having come into contact with water somewhere along the line.

I have a feeling that I am bit like my Bible - somewhat battered as a result of ten years in ministry, the shiny edges rubbed away with use, wrinkles, crinkles and lots of sellotape (other brands...) holding me together.  A lot of my understandings have changed along the way but at the core I am still the girl whom God called, unequivocally, to follow this path.

Tomorrow is my last preach before my sabbatical starts (one more working Sunday but I'm not preaching) and I look forward to a time of smoothing out, re-gilding, re-taping, re-binding, re-freshing ready for another season of disicpleship and service.

Thank you, God, for the past decade, for all it has shown me and taught me, for the countless privileges it has brought me, and the blessings I have received.

Help me, please, to entrust myslef afresh to your guiding, transforming, challenging, so that I may walk in to the future, step by step, following Jesus

Amen.