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Friday 7 February 2014

Time on the Train Track


Married life has brought lots of changes with it; one of the more pre-meditated changes is that we've become a one-car household. My little Cora was on her last legs for a good few months before the fateful day just before Christmas when she went for her last ever drive to the breaker's yard. She might have had a larger price on her head if there hadn't been a number of football-sized holes corroded through the floor.

My bicycle has never seen so much action! Well, not since it took me from Leeds to London in two days, but that's another story. I'm not quite that fit though, and rather than the full 16-mile ride each way, I head into Leeds, hop on a train and cycle up the hill at the other end to work. It's been enough to wake up these lazy legs but is getting easier by the week, thankfully!

My train journey is approximately 22 minutes. It's lovely to have that protected time at each end of the day where there's nothing I can do but wait to arrive at my destination. One of my highlights in the morning is taking a flask of tea and pretending I'm camping. My iPad comes too and therein lies the challenge. How do I spend those precious moments, when I have a choice? My options are many and varied:

  • Reading blogs, News bulletins, other great things inspirational people have posted.
  • Listening to an album I haven't heard in a while
  • I have a couple of ebooks on there too
  • Occasionally I even try and write something interesting!
All the while I'm desperate for time to re-connect with my Maker, the One who inspires me to do all the other stuff that keeps me so busy the rest of the week. But still it's a challenge to not 'do' and just 'be'. The blogs are inspiring; the music is beautiful; and my own writing intends to reflect all that I have learnt and all that I do. I toyed with trying to get this blog much more frequently updated; to be an example of a busy Christian woman and try to connect with others, to find a way through this maze. But then I realised that if I spent all my time writing, I would never have the time for that presence. 

It's a constant tension between doing and being. One is no good without the other; but I'll leave it at that for now. There's another post brewing.

I think my solution is to mix and match. I'd like to write on here more often, just for the love of writing. I'll probably join in a couple of monthly link-ups, and try to scatter some more personal bits in than I have done previously (like, did I mention I got married?!). I'm getting into reading more blogs and discovering that it's okay to just write a little bit about everything. It's okay to just write once a week, or even less. Everything doesn't have to be polished and perfect, but it helps if it's real.

So that's my new goal.

Mixed up and real.