These past few weeks I have been Ruth Haley Barton’s “Sacred Rhythms“. Usually I read books fairly quickly and make a decision whether or not I’m interested enough to finish the whole thing. This week I have read and re-read Barton’s chapter on “Encountering God through Lectio Divina”. It’s pulling at me and I don’t want to be moved away from it. Continue reading →

You know when God tells you the same thing a few times in the space of a few hours?

Last night I had a massage appointment with a client who was having a lot of tension in her back and neck. I shared with her that many of us have tension in our shoulders because we try to carry a “yoke” that doesn’t belong to us (see Matthew 11:28-30). Steve Murrell recently wrote a blog post about how sometimes the Spirit leads us where we don’t want to go. Then this morning my Bible reading was from Deuteronomy 9. Continue reading →

Names.

Birth name or nickname, names give us significance. They set us apart from others, sometimes with hilarious results!

At home in Ireland, my name, Aoife (pronounced EE-fah), is a fairly common one. Abroad, however, it’s positively exotic. Visiting Starbucks in London became an adventure. Every time I ordered my tall latte the barista would pick up the cup, pen in hand and ask the question:

“What’s your name?”

At first, I always took the time to spell it out correctly. Continue reading →