Earth is crammed with heaven

This is the second of my series in Salvationist. It is specifically about my role as a Salvation Army Officer and a mum, so any references to 'Army' are about that! Mum’s the Word 2   Tina Turner sang, “When I was a little girl, I had a rag doll”. My song would be similar, but mine was an Army doll. She was dressed in full old-style uniform including a bonnet and she had officer’s trimmings. She had lovely brown hair and I loved her, because I thought she looked like my Mum. As a little girl growing up I used to sit on my Mum’s knee, put my hand up and touch the pips (stars) on her epaulettes, and feel safe. When it comes to being an officer and a Mum, I learnt from the best.   My story of the challenge of being an officer and a Mum is a very different one now to the start of my officership in 1993. The years tend to give you perspective and the things that used to cause me grief, wouldn’t cause me the same kind of stress any more. However my main aim was that I never wa...

I was asked to write a series for Salvationist(the weekly magazine for The Salvation Army in the UK), about my life with my boys. Here's the first one: I love being a Mum. I love our times together. But just yesterday, speaking to a friend she said, “Why do we have kids?” She was joking. She loves her daughter. But a crisis had arisen that was causing major hassles for the family. It was taking up time that was already stretched to the limit. Chris and I have three boys. Ryan is 17, Joel 14 and Nathan 10. Let’s get the sympathy vote over with now. I get it all the time. Yes, I am outnumbered. Yes, I do live with the background of sport constantly on. Yes, a girl would have been lovely. But these three boys/men are the precious gifts that God has given me. And I love it! I actually like football now. If you can’t beat them, join them. We are a family forever blowing bubbles. We learn a lot about faithfulness and loyalty in our support of West Ham United! (Apart from Ryan who sup...