2013 What A Year It Has Been! New Baby, New House, New Business

So here I am, sat in a completely packed Starbucks in the Birmingham Bullring on 30^th December, with soy latte in hand and I am ready to write my last blog of 2013.

OK, so to be honest, my blog writing has been pretty much non existent this year on account of me learning to juggle being a mother of two combined with a busy church life, a writing career, a lively 3 year old and moving house. Our second son Isaac was born on 1^st March 2013, and he has been a complete blessing, such a contented happy baby who loves to be snuggled much to my delight. However I wasn't expecting my new arrival to come with additional extras in the form of post natal depression, and although I realised very quickly after the birth that something was wrong, I did not get formally diagnosed until Isaac was four months old.

During this time, I celebrated my thirtieth birthday with my family and we moved house to a new area in order to be closer to our preferred schools for Aaron, who will start reception next September. Our new home is lovely and our neighbours are wonderful, but while I busied myself with setting up each room my heart ached with loneliness and a darkness that I could not shake off. The PND diagnosis was a welcome relief, and I instantly felt better just knowing that I wasn't actually going mad and that I did genuinely have an illness that could be treated. Acknowledging the problem felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and the medication quickly helped to balance me out. Isaac is now 10 months old and I feel back to my old self again, and am thoroughly enjoying every minute of raising my two beautiful boys.

September saw me fully launch my freelance writing career and I am absolutely overjoyed to be able to use my creative skills in this way. Writing has long been a passion of mine, and whether it is a journalistic piece, a product review or a short fictional story, I find such pleasure in the written word and making sense of sentences. This was also the month that I rejoined the worship team at Renewal Christian Centre, where my husband and I are members. We love Jesus and it is an honour to be part of and serve such a lively vibrant church, and I count it as the highest privilege to lead people in worship here. There are so many new developments in the pipeline for 2014 we can't wait to see people's hearts touched and lives changed at Renewal in the coming months.

So what's next for me? I am continuing with my writing and plan to build on the foundations I have already laid down, I am blessed to be able to work around my children and spend as much time as I can with them while they are so young. I also enjoy taking and distributing Herbalife nutritional products to keep me fit and healthy and helping my clients do the same.

I want to focus on deepening my relationship with God and enriching my marriage to my best friend this year, time flies by so very fast and I don't want to waste a moment by being distracted with unnecessary things. My God and my family are the most important things in the world to me, and with them by my side I know I can't go far wrong. I plan to write more for 'me' too this year, in the form of this blog, as I find writing down my thoughts so therapeutic, plus reading other peoples blogs gives me such inspiration and I hope mine can do the same. Jesus was the ultimate storyteller, using words and parables to reach thousands of people where they were at, and I would love to think that maybe one day my writing can reach out to others who can relate to my experiences. I pray that each and every reader will have a blessed, prosperous and peaceful 2014!