faithfulness | Emma Tanner

Seasons

by Emma Tanner

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Mote Park through the seasons

I think September is my favourite month. I love the weather…. if you’re lucky, still warm and sunny, but with a morning chill and a gentle warmth to the light; memories of summer still fresh but the promise of orange-hued autumn days and cosy winter evenings just around the corner. It is a time of new beginnings. I became a wife in September, became a mother in September, started school and university and work in September. It is always a poignant time of year for me.

This year is no exception. It feels like the beginning of a new season in a number of ways. My beautiful youngest child (the happy, gurgling, contented little baby- no wait, that was 11 WHOLE YEARS AGO) left home this morning to walk to secondary school with her big sister. She went with a smile and a spring in her step and didn’t look back. I did most of my blubbing last term when we left our wonderful primary school after 9 happy years so it was more just a small amount of gentle eye-leakage this morning. Such a mixture of emotions- intense pride, excitement that she is stepping forward into new opportunities and adventures and into all God has planned for her, tinged with a slight sense of loss as our family life moves into a different phase. Fortunately this little one (even though she is pretty much as tall as me already) is still a cuddly, home-loving bundle who has told us in no uncertain terms that she never wants to leave home (I’ll remind her of that in a few years’ time.)

We are stepping into a new season at the Princess Project, too. God has opened some big doors for us and we are starting two years of mentoring with a view to taking our little local project all across the country. Our team is going to be growing again, my work will start to be more strategic and big-picture stuff and a bit less of the hands-on service delivery. I am going to have to hone the art of delegation as I entrust more of the local work into the capable hands of our Maidstone and Medway team. Changes, changes.

After I had watched my munchkins disappear into the distance this morning, I decided that rather than sit around weeping into my coffee I would stick my trainers on and do what I usually try and do at any time of emotional fragility: prayer walk my way around Mote Park with my worship music playlist on. As I walked out into the glorious sunshine, into the familiar beauty of the park, I could feel my head lift and my spirit soar. As a confirmed introvert I find the summer holidays a bit challenging- I absolutely love having my girls around for 6 whole weeks, but at the same time that means I am in the company of other people for 6 WHOLE WEEKS. Just being on my own outside in the presence of God with just the butterflies for company was so restorative.

There is something immensely comforting about the familiar. I know Mote Park so well. I am so thankful that we have this gem of a place within walking distance of our house. Graham and I went for our first dog walk here, he dragged me round it when I was in labour with Sophie, the girls have learnt to ride their bikes there, fed the ducks, had picnics, picked up conkers, picked blackberries. Back in the day we took young people from Trinity Foyer there for BBQs, trying to avoid being locked in on light summers’ evenings- this year we watched Sophie do the same with her own youth group. Everything changes, yet nothing changes.

We know that whatever the autumn holds, winter will inexorably follow. Whatever season we are in at the moment- one where everything is ticking along uneventfully, or one where everything is in a state of upheaval; one we are enjoying or one we cannot wait to come to an end- it will come to an end. We don’t know what’s around the corner but we can be certain that in all the different seasons of life, God never changes. Every season He brings us through reiterates His faithfulness to us. Our circumstances, the faces around us, our physical environments may alter, but God doesn’t. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And as everything around us changes, there is great comfort in that.

“Jesus the Anointed One, is always the same – yesterday, today, and forever.”

Hebrews 13:8, TPT

Princess Project The Family The Journey

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A Miracle in the Mail

by Emma Tanner

I don’t know why I’m so often surprised by the goodness and faithfulness of God. It’s not that I don’t believe in it, or that I don’t have plenty of personal experience of it. I think it’s just that often in the day-to-day strains and stresses of life, the tricky situations, the things we find it a bit difficult to fully trust God with, it is easier to pay more attention to what we don’t have, than to the many things we do.

But sometimes God steps in in such an amazing way that we can’t ignore it. The only response is to full to our knees in wonder at His total awesomeness. That happened to me yesterday.

I arrived at the Princess Project office to find a note in the letter box, from a lady from a local church who I had met once and told about PP. She is a trustee for a grant making trust who wanted to give us a donation towards our work. Lovely! There was a cheque enclosed, which I unfolded, not knowing what to expect, maybe hoping for a couple of hundred pounds, if we were lucky. I had to read the words and numbers several times to check I was reading it right. And count the zeros. The cheque was for £8,000.

Such an unprecedented and unsolicited donation would be cause for grateful celebration in itself. But to fully appreciate the miraculous provision it represented we have to rewind a few days.

For several months our trustee board have felt that we needed to take on another part-time member of staff to grow our work and better support our mums. We had a trustee meeting last week where we finalised the job description, and the timescale for the application process. All we needed was the funding. We stepped out in faith, trusting that God would provide what we need, when we needed it, as He always has so far. (When I quit my job and started working at PP, the trustees had enough money to pay me for 6 months- that was over two years ago and I’m still here, and still being paid!) The amount we calculated that we needed to make this appointment for a 12 month period was- you’ve guessed it- £8,000.

This provision of exactly what we needed- no more, no less- at exactly the right time, and through absolutely no effort on our part, undid me. For me it represented more than just a financial blessing. It was a reminder that God is completely trustworthy. It seemed like God was saying that, no matter what might be going on, no matter how big and insurmountable an obstacle might seem, nothing is too big for Him. It was also an affirmation that we were on the right track, and doing what God wants us to be doing as an organisation.

Once I’d finished crying (!), and burbling incoherent prayers of thanks and praise, I phoned the lady to say thank you. I wondered if she’d caught wind of our future plans, or knew of our funding needs…..but no, she was as surprised as I was that God had used her and the trust to meet our need so specifically.

Yesterday’s events have already greatly encouraged me, the generous donor, the trustees who I phoned in what must have been quite a worrying state of euphoria, and my family. My elder daughter remarked:

“You never need to worry about money at the Princess Project. God always gives you what you need!”

Out of the mouths of babes. What a lesson for my daughters to have learned first hand.

‘As the scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”‘

2 Corinthians 10:17

This was absolutely nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the Lord. So I want to shout it from the rooftops, in the hope that it would encourage many more people, and be a great example of His goodness. I hope that our miracle in the mail will encourage you to approach God with whatever is on your heart, too. He is good, He is faithful, He is trustworthy, and, unlike me, He always listens to His kids.