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Who is Nat?
My name is Natalie Husk, although most people call me Nat (except my parents!). I was born and raised in Cornwall and am proud of it! I have always been involved in the church, whether going to my local village chapel in Common Moor, joining with bus loads from Cornwall at MAYC events, helping at the District Children’s Holiday or even attending Synod a few times! I am very thankful to the Cornwall District, the Liskeard & Looe Circuit and of course Common Moor chapel for being such valuable parts in my journey of faith.
Today I live in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where I work as a youth worker for the Methodist Church. I run after school clubs, youth clubs, a youth fellowship, do outreach work and organise trips away. Not long ago I was asked by a youth group, to give them a weekly topic for reflection, an email containing something to focus them on God for the week. So every week I sit at my computer and write down my thoughts! It started quite small, with just the young people receiving them, and now lots of people of all ages find my thoughts in their email inbox!
It is a huge privilege for me to find that people enjoy and are challenged by what I have written, especially that I can now share what God has done for me with those who walked with me at the beginning of my journey. Ultimately these reflections are aimed at the young people I now work with, but if God can speak to others through them, how great is that!! |
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I Love You “I love you.” Three simple words, one unexpected response. This Advent I am doing things differently. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my pocket advent calendar filled with goodies (today I got 2 lollies! Thanks mum! J Yes I am still a child, but it makes life more exciting) and I also have my nativity advent calendar – I wouldn’t want to forget what this season’s all about would I. But in addition to these I am doing an ‘Advent Challenge’. I have set myself 24 challenges to complete before Christmas. I’m not talking anything major like skydiving, winning the lottery (especially as I don’t play) or running a marathon, but small everyday type things. Some of them are stuff that I would usually do – putting up my Christmas tree, going carol singing and watching the Muppet’s Christmas Carol. But some of them are slightly harder like taking mince pies round to my neighbours who I don’t really know, telling a non-Christian friend why Christmas is so important to me, and giving a present to someone without the expectation of one in return – as a lover of presents this is a tough one for me! So yesterday I decided to cross off the “Tell someone that I love them” (and mean it!) challenge, and so picked up my phone and called Kentucky to speak to my brother. Now Ian and I, when we were kids, used to fight something chronic – during fights we ripped the kitchen carpet, clothing and even a couple of bones got broken! It’s not like we hated each other, it’s just that we are too similar to always get on. You see I’m always right and he mistakenly thinks he is….so trouble follows. As we have grown up we have become good friends, helped no end by being on separate continents! In fact we are also quite open about our love for each other and will always end phone conversations with “Love you”. So in some ways telling Ian that I loved him wasn’t that challenging as he should know by now, which is why I decided to start the conversation with it. It went something like this…. “Hi!” “Hey there!” “I wanted to phone to say that I loved you.” (me feeling really good at this point) “Huh?” “I phoned to tell you how much I love you.” (slightly confused as to why he wasn’t grasping this) “What?” “I love you.” “Why?” (I was proud that I didn’t respond with the sarcastic comment that first entered my head!) “I mean, why are you telling me this?” This continued for quite some time as my (not so bright) brother failed to understand why I’d just told him that I loved him. Why should there be a reason to express my love? Why should something that we say so frequently change when it is said out of routine? I was getting cross with him for not just accepting my love with grateful thanks, but instead questioning my motives. I guess I had expected a “Wow! Thanks! My life now has meaning!” kind of response, instead of the “Huh?” I actually got – which goes back to my challenge of giving without the expectation of me getting something out of it. But Ian was right (I know, it pains me to admit it!), I had phoned him to declare how special he was to me so that I could cross it off my list of advent challenges. It hadn’t been a spur of the moment statement but something on my list of things to do, despite it being sincere. I had never considered that telling someone that I love them, someone who knows that I love them, would have been so hard, would have challenged me so much. By making it a statement with real meaning rather than a throw away comment, by opening with it rather than it being an add-on ending, it had changed the power of the those three simple words, and both Ian and I couldn’t help but be affected by that. So in the run up to Christmas I challenge you to challenge yourself to do things you’ve put off, things you don’t feel strong enough to do, things you always do but with a new purpose. Oh and tell someone you love them at the start of the conversation – you never know, it may change your life (not recommended with strangers, as it may shorten your life!). |