Courage, change and becoming: reflections inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia There are some stories you can come back to years later and somehow they meet you in a completely different place. That happened to me this past week. A rather unpleasant gastro bug has been making its way through our household - vomiting, diarrhoea and all the glamorous things nobody puts on social media! 😂 - which meant I found myself doing a lot more sitting around than usual. So somewhere betw

From a Samoan Kitchen Table to the Cafés of Kuala Lumpur Coffee has followed me through so many seasons - from a Samoan kitchen table to café tables in KL Some friendships fade with time. And then there are the faithful ones that somehow keep finding their way back into your story. For me, coffee is one of them. 😊 My relationship with coffee began back in 1978 when I was eight years old. Yes…eight. Lol.. I had an end-of-term test coming up, and in my little eight-year-old mi

Even when life feels heavy, the next step forward is often the one that brings hope and movement. God gently reminds us: get up, take a breath, and walk into the day He’s prepared for you. There’s something about the transition between Deuteronomy and Joshua that has been sitting heavily on my heart lately. Moses - one of the greatest leaders in the Bible - spends decades leading God’s people through the wilderness, only to be told he will not enter the Promised Land because

A birthday reflection on grief, gratitude & simple moments What Birthdays Have Taught Me There was a time when birthdays felt like milestones. Big numbers. Big expectations. Big celebrations. But somewhere along the way… they became something else entirely. Not smaller. Not less meaningful. Just… deeper. It’s the Little Things Now Learning to notice the small moments When I look back over the years, it’s not the big parties that stand out the most. It’s the moments. A sunris

It felt personal… until I understood it wasn’t. After sharing a little of our story in my last post, I found myself reflecting on something that took me a while to understand… It wasn’t just that Andrew and I were different. It was that those differences felt personal. When “Different” Feels Like Something More In those early years, I didn’t just see our differences as neutral. I felt them. Deeply. When he responded differently than I expected… When he didn’t communicate the

There was a time early in our marriage when I quietly wondered if we had made a mistake. Once the honeymoon phase faded, all I could see were our differences. The way we thought… The way we communicated… The way we approached life… It felt like we were standing on completely different pages, trying to read the same story. And if I’m honest, it stirred something unexpected in me — insecurities in a person who had always felt quite secure. Funny how that happens… isn’t it? Lean

A number of years ago, I came to realise something quite simple… yet deeply grounding: God is always in the details. Not just in the big, life-changing moments…but in the quiet pauses, the in-between spaces, the everyday rhythms of our lives. And I think that’s where mindfulness gently meets purposeful living. What mindfulness really looks like (in real life) We hear the word mindfulness a lot these days, don’t we? 😊 But for me, it’s not about perfection, silence, or sitting

A number of years ago, we found ourselves stepping into homeschooling… completely by accident. It wasn’t something we had carefully planned or mapped out. At the time, our eldest had just started Pre-Primary at a private school. Being a May baby, she was one of the youngest in her class — still only four when the school year began. She was bright, curious, and already spelling her name… but emotionally, she was still so little. A few weeks into the school year, something didn

When I first got married, I could barely cook. Despite growing up in a family of chefs, where my mum was a trained chef and my older sisters were excellent cooks by the time they left high school, the kitchen was always a space I stayed away from. I had my own skill — ironing. Yes, while the others were perfecting meals, I was perfecting the art of ironing for a family of ten. Ironing was my assigned chore in a household of eight children, and I got really good at it. In fact