Ok it's not easy to make regular commitments to do non-baby related things with a very tiny baby but I decided I needed to meet a few new people and for the last few weeks I've been going to the Thursday morning Alpha course that's running at my church. It's full of women, mostly older than me but as so many bring their babies and small children that it's as easy to be there as anywhere else and everyone’s been really friendly.

I was sceptical about going to Alpha - I did a Christianity Explored course a few years back which was really excellent, the guys that ran it answered all the questions I could throw at them, I made a new close friend who has stayed close even though I moved abroad shortly afterwards, and I reached the inescapable conclusion that Jesus was a real person, who really lived, really died and who really did rise from the dead just as he said he would. As the only person ever to have done so, what he says is pretty important and, I think, worth listening to and finding out more about especially as he did it for me.
Whenever I’ve prayed for direction and followed it, I’ve ended up in exactly the right place at the right time: the biggest was the move abroad that resulted in a job I loved, getting my damaged ankle fixed after 10 years of pain and meeting my husband. The most recent was the bizarre sense that I had to go and work where I now work – though there were no vacancies at the time and I couldn’t see how it could ever happen, but it did.
So given all this, I wasn't sure I needed to do Alpha too - after all the Alpha books I've bought in the past have been a bit simplistic and a bit caught up in their own emotionalist telling of Jesus's story and other illustrations of grace.

The sessions always start with a testimonial by someone from the church. Given the overall impression of the church as full of middle class sloaney mums with 4-by-4s who have had every privilege some of the stories of former lives that we've had have been amazing everything from abuse to people who’ve placed the most incredible trust in God and found themselves in astounding situations doing things they never thought they could. I enjoy the small group part of the sessions best – I used to lead my homegroup in Brussels occasionally and I’ve always taken quite a historical research approach to exploring my faith which I’ve found fascinating and like to share with others ans hear their ideas and thoughts.

But I’ve missed a few weeks as I’ve been ill, so I’d forgotten that this week would’ve been the weekend away on a normal Alpha course and that’s speaking in tongues time. Speaking in tongues is really not my thing. I know it’s meant to be a gift (and as a linguist perhaps it’s something I should pray for) but I’m not really into the mystical side of my faith and I don’t feel the need for a special prayer language. Although I don’t always structure my thoughts as clearly as I could I think that God can see what I’m getting at most of the time, and he’s always found the way to show me what he thinks. Equally, I’m more than capable of being moved by a hymn or worship song or a piece of music, or a bible reading or a story of great faith or hope. I have been known to sob my way through some worship songs – but I don’t think that I must feel in that way for the experience to count or be worth something. And I have, when in deep meditative relaxation, felt really blessed. But there’s just something about speaking in tongues that just freaks me out.

No matter. When we reached this part of the morning, the group leader passed on the messages that they’d felt as a group while praying about the session and while sometimes there are things that seem relevant (every time my husband comes to church the clergy say that here’s someone there who is having a tough time at work but that God is with them, sees their stress and is holding them and their family in his hand. He thinks they say that every week. I know they don’t…) there wasn’t anything that seemed to be specifically for me.
My son had been awake all through the morning, behaving remarkably well given how full of cold he’s been. He likes anything with singing, and was quite happy to be contented through today’s testimonial as long as I was standing at the back holding him on my hip or zooming him around Superman style (talk about moving in mysterious ways…) At this point he fell fast asleep on my shoulder, and one of the ladies there came over and asked if she could pray for me.

I won’t say exactly what she said, but it was exactly right, exactly relevant to me. She also said that God had not forgotten me and that she and the others had kept getting a picture of me at the centre of our church and they’d wondered whether I’d be there this week (as I’d not been for the preceding three weeks it wasn’t a given).
Mine was not the most extraordinary event of the morning – one woman ended up on the floor face down, crying and crying – but I’ve come out of this feeling a bit more like God does know and care about what’s going on in my life and that if we just keep praying for direction again and trust in him to take the step into the unknown together as a family if that’s what he wants of us, he’ll make it both amazing and worthwhile. It’s quite exciting to find out what it will be.