Blog Awards & UK Fellowship Friday
Holiday Coming Up!
We are all going to the Netherlands to visit my grandma on Sunday, for a little over a week. So I will take a break from blogging. I might put the occasional one in there, but probably not!
Blog Awards
I was very blessed recently to get blog awards from two sweet bloggers. If you haven’t come across these before, I think they are a bit like the e-mail chains, but a lot nicer 🙂 I wasn’t too sure what to do with it, but when I saw the encouragement it could be to others I thought I would pass it on!
Thank you Florence, from I am a Vessel of God for these lovely awards!
The original rules for accepting this award (though Florence has changed the rules to make it optional :)) are:
1. Add a picture of the award to this post.
2. Thank who nominated you.
3. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
4. Nominate 15 other Bloggers and inform those 15 they have been nominated.
And then I got this beautiful one:
Thank you Tracy, from My daily walk in His grace!
The rules for accepting this award are
1. Share 7 things about yourself
2. Pass the award to 10 other bloggers
So I’m going to combine them, and bend the rules a bit too so that you can accept the award and just do the other parts if you want to, no pressure!
7 random facts about me:
1. My favourite places in the world so far are the Welsh mountains, and the Lake District – they are so beautiful, quiet and wild!
2. I love playing the piano and singing, especially worship songs.
3. I have struggled with shyness for a long time, so although I enjoy blogging, and do it because I feel God wants me to share what He’s teaching me, it is also a constant battle in my head to get past the feelings of nobody wanting or needing to hear what I have to say, and fear that I might say something foolish!
4. I was called ‘Smiler’ at school because I smiled so much 🙂 I won’t tell you the other names I was called!
5. I am a real bookworm. In fact I’d rather buy books than clothes, food or just about anything. I tend not to read many fiction books any more because they are too addictive and I get lost in them and shirk my responsibilities.
6. My favourite books to read are missionary biographies, devotional books (the good old meaty and very challenging kind) and books about practical Christian living.
7. I can’t make myself go to a gym because I hate the thought of rowing in a fake boat when I could be out on a lake, cycling on an exercise bike when I could be feeling the wind in my hair, and running on a treadmill staring at a wall when I could be looking at beautiful scenery! Unfortunately I don’t get to do many of those right now because of having to be at home for the kids, but maybe one day…
I’m passing the awards on to these great blogs
Please don’t feel any pressure to go with the rules above if you don’t want to, and since I have combined the two awards, you can pick whichever one you like best!
Along with recommending the two great blogs who gave me these awards, I want to pass them on to these ones. Many of them are from the UK because I think UK Christian bloggers need encouragement, and I also feel close to them since we are in the same muddy trenches! Please do pop over and encourage them with a comment if you can 🙂
1. Sally at I Take Joy – she will probably be far too busy to read this since she is a mother, wife, author and conference speaker, but I want to take this chance to recommend her blog. Sally writes some of the most spirit-filled close to God kind of writing that I have come across, and she is also very down to earth, gracious, wise and happy to give out practical advice.
2. Jessica at Our Family for His Glory – If you want to see some sweet children’s faces to cheer your heart then her blog is the one you need 🙂 Jessica’s blog is the one I go to for ideas for bringing up my children for God, which is really my biggest goal for them.
3. Katie at Do Not Depart – Katie shares my heart for the Bible – memorising it, studying it, meditating on it and more! So I do love her blog which is so Bible centred! She is also the one that got me memorising Philippians again after many years, thanks to her tweeting about it 🙂
UK Bloggers
4. Anita at Dreaming Beneath the Spires – for being so thoughtful, real, helpful, inspiring and giving! She is also one of the few that I read every week because I enjoy her posts so much.
5. My mum at Jane’s Threads and Treasures – OK so it’s not a blog with a Christian theme which is what I usually recommend, but she is a lovely committed Christian, and I think she glorifies God with her beautiful quilting! Besides she is the sweetest person I know, so I have to give her the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award 🙂
6. Shirley at Under an English Sky – Shirley is a great encourager and I also love to see what she does for homeschooling!
7. Jo at All in a Day – for her very down to earth posts about life as a Christian and the Bible!
8. Naomi at Talking Christian – for being very real and transparent online, and sharing about God in a culture that has forgotten Him.
9. Chris at All about Jesus – for encouraging me, and having a wonderful blog title!
10. Caroline at The Joyful Keeper – for being a ray of sunshine in the UK, with so many great Biblical thoughts 🙂
11. Alison at Home Education?! You have GOT to be kidding… – for making me laugh and feel less woebegone about my homeschooling and kids-round-the-house-all-day troubles, since there is someone else who has exactly the same kind of things going on!
There are many more who I like and follow too, but it would take me too long to list all of them!
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UK Fellowship Friday Blog Hop
I would love you to link up if you live in the UK and have recently written a post about your faith that might encourage other Christians. Please link to the specific post you’ve written, then it will help people to find it.
If you join below, it would be good (though not required) if you could link to this post on your blog so your readers can find the other posts in the blog hop.
I would be interested in your thoughts on a couple of things. I had removed the option to get the code for the blog hop to appear on your own blog, because the requirements for entries to be from the UK and Christian would get missed out. But then I realised that I could just ask that people copy and paste them.
I would be interested in your thoughts on a couple of things. I had removed the option to get the code for the blog hop to appear on your own blog, because the requirements for entries to be from the UK and Christian would get missed out. But then I realised that I could just ask that people copy and paste them.
Also I removed the ‘like’ option on entries because I didn’t want people who got fewer likes to feel left out! However I am open to putting both of these things back, and am interested to know what you think, so please let me know!
Rhoda, You are so sweet! Thank-you! I look forward to looking at the other blogs you’ve recommended!
Have a wonderful day!
Jessica
Well done on all your awards! Enjoy your holiday 🙂
Lovely awards, and thank you, you are so sweet!
Thank you Jessica, and Leah – our holiday looks to be very cold, I think we’ll have to pretend we’re going ski-ing, but without the mountains lol!
And mum, you are sweet too, as I think I mentioned 😉
Thank you so much for these awards Rhoda – you are so kind ;o)
Enjoy your holiday, hope you come home relaxed and rested.
Blessings
Shirley
Thank you Shirley, I hope so too, though it can be a little difficult with young children as I’m sure you know!
Wow Rhoda! Thanks ever so much! Blessings, Anita
Sorry Rhoda, I managed to find the code for the blog hop, not realising I wasn’t supposed to!
I suggest restoring that code and simply asking people to manually add a line asking for entries to be from the UK and Christian.
I have no preference on the ‘like’ option.
Hi Rhoda, I have awarded you the first ever ‘AAJ Review Award’.
If you want an award badge for your blog sidebar or article please help yourself. But also feel free not to use the badge – the choice is yours.
And thanks for your blog!
Thank you Chris! I’m impressed with your badge making skills, and was very blessed by your post 🙂 Also thank you for the comment on the blog hop, I think I will do as you suggested.