“The promise is not a life without storms, but his nearness when the waves crash against us.”

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon at the end of June. I stood in the kitchen, chopping carrots to add to the dinner. As I quartered the carrot slices and put them in the pot of boiling water, my husband and our 4 children came home from an afternoon walk. Bethany, our eldest aged 6 at the time, got in first and burst through the door. Seeing me beside the worktop, she said with a tear stained face and a wobble in her voice: “Mummy, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I lost Owly and the good news is that I found 10p!”