An answer to prayer

But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony

Luke 21 v 30 NKJV 

I was single for a long time - which can be quite a grief. When I reached the age of about thirty-severn, I needed to decide where I should live so asked the Lord, ‘Will I have children?’ I didn’t hear a loud voice but was amazed to receive four words as if they had been spoken: ‘You will have grandchildren.' 

In 2004, at the age of forty-three, I was at an archery tournament, fed up with being single, when I prayed a really grumpy sort of prayer along the lines of, ‘Why can’t I marry that nice man over there?’ After about five seconds, he strode over, asked my father something, then put an arm around my shoulders. Four months later we walked down the aisle. I had never married or had children, but he was a widower, so I inherited his three. I now have five grandchildren. The twin boys and their parents came to live with us for nine months over Lockdown, which was wonderful.

Sophie Neville with the grandchildren

The 2nd edition of 'Funnily Enough'

 

Thirty years after keeping her original diary, Sophie has brought out a second edition of 'Funnily Enough', adding a few illustrations from a sketchbook kept the year before.

A flower is a flower but it was uncanny how many of the sketches threw light on themes within the book. Sophie was always yearning to travel more widely and explore southern Africa.

She had been falling asleep with the light on, even when she was working in London.

It's all too easy to overlook the important things in life or spend enough time with your family.

The sad thing was that she never realised how seriously she was being courted by eligible young men.

Distractions came in many shapes and sizes.

Urgent tasks superseded the importance of spending time with people.

and then she went down with Asian 'flu, which hung around for a long, long time.

But her friends never gave up on her.

She never stopped sketching, 

often drawing the otters,

And the good Lord gave her peace.

If you already have an ebook copy of 'Funnily Enough', you should be able to re-download this second edition free of charge. You can see inside the first few pages on the Amazon site here.

The new edition of the paperback is available from Amazon for £7.99