Meet the design team - Lythan Nevard

And now for the final installment of "Meet the design team". I'm Lythan, I am now in my mid 40's and I share my life with my husband Phil, three teenage children and 5 animals. The 5 animals are a bit of a shock as I am not really an animal lover. But I love my family and some of them are! I am Welsh by birth but don't sound it as I have lived all over the UK and pick up bits of accent from wherever I am. That is currently in the suburbs on the edge of London. I live on the doorstep of countryside but am only 20 minutes by train from the Tower of London. 10 years on and I still think that is cool.

Phil and I have both been Ministers for 17 years now. We work in 4 United Reformed Churches in the London Borough of Havering. As God would have it, both our fathers were Ministers in the URC too. (And both had grandfathers who were coal miners as well. That has nothing to do with faith, it is just a cool coincidence). We were both blessed to be brought up in families of faith where Christian love was not just preached but practiced, and we try to do that too. Although I sometimes think Jesus would say "enough practicing, time to grow up and get serious"

There have been times when I have been jealous of those who have a date of conversion. Until I woke up and thought "hang on, I am the one who has been given the gift of always knowing she was loved by God" and realised how special that is. I also noted that it is like falling in love - for some it is a "ping" moment and for some a gradual realisation - each equally valid and special. I have to be honest and say that at times in my youth I wore my faith loosely. It was helped along by the URC youth movement (ie a place for meeting boys) which played a big part in my teenage years. At University I tried to keep my faith quiet. Then in my third year I realised that everyone knew I was a Christian anyway and they still liked me and thought I was normal. God taught me a BIG lesson there. I don't know what gave me away as I did my best to hid it (sorry Lord) but I suppose his love just kep busting through somehow!

During that time I was already struggling with a call to Ministry which I recieved during a service of worship when I was 17. (hint: when you hear the reading from Isaiah 6 when God says "Who will go?" and Isaiah responds "here I am send me", saying in your heart "hear I am send me" might result in God leading you places you never expected!). By the end of University I realised that I was just making excuses about why I shouldn't say yes and it was a big relief when I did.

I'm still unsure, 23 years later, what God sees in me. Perhaps it is a keen awareness that I am not perfect! God's love has stuck by me through highs and lows. Through times of seriously considering doing something else and times of depression when caring for myself, let alone others has been hard work. And I know he's not finished with me yet, however hard I test his patience! That is why Psalm 139 is so important to me - that wherever I go he is sticking by me. And probably why I love the gospels and letters to the Churches of the New testament too. Oh and all the people in the Old Testament while I am at it. There are so many people like me - who know what to do, but seem to find it hard to do it right; who know love but sometimes struggle to express it. And through it all radiates God's love, centred in the cross saying "I love you no matter what"
And so I keep trying, really trying to be the person God made me to be.

And Salt helps me with that. The challenges we are set help me think about my faith and how I express it. Sometimes it comes easily and sometimes I have to mull over a challenge for a while, but always I feel the Spirit move, guiding me in creation. And I see that in the work of my team mates too, which lifts me up so much. Its a real blessing in my life.