Anyone for a quiz?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been partial to a quiz. 

Here’s a question for you: 

What have the following got in common - 

a bird bath - a bunch of carnations - a little red tractor - a very high mountain - a broken vase - 

a blind beggar - an Olympic runner - a rucksack full of stones - a kitchen drawer - a canal boat

a Swedish arrow - a flight of geese - a barbecue pit - a city centre map - a slate chalkboard … 

and the Bible! 

                                                      The answer: 

Just as Jesus used familiar objects to illustrate his teachings, 

these are all things you’ll find in my new book,

Healing Life’s Wounds. 

It’s a book full of healing insights, grounded in everyday life. 

It's published on June 14th and available for pre-order soon.

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My new book - it's nearly here!

 

Here it is!  My new book!

I’m grateful to the skills of the publishing team who have turned my words into a beautiful, attractive book. I love the imagery in the cover design, capturing the ideas of light shining through, bringing hope in the darkness, and the symbolism of beautiful love enabling us to become radiant, living into the fullness of life that Jesus desires for us. These concepts are at the heart of the book. New life is possible, no matter how bleak things feel right now.

Author, retreat leader and spiritual director, Amy Boucher Pye, says this of the book:

 

Can I really find relief from this pain? Yes, says Pat Marsh resoundingly. She leads us through a gentle but deep exploration of what lies beneath the anguish as she points us to the One who sets us free. She’s a trustworthy guide who understands what we’re feeling, having trodden the road of suffering before finding freedom and release in God. I’ll recommend this book in the years to come.

New life is possible, no matter how bleak things feel right now.

It would be the greatest privilege to let me guide you to that place through this book.

It's coming soon - out on June 14th!

It will be available from 

my website, Christian bookshops and all the usual online Christian booksellers.

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Beyond Feeling Broken

 

It’s easy to become disillusioned, I find, with social media. How many people do you know who post truthful images of themselves online when their life is at its unimaginable worst?  In that context, the snapshots we see of others aren’t a complete picture of real life are they.

Because all of us are wounded.  You.  Me.  The lady at the checkout.  The stranger at the bus stop.  The person who just served you at the coffee shop.  We all gather wounds along life’s way.  And our remarkable brains and bodies retain the memories of all we have experienced. Everything. Both joyous and painful. 

 

None of us have had a perfect past (whatever we think that might look like). We cannot photoshop out the experiences that have wounded us, or the behaviours we wish we had never adopted. And our wounds have a disarming habit of impacting us long after we gathered them.  But that doesn’t mean that our wounds have to define us.

And that’s the heart and soul of my new forthcoming book, 

Healing Life’s Wounds: Beyond Feeling Broken. 

It’s possible to heal, move on and live into fullness of life.  Resurrection is not just for Easter; it’s for today, now, whoever you are and whatever cross you are privately carrying.

 

The book’s out on June 14th.

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How are you?

 

How are you today?

How are you deep down in your soul, beneath the face you show to the world? What’s the honest truth of how you feel when you stop for long enough to honestly consider the question?

How are you really?

It can be a tough question. And I make no apologies for asking it. Emotional wounds are part and parcel of life. We all have them. No one escapes them. They stir weird feelings in us and impact the way that we behave. And, unaddressed, they can prevent us from living at our happiest and best.

As I say in my upcoming book …

Our inner world is not always peaceful. There are times when difficult thoughts rumble around in there and refuse to be silenced. Worries about the future. Regrets about the past. Fears for our wellbeing. Grief for our losses. The pain of our wounds. Anger about the way we have been treated. Deep and complex hurts about our life situation.

At any given time, most of us can probably tick one of those boxes. And, when we can tick several at the same time, things can quickly spiral to a point of feeling overwhelming. And we feel that overload not just in our mind but also in weird and uncomfortable sensations in our body.

Understanding what’s happening in our body and gently untangling the fears, hurts and disappointments behind the sensations can begin to lead you to back to a state of peace and wellbeing.

My new book will lead you gently through that process:

Healing Life’s Wounds; Beyond Feeling Broken

is published on June 14th 2025

by Sarah Grace Publishing

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The Junk Drawer

 

Jesus was, I think you’ll agree, a master story-teller.  He always used examples that people could relate to; everyday items like coins, seeds and bread.  My new book, Healing Life’s Wounds, has some stories about familiar items.

 

Here’s an extract:

 

Every house has one. Mine is in the kitchen. The junk drawer. That place where you throw all the things that you are sure you’ll need one day but don’t quite know what to do with right now. That old penknife your father gave you. The giveaway book of matches with the hotel logo. Assorted pens, most of which don’t work. A bunch of keys you have long since forgotten about. The odd receipt that felt important at the time. Tape, magnets, safety pins, rubber bands. The junk drawer is home to a whole cacophony of objects that accumulate around family life. It’s the drawer where we throw things that we don’t have the time or inclination to deal with immediately. 

 

What’s this doing in a book about healing?  The answer is that we often do the same with our emotions. Every time we suppress our feelings we metaphorically stuff them in the junk drawer of our cells. We don’t realise we are doing it, but that is what happens. They get held in our body and cause all sorts of pain later.

 

One on the many things Healing Life’s Wounds: Beyond Feeling Broken will do is guide you in how to empty out that emotional junk drawer, helping you to feel lighter and freer.

It's coming soon   ...  it will be released on June 14th.

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Healing From Pain

 

Often the most radical healing can emerge from the deepest pain.  The story of the Risen Christ models that.  But often when we’re in the midst of deep pain it can be hard to believe in the possibility of emerging from what can feel like a dark and lonely place.

 

But emergence is possible once you take responsibility for working towards healing. 

 

Walking alongside some who has made that journey for themself can help.  And that’s what Healing Life’s Wounds is: a book to hold your hand as you find your way through.  Based in part on my own story, and including insights gleaned from twenty years of leading healing retreats, the book will encourage you to find a way to break free of the impact that past pain has on you.

 

New life is possible!  Your wounds don’t have to define you.

Healing Life's Wounds: Beyond Feeling Broken

is published on June 14th.

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Restful silence

 

I wonder how noisy your world has been lately? Both the external world and the noises in your head? For most of us, most of the time, the answer can be ‘loud’. Silence, however we find it, is essential for our brain health.

 And that can include visual silence too, by which I mean respite from the constant barrage of multiple images that bombard us from our screens. Never before has there been an era in which so much information was coming at us so thick and so fast. And it’s exhausting. Our brains were never meant to process so much non-stop data. 

Restful silence is essential to our wellbeing.

In my new book, Healing Life’s Wounds, I speak about the power of the pause. In the ubiquitous digital world we now inhabit, it has become the norm to be instantly connected and always available. And whilst that has many good points, as a general rule it’s not good for our health. There is a societal, and for many of us a personal, need to slow down. To intentionally switch off, slow down and let our souls catch up. Silence in nature can be especially healing.

So, how are you doing today? Do you need to take a pause? To walk away from your screens, and smell the roses? Or simply listen to the calming beauty of birdsong?

 Go on … take time to be still and quiet …. your health will thank you for it.

…. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. …. 

 Healing Life’s Wounds; Beyond Feeling Broken

will be published in June, by Sarah Grace Publishing.

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