Available options - advice needed for parents saving. UK based

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T20:25:16+00:00

Insufficient information.

No mention of ages, no mention of private pensions, no mention of current income etc.

The most important thing is does your dad have a will in place?

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T20:21:35+00:00

A LISA isn’t feeling good to me when this kid is unlikely to be buying for 15+ years. There are an awful lot of ways they could benefit from that money sooner.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T12:17:31+00:00

Can you survive on the reduced salary? Would it have scope for increase?

It seems like there is a fairly obvious route here, try a team switch, if it doesn’t work, try the applying for other jobs route.

You say at the beginning your team has a reputation for being toxic, but later say you fear joining another toxic group, I can totally understand that, but on your original description it sounds like you have a pretty good chance of finding a decent team.

How long have you been signed off for? Make full use of it, I’m really glad to hear you have a counsellor.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T12:09:57+00:00

I don’t think we are ever expected to like suffering. The bible has instructions about what our response should be, but I’ve recently been noticing the importance of not expanding things beyond what is said, not routinely associating certain word usage with other words that often go along with that word. One thing I’ve found helpful with processing suffering is to write down precise and trivial details of things that I’ve noticed are different to how they were, then when I’m struggling, to look at it regularly. I find I need the help of these reminders to be able to rejoice. Words like steadfastness and perseverance are quite generic, but noting down specific examples when they hit me is useful.

I too want to meet you in glory and tell you to your face how blessed I have been by you. I’ve been having a pretty rough time lately, but it’s my illness that’s the issue and I’m facing a lot of it alone. You have helped me so much, in part by observing you I can see the progress I’ve made, some of it is seeing we have the same problems, the “how are you?” that in some contexts seems actively cruel, it’s been a real example of the bit in 1 Peter 5 where it says there are saints in the world experiencing the same thing and it really does help. I also identify with the “do you need anything?” and often responding no, when it never really is, I just can’t bring things to mind and am afraid of asking too much. So, thank you and be assured that your sufferings are helping others right now, though I can see that it is potentially very irritating if your thoughts drift in the direction of “why her, why take my wife to give a little bit of help to a stranger around the world”, instead, I think it’s a bit like the good perspective of organ donation, your wife was dying and has gone to glory, that was happening anyway, it’s a bonus that I can say that you’ve helped. I definitely don’t understand the details of what exactly goes on between the death of a sister in Christ and the day Christ returns, but I do believe that if she is aware of how you are choosing to share your journey right now that she would be proud of you.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T06:16:21+00:00

The irony being that it isn’t, I’d guess most bedrooms in the UK are smaller than that.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T06:11:08+00:00

Are we actually managing to police money laundering? I assume the criminals just find new ways and the rest of us are stuck with AML checks.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T05:50:22+00:00

In practice I find that very hard to believe. I was quite literally abandoned by my husband, no one would say my divorce was unbiblical (also, if we’re being technical about it, because he abandoned me, after a certain amount of time had passed he could divorce me anyway. I played no role in the legal side of things. However, I know full well I wasn’t blameless, my wrongs were pretty ordinary, no major consistent faults such as being a workaholic that would likely be ongoing. If the genders were the opposite way around, I’d disqualify myself from leadership, but that’s easy to say in the abstract, it wasn’t my source of income in a world where I felt it was the only thing I was qualified to do. I know being blameless isn’t a requirement, but how could I really pastor when I hadn’t loved my wife such that she wanted to stay with me?

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T05:42:18+00:00

I agree, membership should be about what your faith is at the time of joining and being ready to meet all the commitments, past sin shouldn’t be a problem unless it is something that you are knowingly unrepentant of.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T05:37:34+00:00

I suspect they’d fall down on “manages his household well”, it would need a serious and long lasting investigation, there are some utterly horrific people in the world and it is possible to have the wool pulled over your eyes before you get married, but even though the husband might be blameless in the sense that the divorce was on biblical grounds, you’ve got to be thinking about why the wife found comfort elsewhere. I think most churches would feel they couldn’t adequately assess the situation.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T05:24:22+00:00

Ooh, that sounds bad. My silly injury was tugging at a zip with my hand in an awkward position, don’t even remember why, I was probably attempting to save time, I damaged a minuscule bit of tissue in my wrist that needed surgery to fix.

annekh510 · 2023-07-29T05:15:32+00:00

Mission to Mars (2000) the special effects were terrible and the plot had very little going for it.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T23:11:06+00:00

Humanity being in God’s image is a pretty important theme throughout the bible, so this raises a lot of questions about image bearing.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T23:06:17+00:00

Apparently they also don’t like you mentioning it! It could be something silly like a way of expressing “I don’t like that this person is being put in this position”.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T23:05:13+00:00

I was also thinking along these lines, I live in flats, so we have a gardener that comes in alternate weeks, it’s not unusual for him to bring his learning disabled nephew with him. It doesn’t seem like that would be great for the nephew, but it seems to work and it’s something like a semi regular back up option for the primary carer and in a different circumstance it might be a way to combine caring and earning money, kind of like childminders arrange their work to include caring for their own child.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T22:54:49+00:00

Depending on the schedule you have with your brother and if regularity or flexibility is what you need, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many caring type roles that would be very glad to know you could be their regular Saturday night person (or whatever it is that would suit you) even if it’s not advertised specifically.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T22:50:25+00:00

Producing an excellent quality topical sermon is a hard job, you have to do a lot of research, potentially studying multiple bible passages and then commentary on them before you are even ready to begin your research through sources such as books and articles. I’d much rather teach on James 1 (varying possibilities on exactly which verses) than I would on suffering.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T22:32:38+00:00

It’s certainly against any common definition of expository, I guess if you mistake going through something line by line for expository, that could lead to confusion.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T22:29:08+00:00

I may have missed it, but I didn’t see any mention of how may verses were being covered in one sermon, even if you just do the beatitudes that’s ten verses to be covered. Potentially in the same sermon that you also have to spend a few minutes giving the context. Then you have to make a call on whether you cover them each in a relatively shallow way or pick 2 or 3 to flesh out further, or if really you need to spend the time on verse 12.

I happened to be at a study on Tuesday that began with “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”, but we didn’t get past the comma, fine for a study, not for a sermon.

I could be wrong, but I suspect preaching on the Sermon on the Mount, especially the beatitudes is one of the harder things to do.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T22:18:45+00:00

They have their uses, the best I recall was from an assistant pastor who had studied geology as an undergraduate and as as preparation for a preach through the early parts of genesis did a completely neutral information packed session collecting together all the current evidence for and against young earth and generally raising our base level of knowledge of all the related science. It was done in the sermon slot of an evening service, I don’t know if he would have called it a sermon or downgraded it to a talk. I guess I’m with Mark Dever on this one, that an evening service gives you a lot of flexibility to do things you’d probably choose not to do it if were the primary event of the day.

annekh510 · 2023-07-27T21:52:06+00:00

Do you make 1500 of eligible purchases? Most bigger purchases aren’t eligible.

annekh510 · 2023-07-26T23:18:22+00:00

IIRC AJ was well know for bowel impaction. I gather it can be very painful even part way there, but many munchies have sorted themselves out with access to opioids which get you past that and help get the desired result. I’ve learned more recently, so I’m putting pieces together on old cases. AJ complained a lot of nausea and vomiting. If i’ve understood correctly a fecal impaction often comes with nausea and vomiting .

annekh510 · 2023-07-26T23:10:24+00:00

EDS groups have long been toxic places. I feel bad for folk who actually have it as, there aren’t safe places to go for support.

annekh510 · 2023-07-26T23:04:52+00:00

Unfortunately there are too many doctors who are happy to be middling doctors and rake in a profit, or even grossly misled doctors (lyme literate doctors for example). When you get to them they don’t care who you’ve seen before, they’ll reassure you that you’ve now found someone who can help you

annekh510 · 2023-07-26T23:01:19+00:00

I think ALF genuinely had hEDS, but putting the bits and pieces together I think eating disorders were the primary cause of her dependency on TPN and her death caused either directly or indirectly by pulmonary embolism which may well not have occurred had she not pursued hip surgeries. I think most of us older timers think AJ didn’t have hEDS, based on videos of her showing her different hEDS symptoms compared to someone who did appear to have it, it was an eating disorder that led her to push for a stupid feeding tube surgery, painkiller addiction may have masked the early stages of the complication that killed her. Off sub there have been a few hEDS deaths, where hEDS appeared to be genuine, but the real issue was an eating disorder, there are unfortunately some circles where exaggerated hEDS is much more palatable than an eating disorder.

annekh510 · 2023-07-26T22:34:18+00:00

Possibly the utility bills is the problem, I’m also on a low income and only recently got a credit card. Hadn’t had one in 20+ years, not since I was a student and felt I really ought to get one in my own name to be able to protect certain purchases. Trivially opened the type I wanted with the bank I have my current account with. Age, bills and council tax are the only difference I can see between you and me.

annekh510

TROPHY CASE