Today I did a spot of window shopping. It was lovely to have some time to myself and not really buy anything much but take some time out on my own to mentally design the boy’s bedroom, which I may decorate at some point soon…

Unfortunately, after I had walked some way from one shop to another I looked into my bag and discovered a pair of tiny ballet shoes for Esther which I had totally forgotten to pay for. It is official, I am a shoplifter!

I made my way back to the first shop to pay for my items, furtively checking for plain clothes security people round every clothes stand.

We do this sometimes on purpose – not shoplift exactly – but take something that is not ours to take. Perhaps we do a job at church because the need has been advertised but actually someone else was meant to do it, not us… Perhaps we are due to get married and we think, I may as well sleep with my fiancee… I mean, he’s going to be my husband soon enough isn’t he? So what’s the harm?
Perhaps we steal someone else’s thunder by telling someone a special secret that person was waiting to share… perhaps we steal the truth of who we are and carry round lies instead.
“I’m such a wrinkled old hag. Who would want to be with me?”

There are lots of ways in which we can let ourselves down and carry something that we were not meant to carry – an opinion, an idea, even a curse.

Check your bags my friends and make sure that everything in them truly belongs to you.