The vendors of our new house announced suddenly that they were taking the summer house with them.  Now, that lovely egg shell blue shed had been one of the first things that won my heart over to the house, and the kids were very excited about it too.  The photos on the schedule placed it centre stage, and the agent never stopped our enthusiasm about it.  But now they’re taking it.  For a week (at least) after we found out, I was brittle with anger.  I woke up the day after with the words ‘if your enemy asks you to walk a mile, walk two, if he asks you for your coat…’, but I put that to the back of my mind.  We racked our brains, spoke to our solicitor, walked in to the agency to have a face-to-face discussion about it but nothing won that summer house back.

As I walked to the car after another failed conversation, I knew it wasn’t worth it, and I’m in the process of shaking it off, every half hour…There is no material thing in this world that deserves this amount of fighting.  I’m not going to be lying on my death bed saying, if only we had got that shed, life would have been so much better.

Of course, the vendors are going to think they’ve won, that they are the stronger people.  But they are mistaken.  To be strong is to choose kindness over selfishness, peace of mind over squabbling, eternal over earthly.  God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the weak things to shame the strong.  So keep your summer house, I already have something better.