It has been a strange day so far, beginning with a starling alarm clock- or two starlings fell down the chimney and needed rescuing- one was easy to usher out of a window, the other flew behind some Christmas lights and proved a little more difficult to catch and release...
Having woken everyone up by that stage we made tea and the bathroom queue began, with both Em's boyfriend and one of the twins friends staying the night this proves to be quite an operation especially as everyone was aiming to get out for church!
In the end Tim decided to go to the hospital to keep Chris company while he waited to hear if he would be discharged today... he has been, with some hefty painkillers and we've made him up a temporary bed down stairs (just until he gets a full cast on Thursday). Paul , Jon and Jo headed out to churches in Downham, Paul and Jon go to a charismatic church whilst Joanne attends the Methodist.... Em Ralph and I went out to one of the villages...
... this was the first time I have simply been part of a worshipping congregation for a long time- no readings to do, no prayers to lead, just able to be- and it was wonderful, I sensed the presence of God with me throughout the service- two hymns were particularly poignant they were "Lord for the years" and" Take my life".... I could do little more than let the words swirl around me as we sang the second hymn...
... It's funny we spend a lot of time trying to explain God, as if we have something to prove, but then when God comes powerfully close we find ourselves with no words, for there aren't words enough to describe what it is to walk in grace, as though every part of your being were being held and infused with love and life and comfort... yet more than that...
I guess that is what Paul meant by his prayer in Ephesians 3:
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
There is a big difference between the theoretical knowledge about the love of God and knowing it through the experience of grace... when God comes in Spirit to fill and surround you...
... and so I am looking back over a difficult year, and marvelling at how the grace of God has been with me through the hard places, knowing deep down it is by the grace of God that I have come through.... it has been a year when glimpses of glory have broken through the clouds like shafts of sunlight, sometimes causing rainbows in the rain...and yet when the clouds have been dark still Gods grace has brought me through... as a family we have been hard pressed and challenged, as an individual I have been hard pressed and challenged...
Dare I pray for a better year... I'm not sure.... I think I'd rather ask for grace to cope with what comes, and a renewed hope... I'm not being fatalistic, simply realistic, we have a large family, for 3 of our children ongoing medical conditions are a fact of life... both Tim and I are training for the Ordained Ministry and everyone is in transition of one sought or another.... but we can know God with us, we can pray and we can ask for grace in the hard places.... I'm sure there will be fun and laughter, I'm not trying to be a doom and gloom merchant... so I will seek the kingdom of God in this coming year, seek to see it break in in my life and in the life and community of those I love and live amongst.... Lord let me be an agent of grace, that is enough...
Recent Comments