Thoughts on a Sunday....

I have just come back from church, and I have to tell you about a conversation I had with our vicar after the service. He saw me taking a few photos during the coffee and chat session, and smiled as he said, "Are those for your daughter?" I said that yes, they were, and we chatted about how great her faith is, and how she left her home and country to go to New Zealand 3 and a half years ago, because God called her to do so. And is having a wonderful adventure down there. Far away. In the bottom left hand corner of the map.

She didn't know a soul when she left, and she simply, quite simply trusted God. We talked about faith and trust and how sometimes we put the "me" ahead of God on the little pedestal in our minds. I do. All the time. We all do. I can think of a million "yes, buts" when I am sometimes really feeling that God is wanting me to do something. I don't trust enough. I wish I did. In his sermon, Adrian had talked about Jesus often not performing his miracles before testing faith a little more. Think of Lazarus, the wine into water, so many.

When I started work at my school, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, on that first day at the interview, that it was the wrong place for me. I just knew. No tangible reason, just a really powerful feeling. But I thought, hey, I have to earn money, so anything will do. It can't be that bad, can it?? And squashed the little voice which said "I have other plans for you". Yes. Well. I had bills to pay, so I put the bills, and me back firmly on that pedestal. Dusted off the hands, and went to work. His plans would have to wait.

We all know what followed. I should have listened, but I did not trust enough.

Anyway, back to that conversation. I was telling Adrian about our family verse in Psalms. Our family's verse. When Geoff came home one day back a couple of decades ago now, and said that we were moving back to the UK, as we had planned years before, then forgotten, I was ready to do so, but very apprehensive. He would be back at sea, and I would be alone with the 3 children in a new country. So I went to my Bible study and moaned a little. A lot in fact. There was much sighing and sadness at the thought of leaving. So I opened my bible, and as these things happen, it opened here.....

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:8-12

I flipped it closed, looked at my friends, and said, "Ok, I am going. I need to pack."

And we moved country, just like Diana moved country too. And Adrian said to me...."But Linds, you trusted enough to move, and look what God has done in your life!" And it was a like a light going off in the brain. I can be a little slow to work things out at times. I did trust! He never left me! Look! I wouldn't be surrounded by these friends, my son would not have met his wife or be having this baby, Diana would not have been in NZ....... so many many things would have been different.

I look back, and Adrian was right. At crucial moments in my life, I have trusted, and it has all worked according to His plan. Not mine. His. Hindsight is a spectacular thing.

We cannot measure our faith against each other's. Diana's is not "better" than mine. It is different, because she is different. I am human and have so many faults, but my faith has carried me (and consequently my family) through so many difficult times. Hahahaha. That sounds minor. Mega times. MEGA. And then, fool that I am, I didn't trust when I heard that small voice. I am an idiot.

So now I am going to tell you about yesterday, and that walk. I crossed the little rickety bridge onto the island, and there was no-one there. I wish I had taken a chair, because I could have sat there for hours. Anyway, I looked around, and started talking aloud to God, as I am prone to doing. We had a conversation.

And I asked for an answer now to one specific thing. Patience is not one of my qualities, you may have noticed. Like, immediately. I had my camera and I was looking around, taking those photos, and I looked down, and all around me was the letter Y. Twigs. Some broken, some just lying next to each other, all facing me. All around me. And I started laughing. Wherever I looked, more "Y"s. Everywhere. I turned in a circle and I was surrounded by them. But further away, there were none. I could have danced, but then I think one of those anglers may well have dialled 999. He answers prayers in the most diverse ways, and He used what was around me.

Faith. Trust. It is the key to the door for wonderful things, my friends.

Believe me. I know.