Blessed be your name...

It's been a real rollercoaster ride of a few weeks. I guess many of you who will read this will know all about Major Jo Norton, a most remarkable woman of God. Having been very suddenly struck with a brain aneurysm and by much prayer of Godly people survived... for a while

Having been "promoted to Glory" as we in The Salvation Army put it, just as she was due to return home, it appears that some amazing things have been happening. One song that has been much quoted says

Blessèd be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me,
When the world's 'all as it should be',
Blessèd be Your name.
And blessèd be Your name
On the road marked with suffering,
Though there's pain in the offering,
Blessèd be Your name.

The worship group I lead on Sunday evenings sang that yesterday. I felt we needed to. They didn't know Jo of course, and really it's impossible to explain 'Jo Norton' to anyone that hasn't had that experience. But it can be helpful just to say or sing things that you need to believe.

There are a number of Bible verses that have jumped out at me including Philippians 1:21 "to live is Christ... to die is gain". Life is being Christ to those that don't yet know Him, and to those that do - but Jo has the good bit, the gain of death. Romans 8:28 tells us that in all things God works for the good of those that love & follow Him - we've seen at least a glimpse of that.

I don't know what to think just now. I only seem to feel emotion about this when I speak about it. I have an even greater urge to return to what I have to confess as my spiritual home of Wandsworth Salvation Army / Boiler Room. But that may be tainted by current emotion as well as disillusion with my current situation. Sometimes I think that I'm needed there, but at the same time think that I'd no longer have a place.

Grief is confusing. Especially when you don't even know if you have a right to grieve for someone you haven't spent that much time with in the last 8 years. But that will settle with time I guess - it will all make more sense. So best stop waffling

Confessions of the motivationally challenged

In my reading recently, I've come across one of those incidental details in the Gospels that seems to have struck a chord greater than it may need. I'm still, almost 16 months after starting, doing my reading through the Gospels in a year thing and at this rate it may be one per year.

I was reading in chapter 6 where the 12 come back from a short mission of preaching, healing & deliverance...

"The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while." (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves."

So they're getting away from the crowd to get some quality time to 'de-brief' on their recent mission. If they walk they'll be followed on foot and pestered as they walk (maybe pester is the wrong word), so they take a boat trip to some secluded spot.

Their only quality time then appears to be on the boat - the crowd figure out where they're going & are waiting for them (cue feeding of 5,000). It made me think about time away. Maybe it isn't necessary to stop doing stuff totally to get rest - they had some time but it was a part of the journey and not purely time out - very necessary and useful, but not a stop but a restful journey.

My title here is down to the fact that I am by nature a lazy person, or to be polite, motivationally challenged. Sometimes I realise that being motivationally challenged doesn't help rest. I go with the flow, not wanting to make the effort to refuse people. I end up doing more sometimes because I'm just too lazy to say no & argue my point - that and a long standing fear of confrontation.

What I need to learn from this is to know when to take myself out of a situation and to take time out without stopping progress... if I can be bothered?