Carol Purves

Every spring I plant a few packets of seeds and leave them on the window sills. Except for watering them, I do nothing. Before long tiny colours of green appears and the seeds start to grow. This is nothing to do with me, it is all of God. How wonderful tiny, tiny seeds become plants with I can plant in the garden and have a lovely array of flowers.

On a larger scale, all nature is a miracle; just because we see it happening every years doesn’t make it any less wonderful. May we love and cherish this gift God has given us.

When Jesus visited the temple in Jerusalem He was incensed that it was being treated like a ‘den of thieves.’

Before we get too indignant, how do we treat our churches, cathedrals and other places of worship? We often have to pay to enter our cathedrals; that is reasonable, they have to be upkept. But do we treat them like museums? At the exit there will be a shop. Are our churches much different? Our church visits can just be a place to meet up with our friends and to sort out the business that needs to be arranged.

Primarily these places are a place of worship; a chance to re-connect with God. They are an opportunity to lay down the rush of life and concentrate on our Saviour. Of course, we can commune with God anywhere but places of worship are ideal times to be able to do this.

Everyone is mindful of the troubles in Ukraine but often feel helpless to do anything about it. I have given to my local bookshop a list of Ukrainian writers and their books. This is in the hope that they may stock their books. I will try to order one myself. A very small piece of help, I know.

I have heard of someone who has booked an air B&B in Ukraine. They don’t intend to take up the booking but they hope it may help someone in some small way. A very tiny piece of help, but something.

My neighbour is Mary who live across the road. But it doesn’t stop there. My neighbour is anyone who needs my help. That’s a pretty large field! Fortunately God directs us in certain directions, but there is no limit to the type of person. Everyone’s sphere of service will be different. God may want us to give aid to those in need in our church or city. Equally He may be asking us to consider those in Ukraine with some particular gift which we have. God may wants us to give to complete strangers.

In our giving we need to consider the needs of the person to whom we are giving. We all know the story of helping the old lady across the road and she didn’t want to go. (that actually happened to my friend Mary. Mary was waiting for a bus, her son came by on a motor bike. The traffic waited while he wanted to help his mother cross.)

I often phone friends who I think need a call to cheer them up. As I ring I imagine them in their own homes and coming to pick up the phone. That means my call my be more helpful to them.

I’ve just had my living room decorated, painted and re-carpeted. As this room doubles up as a bedroom and office space as well as living room and dining room, there were many items to be moved out and furniture shifted. My only other space was upstairs so it all became a major operation. I took then he opportunity to build a flat-pack bookcase. This was enjoyable until I discovered just one screw was missing and I couldn’t finish the job.

I wondered what was the missing piece in my Christian life. I concluded it was love. God’s love for us and our love for God and others. I can only pray that I can always have this important ingredient.

The children were used to a stable life in a wealthy country. Admittedly their dad work long back-breaking hours and they only had their basic requirements. But as children they didn’t understand when their domiciliary lives became nomadic. Their parents uprooted them with little notice to trudge across the burning desert, which became freezing at night. They felt frightened, disorientated and missing Egyptian friends.

They were scared when the river in front of them became two high walls of water and they had to walk through the middle on the dry river bed. Hunger like they have never known gripped their stomachs, a thirst in the dry desert clawed at their throats and still they walked and walked away from everything that they had ever known into an unknown future..

It isn’t just modern children who become refugees!

The other Saturday our church had a Prayer Day (actually it was six hours) All the seasons were in hourly slots, people could come and go as was suitable to them.

Now like all of us I pray at home on my own, but it was uplifting to join my prayers with others because individual and corporate prayer are both necessary in our Christian lives. Due to covid praying together has been very limited. On that Saturday it was a blessing to be away from the phone, social media and family distractions to be able to devote a time of praying and listening to God in the presence of others. Jesus often prayed alone (sometimes all night) but He also prayed with His disciples.

‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed.’ James Montgomery

I recently heard the story, whether apocryphal or true I don’t know, about a vicar of a country church. He was very diligent and every Thursday and Friday he spent the days preparing for his sermons for Sunday. On this particular week he seemed unable to come up with a theme, let alone write a sermon. However how hard he tried nothing would come. Thursday passed without a theme, Friday passed without the sermons. During Friday night he had a heart attack and now being in hospital, he wouldn’t be needing any sermons. God knew, he didn’t.

Man proposes and God disposes, I was told as a young person. In the past it used to be common after outlining plans to say D.V. (Deo Volen – God willing) It still applies today. God knows the future, we don’t.

‘Tomorrow, we will go to this and that ……………………………..Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow…………….If it is the Lord’s will we will do this and that. James 4:13 onwards.

How often do we have the courage to witness to others about our God? And how often do we miss simple opportunities?

I was sitting on the bus the other day and the only other passenger was another lady who I didn’t know. We started to talk about the brief snow storm we had both witnessed that morning. Then the talk moved on, as alway,s to covid. She was on her way to the hospital and had taken a lateral flow test that morning. I had just left the dentist and had also done a test that morning. Almost without thinking, I then said, ‘I only now take a test if I’m going to a medical appointment or going to church.’ It turned out she also was was a Christian and we spent the next five minutes having a most fruitful Christian conversation.

I hadn’t gone out to witness; it was no big deal I was only having a normal conversation. ‘Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you..

Every year I despair of my garden. In February, the month of storms, the days are short, the weather wet and my garden a mess. Then in March it is dotted with snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils. In the drabness of February I forget the delights of March and the approaching summer.

My Christian life can be the same. When sadness, disaster and pain come into my life, I see only blackness and bleakness. I forget God’s blessings in the past and His promises for the future.

‘Don’t forget in the darkness what you have learned in the light.’ Joseph Bayly.