Weakness

 

Welcome all. I hope you are well. We are fine. I am sitting at home writing this while HOH helps our daughter to move into her new flat. I would have helped obviously but this blog doesn't write itself you know so here I am, on the settee with a glass of wine, chatting to you while they are attempting to fit 184 books on film into a lift. Life is unfair sometimes. 

I am deliberately not going to write about Syria and Turkey and the terrible events there because I simply do not have the skills to accurately convey the horror. I was mildly surprised to hear someone of a Christian bent telling  us to pray for President Erdogan and President Assad. (Yes, I know, I know what it says). It was just the reasoning that surprised me. He said "because people always find a way to blame the leaders don't they?" I'll be honest, I always had these two leaders down as the kind of people that God sent ghostly hands to write on walls about. Maybe I missed something. Please give if you can. Squillions of tiny donations will make a huge difference to these dear people. Also, if you are of a praying persuasion, Pete Greig has written an excellent devotion on the Lectio 365 App. You would have to go into the archive now for February 11th but it's easy enough to find. 

Round here at the moment, the weather has decided that we are all so sad that a bit of sunshine would not go amiss. So, as it was particularly sunny on my day off last week we decided to take the Cremyl Ferry over to Mount Edgecombe which is technically Cornwall. Actually, no technically about it - it IS Cornwall. It will come as no surprise that I am not that great on the water. (What ARE you great on? You may well ask ask and the answer is my settee - if possible with a caramel wafer). However. the Creyml ferry takes approximately three minutes and is usually quite calm. the only thing to be careful of is that the Navy live here and they think nothing of driving their ships backward and forward across the route which can cause a wake which would bring the Titanic down. However, all was calm and a good time was had by all - obviously slightly influenced by the cafe at Mount Edgecombe selling excellent scones. (I don't have cream on my scones so I have nothing to add to the cream/jam - Devon/Cornwall altercation).

Yesterday was my second attempt at Messy Church. Please see above an example of what we made on my table. It is a Valentines Card. It is thing of beauty. I did not make it. The lady who leads the crafts made it. Little chickens made them for their Mums and that was lovely. I'll be honest though. The main thrust of the thing was Elijah calling down fire when pitched against the prophets of Baal and I seem to have missed what that had to do with Valentines Cards. Especially when there was a table where you could make edible bonfires with chocolate spread, biscuits and chocolate twigs. I think I would have been good at that. HOH isn't sure - taking into account the number of Jelly Babies I ate when we made edible Jesuses (Jesui?) in the manger. He has a point. 

I wouldn't have said that I am particularly good with little children. I mean, I was fine with my own. You can play "Big Wind" with your own in the back garden and, if you both fall into the privets, there's only you to worry about (and the child obviously). However, when it's someone else's little person and they seem so tiny and delicate, you feel a bit overwhelmed. At one point yesterday a tiny person came up to me, slipped her hand into mine and asked "Do you know what is happening?" We were like twinned souls. I often feel like that. We found her Mummy - who was having a full on Battle Royale with another child who was insisting on trying to take away a full box of Mint Matchmakers from the bonfire table and they were reunited. I was probably a bit wobbly with her because I had to do my safeguarding training this week. Have you done that? It's quite traumatic isn't it. Halfway through there was this terrible film of all the different ways that people can be abused. At the end of it we were all asked via Zoom what we would do if we saw any of these things happening. My truthful answer was - "I would try to kill myself". Obviously, that doesn't help anyone. Fortunately, we had a GP in our group, who kindly gave all the right answers when we reconvened, while I sat there with my face frozen in horror like Florence Pugh in a particularly disturbing scene in Midsommar. 

Sometimes, it is all quite horrible and I'll be honest, I have very little deep spiritual insight. I'm very much a day at a time kind of person because that's all I have the wherewithal to do sometimes. HOH and I were sitting on the settee last week, just chatting and wondering how someone can make a TV programme with an autopsy of King Charles II when he died in 1685. Then I realised that it was February 9th and that I was 25 years cancer free. I wish I could say that I always have faith and that I have been full of vision and an"overcomer' and that I have no fears about the future. I don't know who that person is but it's not me. There is a verse though that says that is ok. I don't have to be the big cheese. When I am small and scared and admit it, it's ok because that allows God to take over and he is so much better than I am at all this. 

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

2 Corinthians 12