Love Wins!

It's only the second week of February but the early signs of Spring are all around us here in Guernsey. Bulbs which have been hiding under the dark cold ground for months are starting to bring colour, vibrancy and hope to our wind blasted gardens and hedgerows. These early signs of Spring are really heartening, giving us the sense that better days lie ahead. The cold dark season we are in will not last for ever. The seeds of renewal may lie hidden, but their power to break through is irresistible. 

It's important to have hope in the darkness, expectation instead of dread, and a sense that the future God has planned for us will be so much better than the barren winter barely passing. In our wider world there is such sadness. As I write, the death of a prominent Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, has shocked and saddened the western world. Images of his bereaved wife and children add to the sense of profound sorrow being felt by millions. There is a cold, barren emptiness in a large swathe of Eastern Europe as the war in Ukraine rages on, and lives are being lost in the battle against tyranny. Elsewhere, in Israel and Gaza there is such huge sadness as we witness the wanton death and destruction being wrought and their impact on ordinary men, women and children on both sides. Can there be any bulbs of hope beneath this dreadful soil?

As Christians, our hope is in God. He is not finished with us yet and is working out his plan in these end-times through all the earth, whether in East or West. There may be times in our lives when we fear that our cause is futile, our case hopeless. I felt that over the long years of my chronic illness. Sometimes it just feels like the weight and fire-power of our enemy is overwhelming. The price of hanging on and persevering can seem too high. Don’t give up! God is on our side. The enemy of our souls may gloat over temporary or even long-term advances against us, but the end of the story is clear. Love wins, God wins, goodness triumphs over evil! Hang in there!

 

One Step at a Time

After nearly two decades of battling serious ill health and severe pain I am learning to take each day one step at a time. It can be very difficult to do this, especially because I like to have my path well laid out before me and prefer to know where I am going and what is just around the next corner. But that is not how God has led me and life has definitely been, as the old song title has it 'One Day at a Time'.

In the last few months I have been back and forth to London with monthly interventions at University College London Hospital. Each time we have been there Diane and I have looked at each other and said 'this must surely be the last time!' but we have been wrong.  Despite the dangerous and difficult nature of these surgical procedures, and the fact that I seem to be becoming immune to the anesthetics being used so that the last couple of occasions are clear in my memory, it seems that I must have yet another one. So we will leave for London on March 30th for admission on the morning of Tuesday 31st and spend a few more days away while we seek an answer to my desperate situation.

But this step by step approach to medicine and treatment is no stranger to the Christian pilgrim. Our journey of faith is one of daily increments in our walk with God. Any attempt to hurry the divine will or rush ahead seems doomed to failure as we discover that this Christian life is a walk and not a mad dash to heaven! 'Step by step as you go the way shall open before you' is God's promise to us all and we need daily grace to be able to accept that.

So despite the natural fear and disappointment of facing it all again, I guess I need to stretch out and take one more step on this journey, praying that the outcome will turn out to have been a giant leap in securing victory and getting well again. Please Lord!