surprise, surprise!

Life is full of surprises!

First surprise - out of the blue, and after a couple of months of really no contact, I got a text early on this morning from a lady whose marriage has been in trouble for a good long while.

This was someone whose marriage I'd conducted over twenty years ago in Cumbernauld and who'd got back in touch with me about this time last year when domestic problems were becoming more than she could bear and she hadn't anyone else to whom she could turn.

It's been an up and down ride (mainly down, I have to say) since then, but she's been able to get some contact with folk who follow Christ and that's been good and a step in the right direction.

As I say, though, I haven't had any contact with her for a good two or three months, but strangely over these past few days I've found myself thinking and praying about her and her family a good deal. Then .. boom, out of the blue (and from France, what's more) a text, making contact again and giving a sort of update. I tried to call but the reception was hopeless. She texted again to say she'd be in touch at the end of the week.

So many different people just like her are hurting and struggling and half the time they don't know where or to whom they can turn. It's humbling to see how the Lord is so willing to work over time in putting the pieces together again in broken and buffeted lives: and humbling and exciting, too, to find he uses mixed up folk like me to share in what he's doing!

Surprise number two - I was along at the bank when I bumped into the guy who for long enough has run the barber's shop I've been going to for years now (actually I think he's newly retired, but his son is in charge and he's still often there). An Italian guy, by the name of Niko (pronounced Neeko) who's always good for a laugh and never short of the chat. Quite outspoken, too, and his language is often choice.

He'd just put his car in the garage for its MoT and was hanging around so I asked him along for a coffee here and he was more than pleased to come. The language was certainly choice at times (though I think he was trying to be pretty restrained!), but I thought that one of the features that makes a 'third place' the sort of environment where people can talk is that they do feel free to be, well, just themselves.

I go to his place often enough - and there's talk enough always there. Barber shops and haridressing salons - there's really no place like them for the way that people open up. And here he was today with us. At ease (I think!) and glad to talk and build on that relationship which years of going back each time to this one barber's shop has helped to grow.

We don't cut people's hair in this 'third place', but it struck me that the beauty of the sort of place we try to make it be is that people, whoever they might be, can at least feel free to let their hair right down and be themselves and talk.

Who knows just where all this will lead!