Easter already

Easter comes early this year. About as early as it ever can be.

Which means, although we've barely got past Christmas at this time, it's Easter now I've got to start to get my head around.

As in an Easter Card.

The folk we use to print these cards have fairly standard deadline dates. And working back from when we need the card to be to hand, it means we've got to have material to the printers in a few days' time!

So this morning I started by putting the card together. I'd done a bit of work before on this, so it wasn't entirely from scratch.

The card is striking and simple and stark. A bit like the story itself, I guess.

And I'm hoping that its message will be clear and be the sort of thing that makes the people in the village here all think a bit about just what it means.

Anyway, that was another box to tick, as it were. One of the tasks which needed attention today. It was good to get it done - and fairly moved me in to 'Easter mode'!

I took the chance as ever to be round at the school for the teachers' mid-morning break. I never know what to expect. But I go in with an open mind and ears attuned to where the Lord may lead!

The guy I do the SU with (on a Monday now) was keeping me up to speed with what had been going on. One of the girls has been asking her friends, inviting them all to come too! So who knows just how many there will be next time!

The children are brilliant that way. They ask the Lord to 'grow' the group - without a doubt that that is what he'll do. And then they go and get on with the business of inviting friends they know to come and join the fun.

An object lesson in how the Lord means all of us to live. Asking, trusting, going, sharing. Not that hard really!

I also took the chance to chat some more about God's covenant with the teacher of the P5 class who're doing that next week. We arranged that I would come in and run them through the theme.

And the teacher herself was asking if I would get her material - she wanted to know for herself at least something of what the children were taught!

The morning just went, by the time I'd been round at the school and got back, and attended to all of the e-mails (which required, at least some of them, quite a substantial time).

So I didn't really get much done in terms of preparation once again! What's new?!

Lunch was the 'working' variety. A meeting here, along with a couple of other leaders here, with a man from another church. They too have gone down the road we're on and altered their pattern of leadership.

It's good to know we're not alone. And good as well to learn from those around. I think we ended up ourselves feeling informed about the processes involved, affirmed in terms of what we've been aspiring to, and inspired to take it on along our own specific lines.

The soup was great as well, of course! And the place, as it often is these days, was simply a cauldron of chat. How the girls cope with the numbers there are these days and make them all so welcome and attend to all their needs, I really do not know!

But it's lovely to see it like that and be caught up in all that's going on.

I'd set aside the afternoon to do some preparation for the service of thanksgiving that tomorrow holds.

It needed a good few hours and I don't like ever being rushed for a thing like that (well, I don't really like being rushed at all, I guess!). So I didn't want to leave it any longer and chose to get it done this afternoon.

At night I was out and around once again with the couple I've mentioned before. I think I've not for a long, long time been quite so moved as I was tonight round there.

The guy started speaking about how they've changed as the weeks and the months have gone by.

How they now as a family, when they get round the table to eat, 'say grace' - give thanks to the Lord, that is, for all of his goodness in all of the gifts they enjoy.

How even at work when he starts a new project, he stops and he asks that the Lord would himself be the author of all that is done: that he'd be helped in his work to give it his best and sort of do it for God himself.

I was thinking as he spoke about Saul of Tarsus.

That was the guy who was dead against Jesus, got pulled up short by the Lord himself as he headed off north to Damascus, was blinded as he saw the Lord for himself and realised the error of his ways, how wrong he'd been. That guy. Saul of Tarsus.

When he finally arrived in Damascus, the Lord told a Christian called Ananias to pay this man a visit. Ananias wasn't convinced. I mean, Saul had a reputation. And it wasn't a good one.

And all the Lord said about Saul, all that he saw in a sense, was this - "Look! The man is praying!"

That's what came to my mind tonight. It moved me to the core. Like the Lord said to me as well, "Look! This man is praying!"

His wife is the same. She has problems at work and she's looking and asking for help. From the Lord.

So I took a deep breath, because I was getting the sense of what the Lord was telling me now to suggest. And I asked at the end, as we rounded things off, if they would be willing to pray. Out loud. That sort of thing.

They always ask me (which is great). So tonight I asked them.

And they did. He started off by saying simply, "Lord, this is a first..." and as he went on, giving thanks to the Lord, he was deeply and wonderfully moved. Almost to tears. At the goodness of the Lord. And what the Lord had wrought in him. And how the Lord was leading them and working in their lives.

There were tears in my eyes as well. It was humbling and moving beyond all words. Like watching a child being born and crying its embracing of life.

Did I say 'Easter comes early this year'??

It arrived tonight! It was absolutely wonderful.

"Look! The man is praying!"