Dan Parks drop kick days

There are days when I simply seem to struggle.

No apparent reason. Kind of 'bad hair' days. They just happen. (And quite often during the month of February!)

This was one of them. A struggle the whole way through.

Maybe the fact the day got off to an inauspicious start had something to do with it.

A bit like it was on Saturday past when Dan Parks kicked the match off at Murrayfield and sent the ball straight into touch.

Like half of Scotland, I groaned at that! And I thought, it's going to be one of those days. Which it was, of course!

But why is it always us Scots who seem to have such days? Far more, it would appear, than any other nation round about. It's the story of our life - and it doesn't seem fair at all!

Well my day today got off to a 'Dan Parks' start. I went round to the school for the usual assembly. Was greeted at reception by the friendly ladies there. Went up to the hall, eager for the action of another day.

And the hall was wholly empty. Not a soul in sight. And nothing that suggested an assembly was about to start within the next few hours!

So I shrugged my shoulders (metaphorically at least) and figured again that life's like that (especially for us Scots!): and called in on the Primary 5s again.

I'd wanted to offer the P5 year group the chance of a trip to Bibleworld. So I was quite buoyed up at the thought of that and glad of the chance to run the prospect past the P5 teacher.

It fell rather flat! It's the P6 pupils here that go to Bibleworld. Not P5. It felt like another little 'Dan Parks' moment in my day.

Mind you, I'm pleased there'll be the chance to run the whole thing past the P6 year group too. For I was going to ask if this was maybe a venture we could subsidise for them.

So I'll see what comes from that. I ran the notion past the head on my way out from the school: he seemed to be pretty thrilled that there might be that sort of help.

He realised what had happened - like they hadn't let me know there'd not be an assembly there today. So along with his apology he chatted for a bit. About the Easter service - things like that. So the trip to the school wasn't wasted at all. I'm not saying that!

There was more than enough here to be getting on with anyway. There's the usual lunch-time service every Wednesday. And I was leading that again today.

Our theme throughout these couple of months is the way God used so many folk who were, as it's sometimes kindly put, 'well up in years'. As in 'old'.

Sometimes I think society today just writes folk off if they've got beyond their forties. 'Youth' is alll the rage.

But not with God. I think it's good for some of the older folk to catch a glimpse of that and see just how significant their lives can always be. And why.

Today I was on about Abram and Sara. Right at the start of the massive, world-embracing purposes of God. A couple who were well and truly 'past it'. At least humanly speaking. But so far as God was concerned, really only about to begin.

It's a kind of topsy-turvy world this realm that's called the kingdom of God.

There were some at least for whom the message I unfolded from God's word was what they called quite 'overwhelming' in its magnitude. It obviously struck a chord in their hearts. It was, they said, like God himself had spoken to their very hearts.

The afternoon was spent in seeing different folk. Addressing needs. Sharing burdens. Working out the future when 'plan A' has failed to work.

Kind of moving on from the 'Dan Parks' drop kick into touch. Because most of the time, in most of our lives, we all make mistakes and get things all wrong and therefore we need to adjust. Plans B and C (and right on through the alphabet) are mainly what we use.

Plan A is not the norm. It rarely works out the way we think and hope and plan it will.

But sometimes it works out better than we ever could expect!

And the evening was rather like that.

I was round at the home of the couple with whom I've been meeting for almost a year. Our talk and discussion encompasses huge swathes of ground. I never know where the evening's going to go. But it's always really good.

And they've come on by leaps and bounds. Remarkable in many ways. And now they've reached the point where what they want to do is make it clear to one and all they're simply following Jesus in their lives.

I suggested that Easter might be a good point. They seemed up for that all right. Though I'll need to run the date past another girl who's also at that point and eager to profess her faith in Christ.

Exciting days!

Even if they are, at times, a struggle: and even if our best laid plans don't always work they way we hoped they would.