future

A year ago today my Mum died.

Folk have been good in remembering that and their expressions of care are a bit like the gentle hand of God upon my life. That all meant a lot.

Not that I had a lot of time to think about it much at all. There was too much else going on and too much else to occupy my thoughts and heart. But the memory was there throughout the day, like a constant, heavy pressure on the heart in all that has been going on.

I was out at the school in the morning. Maybe the Lord made sure I wasn't around the halls here much this morning and simply took me away.

A class (P7) at 9am. The P1-3 assembly at 10am. A break with the staff at 10.30am. Then on to the Primary 1s after break to tell them the story of Noah.

There were things to keep me busy, in other words. Away from here. Like the Lord just walked me away from the place and gave me things to do which meant there wasn't time to sit and brood on everything. I guess he's pretty smart that way.

And then there was the funeral. Not that many there, for the lady who'd died was 90 years old and most of her peers were now gone.

She'd died in her chair in the home that she's had for more than forty years. The way we'd proabably all maybe choose to die.

And sitting in her chair, she'd had the tax forms of a client on her lap. For although she was long since retired, she'd kept up her work on personal tax and here she was, right to the end, immersed in the work that she loved.

I guess we'd all maybe choose to live and die like that. Able and glad to be active (at least in our minds) right up to the moment we die.

The pain of bereavement and death is the air that I've breathed today.

We've all felt it here.

We had a chance to chat things through later on. And pray.

That's the only means by which the battles of the Lord are ever won. And miracles are wrought.

He gives us the victory. But it's a lot of hard work.

And at night he took me out and off and away again. Back to Kirkliston for a meeting that lasted all evening.

The process of their moving on to find another minister takes time. But that's where they're at. A new day will dawn for them, as they do all their work, as they spend all this time, as they pray.

Maybe the Lord took me there tonight to remind me of that. His future will come.