Christmas

Just when I thought there was maybe a moment of breathing space ... two more of our members breathe their last.

This time of year is often like that. Christmas is always busy. Happily so.

But it's dark and it's cold and the days are all short and the bugs are all having a field day. And people get ill and they tumble and fall and it's hard keeping track of it all.

Christmas itself was great! I love the buzz about the place with all the different services there are. And all the different people who pitch up to share our worship at this time.

Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday - a non-stop round of Jesus-centred celebration. Or so it seems.

And yesterday afternoon there was another act of worship in the Hall as a couple whom I married three years ago joined their family and friends in thanking God for his goodness to them in the gift of their new baby daughter.

The couple live in America now. They belong to a congregation over there where the girl was formally 'dedicated' a while ago. But they were really conscious of how many folk over here have prayed for them and their child.

So they wanted to have a kind of 'second dedication' over here, a chance for all their family and friends to join them in committing litle Chloe to the Lord.

It was a great time again. Kind of like a little gathering of believers in a home. Informal, relaxed and full of praise. It seemed a brilliant way to round off Christmas week.

Except no one had a home that big - so we held it in the Hall down here.

And it left me thinking again what a huge big privilege it is to be called by the Lord to do what I do and to share with such folk in their joy.

Sometimes it's sorrows and griefs that I share with folk, though.

And today's seen me fixing up dates and times for another two funeral services. One died on Christmas Eve, the other on Christmas Day.

Death, it seems, has no respect for dates.

Unlike the crematoria, of course. Which means that both of these funeral services will be taking place next week, not this. Still, there are visits to be made, and folk to be seen. The wait's never easy for anyone.

The days beyond the funeral are often the hardest, of course. That's when the 'void' begins to be felt in a way that's not quite there before the funeral.

Funerals are very final. They kind of draw in permanent ink the line that death itself has merely 'pencilled' in.

Very final. And that's when the 'void' hits home.

I was out tonight to call on folk who've crossed that line in recent weeks. Christmas has served as a sort of 'buffer' a bit, I think - a 'buffer', that is to the impact their loss will have. But I thought I'd call on by nonetheless. Just sort of touching base with these folk in their grief.

Letting them know that I'm there. And that the Lord is there as well. Which is more to the point.

There's nothing to say which is really going to help. Platitudes don't help. A neat and learned discourse on the hope that Christians have - that, too, is hardly a help.

It's not the head that's hurting but the heart. The heart needs bathed by something more than just the solace of a few well chosen words.

It needs the soothing sense of God's own gentle presence and his understanding love.

Immanuel, I suppose.

Christmas in its truest sense.