clearing paths

There was a further fall of snow today.

Compared to the rest of the country, though, it didn't amount to much. But it did seem to throw arrangements across at the school a bit.

I went along for the 10am assembly. Not quite shock, horror on the faces of the secretaries. More a gasp of 'Oh dear!' They'd changed the time of the assembly today from 10am to 9am. Not to worry. I'd be back.

The Scripture Union group meets each week at 12.45pm. So I was along in good time for that. But the snow meant lunch arrangements were slightly changed as well. 'Inside breaks' and all that. So instead of our usual half and hour we got maybe 15 minutes with the children.

Better than nothing, but pretty brief, of course. And they're always keen to come along, no matter how short the time might be.

I'd missed it last week. They'd all been challenged to find some ways of doing the Jesus thing and servinig other folk. And I knew they'd be asking me as well what I had done this week.

The snow at least gave a chance to serve the community. Out with the snow shovel shifting the snow and clearing the paths around the buildings here.

'Preparing the way for the king' was how the prophet John understood his role in life. That was a long time back. But it's part, I suppose, of how I see myself. Clearing the paths of access to and for the king. As it were.

I called by on a lady this afternoon whose husband had died a wee while back. She hasn't all that much time for the church. As in, she doesn't have a great opinion of the church. Stuff your religion is probably about where she's at.

Which is fine by me. I don't have that much time for religion myself. And I told her so.

She told me a bit of her background and what it was in the past that had put her off. Church, in all of its worst, most religious of guises. Rules and regulations. Threats and demands. Callous and careless of how people felt and what people's needs might have been.

No wonder she's not that enamoured with Christ and his church.

Well, I explained, as I said, that I wasn't 'religious' myself, and didn't have that much time for 'church' the way she'd spoken of the thing. I said I was just a follower of Jesus. That he was worth getting to know.

She wanted to know what I meant. So I explained. And what I'd thought might have been just a brief little fifteen minute call, ended up a good deal longer!

What will my sister think of me if she finds I've been speaking to Jesus? were pretty much her parting words. I don't really know. But it'll be interesting to find out!

Those sort of conversations are a part of how the paths are slowly cleared, enabling folk perhaps to get a good deal nearer to the Lord.

At night I was out in the home of another family. They've known grief as well. Deep, profound, sore. Tragedy and sorrow six months back.

I sensed it was right to go out and see them once again. I mean, I do pop in from time to time. But I just had that sense that I really should go there tonight.

I was glad that I'd gone. And I think they were too. They were, all of them, there. And it's always so easy to be there as part of their family life. They always make me welcome.

We chatted, of course, over all sorts of things. Including the pain of their grief.

It's hard, I think, to feel able to get through to God when you've been through the mill as they've been. It's not just as snow that the flakes of their sorrow have fallen. It's more like a blizzard that's come.

Clearing paths through such 'drifts' takes an awful long time!

But I'm ready to make the effort. That's what I'm called to do in life.

Shovel the snow all away and clear all the paths so that people get through to the king.