on the charge

No two days are the same. For which I'm very grateful.

Here's how this one went.

I'm out of the house at 6.30am or so. There are two lots of soup to be made, and I'm due at the school for half past eight, so I'm keen to get them up and on the go. It's a Christmas special today, so there's chicken broth and another concoction loosely based around carrots and broccoli, but 'spiced up' with a few other seasonal oddities.

It's the fifth and sixth years I'm speaking to at the Royal High at the first of the morning assemblies this week.

It goes quite well, and (I learn later on) they're still talking about it at break-time. Probably because I likened a group of teenagers who're prepared to trust in the Lord to what's called a 'crash' of rhinos - and added that it wasn't just because teenagers are usually 'horny'.

Rhinos have limited vision, they can't see beyond some 30 feet in front of them. But it doesn't prevent them charging out. And ... well, you can see why the collective name for a group of rhinos is a 'crash'.

We can't see the future either. Our vision is limited too. Mary and Joseph were teenagers, too, and couldn't foresee the future. Other than that it was going to be rather different from what they'd planned. But it didn't prevent them at all from moving on and out into the purposes of God.

Back here the guy who devised our database is in to check the computers. I'm no longer able to access as I once could do an updated version of our database.

He needs to be at my computer, so I've got a pretty good excuse to be out with the group of ladies who're in here every Tuesday for their coffee, tea and scones. We chat as we generally do.

I'm in and out of the office all morning, when my desk is free. There's loads of preparation still to do, and I'm not getting any long run at it now - which is what I had figured yesterday and why I did so much then.

My grand-daughter's here for lunch. With her Dad and Mum as well, of course! With her beautiful blue eyes, her lovely features, and such a contented look, she wraps all the folk right round her little finger. Including me! I'm long since besotted!

More folk to see in the afternoon. A time of prayer as well.

And then I discover I'm the victim of daylight robbery. I check (as I regularly do) my on-line bank account and find that since last I used the thing on Friday someone's gone and helped themselves to a tidy little fortune. Which has not done my balance any good at all!

So I call the bank and after touring the world (probably!) to get to the right group of people who deal with this on-line fraud, and disclosing (in short secure chunks) what seems like half my life story to them, to verify that I am who I claim to be, I've set in motion (I hope) a process which will see the sum being refunded to my account.

Meanwhile, I ask, what about my overdraft (and more to the point the fees that I'm going to be charged for being overdrawn)?

For that, I'm told, I'll have to sort something out with my own local branch. I call them. They're not answering. Presumably because they're closed for the day (24 hour banking doesn't apply at the local level, for reasons I entirely understand). I'll have to ring in the morning.

I contact our IT experts. They're still on the go. They start running the virus checks and doing all sorts of important sounding things which make me feel like I'm caught up in a crucial episode of 'Spooks' and that the health of the nation depends on what's being done.

'Spyware' and stuff like that.

At night I'm out delivering Christmas cards around the streets nearby. I call on most of the doors, and over the years have got to know a good many of the folk - to speak to at least.

Third door in and the lady of the house invites me in.

"My husband usually invites you in, doesn't he?" she asks at the door.

"Yes," I reply, "he's always been most hospitable."

I've got to know him a bit down the years. Mainly on the surface. But before I'm barely inside the door his wife has disclosed that the man has terminal cancer.

He was given something between 1 and 100 days to live back in August. He's doing pretty well. My maths isn't great, but I'm figuring off the top of my head he's topped the best prognosis.

He looks not too bad, though he's plainly tired and weaker than once he was. There's an urgency now in what I'm here to say. Given that the guy is on borrowed time, it's a chance to speak about what it is that Christmas is really about.

Jesus. His birth, yes, but that was only the start. His death: and then his resurrection too.

That's where our only hope lies, I'm telling the man.

I don't stay long - he's tired and I don't want to push it at all: but I ask if I might pray and he and his wife are glad to be commended thus to the Lord. I'll plan to be back.

It puts things in perspective. On-line fraud is a minor thing compared with the ultimate issues of life.

There are other homes, too, later on, where I'm welcomed in.

It's late by the time that I'm back. Later by far than I'd planned.

And still some phone calls to make.

But these are days when the Lord's at work. And though, like the rhinos, I can't see all that the future will hold, I'm on the charge.

And it feels like the Lord's on a roll!