Bitter sweet

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." - Psalm 116:15

On Sunday morning Heather and I heard, along with the rest of the church, the sad news that one of our friends, Lorne Drover, had died in the night. He was nearing his seventies and was in good health, but the Lord decided it was time to take him home.
In the late summer, after the team from England left us, Heather and I were feeling very lonely and Lorne and Verna took us under their wings to be parents to us. The night after the basement flooded at the church where we live, they took us to their home, gave us a wonderful meal and a bed for the night - they would have had us for longer if we could have stayed. Whenever we saw Lorne he would give us a big hug and ask how we were doing.
Though we didn't know Lorne very well, we shall miss him but not as much as Verna shall. It is with pain and with joy that I write this - the pain of knowing we shan't be seeing Lorne around, the pain of the grief that we know Verna shall pass through, but the joy of knowing that he is with his Lord and Saviour, the one who truly gives life and life to the full. This is the bitter-sweet passing of one of the saints.

"Where, oh death, is your victory?
Where, oh death, is your sting?" - 1 Corinthians 15:55

For the Christian, death is a doorway to the glorious presence of our King and Lord, our Saviour and Friend and holds no fear. Yes, we certainly shall shed tears because we shall miss Lorne, but we rejoice in the confidence of knowing where he now is.
Our prayers are for Verna, that God would comfort and support her through a painful time.

A final thought, I just wonder if Lorne's met my dear friend Arnold yet; he went home just a few weeks ago.

Messings and blessings

House vandals on the loose!
Our last month has been wonderful, house-sitting for Johan and Andrea. The house is absolutely beautiful and it has been such a blessing to be able to stay in it. To have a car to use was icing on the cake!

Unfortunately, our stay was not without incidents – far more incidents than we are used to. Within the first few days the coffee maker stopped working – we don’t think this was our fault, probably just the coffee maker having premonitions and deciding to gracefully go before we were able to do anything to it.

One day, as one of us was driving the car, the orange engine light came on. This is a light that you really don’t want to come on, especially when you’ve had one come on before. Maybe the orange lights like us and think it would be nice to light themselves up for us, I really don’t know, but I wish they wouldn’t do it. What was scary was that the car started to misbehave in that it regularly refused to start. Anyway, we took it to the garage and they tested the car and said it was only a cracked gas filler pipe. They didn’t say anything about the starting problem but I figured that it was all related and hummed and haaahed about whether to book the car in to get it fixed or hope it stayed alive until its true parents returned. I was considering the problem and I thought about what a gas filler pipe is and realized that it’s probably the pipe between the hole where you stick the gas pump nozzle and the gas tank. I don’t know why a crack in that would make the orange light go on, but what do I know?
As I chewed on this Andrea’s brother, Earl, showed up most fortuitously and we spoke about the problems. He agreed that this was probably what the tube thingie was and to leave it for Johan to decide about. He also suggested that the trouble we were having with starting was with the switch on the clutch. For you British readers, starting a standard car (a manual transmission) you have to press the clutch in before turning the ignition key – I don’t know why – I had an idea once, but I can’t remember what it was (seems to happen a lot these days.) Anyway, the switch that detects that you’ve pushed the clutch in is getting a bit miserable and can’t always be bothered to do it’s job.
Happily I am no longer anxious about the orange light.

A brilliant idea that the Canadians have is to used a squeegee wiper to clear the glass doors of your shower cubicle. In my enthusiasm to ensure that the doors were nice and clear, I pressed a little harder than the squeegee could handle, and I broke its neck rather thoroughly. After a suitable period of mourning we replaced it with a new model that is wider and so only takes two long wipes to do each of the three sliding doors rather than three. Hopefully Johan and Andrea weren’t too attached to the old one. Makes one think of replacing a loved goldfish. (Lisa if ours dies, please DON’T replace it!)

After sadly chipping a really beautiful mug and ruining a baking tray under the grill, probably our worst moment of destruction came as Heather was walking to the bedroom. The floors are wooden and Johan and Andrea have a number of animal hide rugs around the house, including one outside the bedroom door. On our final day, as Heather was walking back into the bedroom, she slipped and took the tail off the poor creature! After applying superglue and adhesive dressing tape, we are hoping the body shall keep a firm grip of the tail and cause no further embarrassment. Why couldn’t it have been a guinea pig skin – they don’t have tails.

Thanksgiving
Returning to the church was a challenge. Having had the run of such a beautiful house, it is horribly easy to grumble about having to go back to the church to live, especially on Thanksgiving weekend! Pastor Lyle preached on how we can so easily grumble about things rather than finding things to be thankful for. It spoke to us both and so we rebuked ourselves and set to turning our attitudes to one of thankfulness for what we have been blessed with.
Many people would give anything to be able to live in the comparative luxury we have in the church, others would be overwhelmed to have the privilege of living in God’s house, still others would be glad to simply have a roof over their head. We determine to be thankful that we have a warm room to ourselves with a very comfortable bed, that we have access to bathrooms with clean running water and hot showers, that we can use a kitchen with a cooker, fridge and freezer, that we have free high speed internet access to be able to stay in touch with those we love. We so readily look at things others have that we don’t instead of looking at the things that God has blessed us with.
Paul writes to the Philippians,

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

I hope I can learn to have the same attitude as Paul who also wrote,

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I strongly suspect the key to being content is being thankful for what you have – it’s difficult to genuinely give thanks and to grumble in the same breath!
Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada, I hope I can learn to make every day a Thanksgiving Day, where I live in God’s will for me – to give thanks in ALL circumstances!

God bless you,
With love,
Steve