A Special Day

We should always make a special effort to celebrate and remember important events in our lives. Like family birthdays and wedding anniversaries… oops, what’s the date today? Oh dear, until reminded I clean forgot my own wedding anniversary! And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Yes, yes, I know it was perhaps one of the most wonderful days of my life but in some miraculous way I seem to be moving on. I'm not looking back too much any more  and there’s no point as that’s not where my future lies. So I know I think about and indeed write about Jane quite a lot still, and that is an important part of grieving; but it’s no longer painful in the way it once was. There truly is a lightness in my spirit, a sense of joy and gratitude for the life I was so blessed with. And although the love I have for Jane can never diminish, in some mysterious way it has changed; or should I say it has moved. No longer in that painful and very raw place as an open wound upon my heart, it has been completely enclosed inside the love and the grace and the peace of God, which fills my heart to overflowing. I feel so much more secure emotionally when thinking of Jane. Not quite finished with the tears yet, but certainly far more in control.

I recently had a brief conversation about bereavement, and the fact that it doesn’t seem right. Of course ‘rational’ thinking makes complete sense of life and death; we’re born, we live, we die, just like every other part of the natural world, end of story. It’s just that something inside of me says that there has to be something more, and that something is God. So there was a day, many years ago when I explored that idea. And I discovered, quite wonderfully, that it does not have to be a distant relationship, dependent upon religious ceremony, and only to be made certain upon our own death. Rather, we can know him today as he fills our hearts with his presence and stirs our spirits with his word. Yes, God truly speaks and works in our lives in as real a way as the closest of friends ever. In fact life only truly makes sense and only really has meaning with God in the equation.

Sunday the 7^th October 1973, I drove to the Lake District for my honeymoon and had a great time, so tomorrow I plan to go find the motorway again. But instead of a beautiful 19 year old bride, I’m taking my 25 year old son who is suggesting we buy a new wok for culinary entertainment! Not quite the same, though yep, I’m looking forward to it. I did offer to drive him anywhere, and originally he mentioned Cornwall, but then it came back to Deal. I don’t mind.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 ^‘Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.’ (NLT)