4th May 2012

By Alexander Hüsing [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

From here

I sometimes always find the faith journey a challenge. Pressing forward, overcoming every obstacle to fulfil it’s call, despite the evidence of our eyes, is a make or break deal. Do we raise our game and go for it, or give in to the whisper of doubt. Confidence grows as actions mature through the habits of a lifetime, despite the hurdles jumped being continually raised. This morning Wayne Rooney made the national news and though I never normal pay any attention whatsoever to football, this got my attention. I think he won some sort of vote for a best goal, and actually it was a quite spectacular overhead kick shown on the video. So here was this guy, with his back to the goal and the ball passing at shoulder height in front of him. He didn’t hesitate and simply went for it, even though he couldn’t see the goal behind him. He was certainly sure of what he hoped for and totally confident in his ability to perform the deed. I’d say that was quite literally a mighty leap of faith, though totally dependent upon his personal skill to produce the desired result. I find it wonderfully reassuring that my faith journey in Jesus Christ is not at all dependent upon my personal ability to produce results. It’s all about him. So success or failure, my life belongs to God and my goal is to simply walk in obedience, allowing him to work his purposes out through me. The funny thing is that my idea of failure is often turned on it’s head to become a God success story. So did I fail when I fought so very hard to save Jane’s life, by facilitating every medical intervention and prayer that stretched around the world? No! Sometimes God has a plan for our lives that is bigger than anything we can see, it’s all about his glory.

Anyway it wasn’t really the football that caught my attention as I watched the morning news. It was the Lord. He gave me a little gift… a reminder that I have not completed my season of grief. He’s called me to exclusively grieve for 12 months and to write about that journey. I’d love to have a different agenda for this blog and producing a meaningful, or even truly lucid, page of words every single day is obviously beyond me. But I persevere and as often as not manage to ramble my way through. Ok, I digress, back to the football. So there I was, thinking about the athletics involved in scoring such a goal, when an overwhelming sense of grief simply poured over me. Nothing to do with Wayne Rooney; everything to do with losing Jane. Other than the Lord gifting me that reminder to engage and fulfil my need to grieve, I have no idea what would have triggered such an emotional response. I certainly was not thinking of Jane in any way shape or form. Perhaps I should.

Faith asserts my firm conviction that the Lord is asking me to complete a year saying goodbye to Jane, ending in 3 weeks. Faith has a hope that I’ll then be able to begin rebuilding my life without hindrance. Of course I’ll miss her and there’ll be plenty of tears to come, that’s not the point. The point is that the blessing of Jane’s loving friendship for 40 years cannot be allowed to become toxic… losing the love of my youth will not define my next 40 years. God will. And he has plenty of love for me to share as I move forward.

Hebrews 11:1 ‘Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.’ (NIV1984)