I spend alot of time praying lately especially in the morning as I struggle with getting up .. morning comes and I find it a daunting day. I pray each morning I'll wake up with ease In my heart but i dont i just wake up worried and nervous each day.. i just want to wake up and feel good about the day. Not worried about it before it even starts good.. sorry just wanted to talk abit today hoping it gets rid of sinking feeling..
What a wonderful song Mike-it made me cry. I needed to hear something like that today.
I was christened in the Crown Church in Inverness, but my mother’s family was staunch FP from the islands. As a child visiting there, I was made aware that everything was about fear, and nothing was about joy or appreciation. Luckily I was not brought up in that atmosphere in my own childhood, and was never force fed anything.
I can remember back to my younger days when I was helped by an unseen hand on so many occasions, particularly when I was living in the depths of Russia when my father died. In those days, you needed a visa to leave the city I was in before even considering the need to have a visa to leave the USSR as it was then.
People appeared as if by magic to help me-to provide a train ticket, to come to Moscow with me, to risk their freedom to help me, to comfort me. I prayed very hard to be able to sleep on a night train, and I slept. God put those people in just the right place at the right time and gave me the strength I needed to complete my journey back to Scotland. The obstacles I faced in that journey were overcome, and it seemed like a miracle to me then. What I thought was impossible became possible. God was there with me.
I have never thought “why me” about my cancer, not even when it came back-it never crossed my mind to think like that or be bitter or angry about it. This was my challenge to deal with, and I’ve tried to do that to the best of my ability. I don’t blame God for it, that would be ridiculous in my mind. I don’t believe God “gives” cancer to those who are strong enough to bear it, or any other such nonsense. It is just the way things are.
Every single one of us faces challenges of different types in life, that’s just how it is. It’s how we cope with them and how we find comfort and strength to keep going that is important. Thank you for sharing your story of finding faith, Mike, and in particular for sharing that song. This will not be the only time I listen to it.
Sarah xx
The Crown Church is lively…… you have had an eventful life and great that the ‘unseen hand’ was there to help you out when you needed help.
One of the Lectio versus today is so true….
For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress. - Psalm 59:16
During a very challenging time during my second Stem Cell Transplant I ended up in the Critical Care Unit….. during the night I woke up to see 2 friends standing at the end of my bed with their hands in the air praying….
I pressed the call bell and I asked my nurse if she could see the 2 men…. Obviously she did not….. I also asked her if I was on any meds that would make me have hallucinations….. again I was told no….. “just a dream” she said.
Before she went off shift I asked her if anything happened during the night that was odd….. she told me about what I had said about the two men.
That morning I sent an email to the 2 friends…. back came the reply’s.
One woke up during the night and remembered that I was in hospital having a hard time so he prayed for me.
The other was in the USA and was checking through Facebook and noticed an update about me so he prayed also……. both were praying at the same time I saw them at the end of my bed…… that morning in my Consultant words “….Mike you have made a rather remarkable and unexpected recivery - you can go back to the ward and most likely you are much closer to getting home”
For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress
