Work

This evening I'm thankful for my job.

I've just had a manic week of preparing for some big stuff we have coming up in the next couple of week in church, and though it's been long days stretching into evenings to get things ready, I love what I get to do.

I love the variation in my days. The rhythm of groups that repeat weekly with programmes that are constantly changing. 

This week I prepared two upcoming services, made Christmas baubles with a kid's club, wrote intercessions for church, painted 8 4-foot Christmas tree posters, had a great youth group where 9 signed up to do a drama in our Christmas service, took communion with some senior members of the congregation, had tea and homemade shortbread whilst hearing a life story and then discussing an amazing Christmas appeal for presents for underprivileged kids in Ireland, and met with our curate to look to the future for our exciting parent and toddler church service that just won't stop growing.

That was this week, and I love that it was fantastic but I'll never have another week exactly the same. I'll do it again, but it'll be different. I love the change, and that I've gotten to the point in this position where people have started asking me in for tea and shortbread to share their stories. To share their lives.

A year ago I was in a very different place when thinking about work, and so this evening I'm so thankful to the One who can turn things around, both the situations we are in, and the eyes we see them with.

This coming week promises to be very different, I have been given the incredible opportunity to take part in the Arrow Leadership Programme over the next 18 months, and it all starts tomorrow with 5 days of residential lectures. 

I think I have heard enough about it to know that this is something I can be very thankful to have the opportunity for.

The cracks

Today I am thankful that the writers of the Bible don't paper over the cracks. 

I've been reading through parts of Acts and I'm thankful that, like my life and ministry, it isn't perfect. People fall out, there are disagreements, plans come tumbling down, there are times that it looks like these early faithful followers are hypocrites, like they are compromising their values, and many times they are! But throughout it all, God is at work in their human frailty, in their brokenness. 

I'm thankful that God doesn't need to paint over the imperfections or sweep past the inadequacies and mistakes. I'm thankful that he doesn't need or ask for perfection in order to be used by Him, because I know myself, and I am far from it.

"For your tomorrow, we gave our today."

Today is Remembrance Sunday, and the service in church was focused on remembering those who fought and died for the freedom of the nations that we live in.

I'm thankful for the sacrifice of those who went before me, who gave their lives so that I could grow up in freedom. Who gave all of their tomorrows so that I could see today, and live safely and freely beyond it.

I liked the Act and Prayer of commitment that we spoke at the end, which reminded us that our God is not a god of war, but a God of peace. He does not revel in the "glory" of war, taking sides and trading pieces like an enormous game of Risk, but is (I assume) saddened by our inability to be peace-builders and forgivers, mourning alongside the families of the fallen on both sides. I'm thankful that God is like that.

Act of Commitment

Let us pledge ourselves anew to the service of God and our fellow men and women; that we may help, encourage and comfort others and support those working for the relief of the needy and for the peace and welfare of the nations.

Lord God our Father, we pledge ourselves to serve you and all humanity, in the cause of peace, for the relief of want and suffering, and for the praise of your name. Guide us by your Spirit; give us wisdom; give us courage; give us hope, and keep us faithful now and always. Amen.

Adventures

I'm thankful today for good friends, and adventures.

And for good friends going on adventures.

My age-old amigo Karen headed off to New Zealand for the year this morning, so I'm thankful for her friendship over the last 7 years and thankful to God for the opportunity he's given her to travel and work over there. Much celebration has been had over the last week as our little group said our farewells (including many failed attempts at lighting Chinese lanterns, almost ending in a fiery blaze...perhaps if this whole youth work thing doesn't catch I might have a career in firefighting ahead of me) but this yokel didn't take any pictures, so you'll have to imagine it...

Thankful for Karen and praying for safe travels and big adventures.

"I've found the one who my soul so long craved."

8 years ago I went to South Africa for 3 months, and while I was there, I learnt to sing and play a song from some of the people I had travelled there with. I remember loving it, and the sentiment behind it really meaning a lot to me in the place that I was with God during that season in my life.

I was flipping through an old journal and found the words to that song. Memories of haunting melodies in beautiful hilly valleys came flooding back to me. I love this song.

Poughkeepsie

I thought I'd go out Poughkeepsie

Searching for a clear spring

That I'd hoped would quench the burning

of the thirst I felt within

Leaning on the world around me

Till my strength was almost gone

Longed my soul for something better

Only still to hunger on

(Chorus)

And I can't feel at home in this world anymore

I've found the one who my soul so long craved

And if heaven's not my home then Lord, what will I do

Because I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Poor I was, and sought for riches

Something that would satisfy

But the dust that gathered round me

Only mocked my soul's sad day

Well of water ever springing

Bread of life so rich and free

Untold wealth that never faileth

My Redeemer is to me

The Unsung Heroine of the Warsaw Ghetto

A few years ago, I came across this eulogy in a magazine that was lying around. An incredible story of bravery and heroism in the face of great risk to personal safety. I've carried this story around with me for the last few years, both literally and in my mind, inspired and thankful for the example of faithful and dedicated people who refuse to lie down and accept evil in this world triumphing over the downtrodden and persecuted.

You won't regret taking the time to read this, it's one of the most inspiring stories I've read. The last sentence gives me goosebumps every time. To me it's the Kingdom of God at work.

The Unsung Heroine of the Warsaw Ghetto

(Taken from "THE WEEK", 24 May 2008)

Irena Sendler, who has died aged 98, is credited with having saved the lives of some 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII. She risked her own neck to do so, said The Independent, but never considered herself a heroine. "That term irritates me greatly," she reflected in 2005. "The opposite is true - I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little."

Born in Warsaw, the daughter of a Roman Catholic doctor, she was brought up to help the needy. "If you see someone drowning," her father used to say, "you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not." When the Nazis herded the city's 500,000 Jews into an area of barely four square kilometres, to await transportation to the death camps, Irena joined Zegota, the secret council for Aid to Jews. She and her colleagues visited the ghetto disguised as nurses, purportedly to treat the inhabitants for disease. In reality, however, they were spiriting the children to safety in sacks, in baskets, even in coffins, before hiding them in convents or with sympathetic Gentile families. They told the Nazis that they infants in question had died of typhoid.

Late in 1943, Sendler's house was raided by the Gestapo after a tip-off. She just had time to give her list of the identities of the rescued children to a friend (who hid it in her underwear) before being taken away. She was tortured, her broken legs and feet leaving her permanently disabled, but she told her captors nothing. Finally she was sentenced to death, but Zegota managed to bribe her guard to release her. After the War she became a social worker and director of vocational schools. For decades, Sendler's wartime bravery went unrecognised, said The Daily Telegraph - the communist authorities were more concerned with rewarding the deeds of party members. It wasn't until 2003 that she received Poland's highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, and in 2007 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (it went to Al Gore). 


She spent her last years in a nursing home being looked after by one Elzbieta Ficowska, whom, in July 1942, Sendler had smuggled from the ghetto in a carpenter's toolbox.

Camp

This morning I'm thankful for an excellent weekend away with some fantastic young people in Kilkenny. Tiring, but oh so worth it!

I'm thankful for leaders who dedicated many hours into the preparation, organisation and then set up of the weekend, for speakers, singers and seminar-leaders for speaking and sharing into the lives of the teenagers. 

For many of the young people, attending from every corner of Ireland, this is the only time in the year that they are able to get together with a bigger group of like-minded peers, so watching them make the most of it really makes it worth while!

I'm also especially thankful for the extra hour in bed we got on the Saturday night. Never is the hour change more welcome than when it comes slap bang in the middle of a youth weekend...

Daily Thanks

I saw this a while back, and while I don't think it's necessarily something that theologically God would be behind, it's a good challenge to think about whether we are really acknowledging with a "Thank You" the things that we are given by God.