Malborough 2017

I finish the month of September 2017 asking myself several questions, to which there may or may not be any answers to, only God knows the answers and they

shall be revealed when the time is right or in looking back in years to come. What I am meant to with my life now? How would my grandma expect me to react to her passing? Who am I meant to turn to when I’m needing wisdom and support? What will my daily, weekly, monthly pattern of life look like when I return from Grandma’s funeral? My Great Grandma, 91, (left, then 90), who was always a rock and pinnacle in my life, sadly passed away very suddenly during a short stent in hospital. It was completely unexpected and is a shock to us all. If I knew what I did now, 2 weeks ago when I left Aberdeen to come back to Malborough, I would have done things differently. However, everything happens for a reason and as Father Daniel said to me after he found out that my grandma had passed: “how you are feeling now, will be part of the gifts you’ll bring to future ministry.” Those words are very apt and true. How I feel with regards to being so far away from Grandma when she passed will be useful to me in years to come I’m sure of it. It is the unexpectedness of her passing that seems to have taken my family by complete surprise as it was only just over 2 weeks when she was taken into hospital that we joked about not needing a DNR as she still had some fuel left in tank, but I guess she used it all while in hospital trying to get better. But alas it is what it is. I need to remember how I feel for future reference. I need to remember all the advice that Grandma has given me over the years and closeness we had over the years. She certainly was the last of her generation, the wise ones who were brought up during the second world war and know what it was to be without things that we regard to being vital essentials to life today. But such is life and life doesn’t stick the rules we create for it. Life is full of change and we must adapt to it and move on, choosing not to remember the good moments but the bad ones as well. It is through overcoming challenges in life that we grow as people. Grandma may have passed but she will never be forgotten. I swear she would say to me come on Lewis that’s enough about me, you’ve got your own life to live and mind what I told afore; that when I was your age the one thing I regret is playing the field, it just wasn’t done in those days, so you’ve got my blessing to play the field. Thanks Grandma, love you to bits. Grandma you may be gone from the earth, but you’ll never be gone from me, I’ll have carry you in my heart wherever, I’ll go. Anyway, what should I do know in life now? That’s what I’m asking myself now. And in truth I must go forth, it’s the only direction that time goes as far am aware, to see the world, to figure out what my calling is in life, to do my family proud and to bring Glory to God in all that I do. So when I get back from Scotland I will need God’s guidance in whatever form it may come to figure out my daily, weekly, yearly pattern. And that is my hope for October that I can learn from the events of September, especially of the last week, and use them in my ministry in this area, in my day to day, while figuring out how my life in community will be, especially while we are still looking for people to join the community. However, I believe that God is working on that slowly but surely God is working on that. In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus tells Simon Peter to cast his nets out into the deep and our prayer, that is prayer of the community, of the management team and resident cohort, is that: God will call us and lead us into the deep, the deep of ourselves, the deep of the world and that God will stir within the deep of those who he is calling to community and that God will enable our paths to cross, that God will show us the way in this. God, we ask that You will help us to do Your work and to help us to bring You Glory in all we do. To Yours be the Glory for now and forever. Amen.