COME BEFORE WINTER (2 Timothy 4: 21)

IMG_5108a.jpgPsalm 65: 11 ‘You crown the year with your bounty’.  The year with its changing seasons; seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, controlling the seasons of life.

A few days ago I sat in darkness for approximately four hours waiting for the electricity supply to be reconnected. I thought of  those who constantly sit in darkness, whose changing seasons have brought a legacy of darkness; whose life is filled with cold and chilling days. For them it is winter where the atmosphere is one of loneliness and chilling winds of  dismay.  My thoughts turned to the apostle Paul, the emotion surrounding these words: ‘Come Before Winter’.  My husband is currently writing a new publication to be released later this year, simply entitled ‘Hope’ – a timely word for those feeling abandoned and without hope, pages that will symbolise words of light and hope.   These three words depict longing for company, someone to care, parchments of comfort.  As I think of my own seasons in life, the memories of summer days,  but I also remember the winter days with an everlasting emotion of gratitude as I meditate on the Days of Harvest now filling my life.  I identify with Ruth (Ruth 2: 2)  ‘Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain’.  I long to return to the fields of Romania where I can     ‘drop a little handful on purpose’.  Hudson Taylor said, ‘Where the need is greatest let us be found gladly obeying the MASTER’S command.  For it is in the harvest field, it is among the reapers, that we shall find Him.’

I think of my dear friend Dorina, ‘Called Home’,  also Bobby, Florika and others – here for a ‘short season’ in fact, ‘a moment in time’, how soon they are gone!  Memories of my visits with them flood my mind, their gentle patience, quiet spirit and eagerness to live.  Their season of fear, change,  is past.  The staggering awareness is that thirteen deaths occurred during the first twenty days of June and this morning an email from Estera confirming at least three deaths occur in Emanuel Hospice Homecare Team each week. We who remain must be faithful in sharing ‘The unfolding of your words gives light…’ (Psalm 119: 130) it is important they find eternal security.  In each of our lives there is a Season and it is a Season of Purpose.  There are many tender ministries of the Lord, but it is in the time of loss we discover the deepest meaning of His compassion and tenderness. Many ‘little ones’ have broken hearts this evening, please remember them.

I miss the quiet lanes, garden walks where the many seasons of nature never failed to impress me.  The majestic, tall, mature trees with firm foundations of deeply grounded roots,  the bark clad with clinging ivy, yet from the falling twigs of these mighty giants of nature, nests of peace and security are built. The surprise as the leaves suddenly appear,  the snowdrop persistently pushing through the winter snow, the dormant twig suddenly springing to life but each in their own season. I pray that His word will take root in my heart and that buds of life, new growth will spring forth in my own season ‘For Such A Time As This’.

Give With Your Heart has been a wonderful journey of faith for me personally. I have felt the need for silence in my own meditation, to listen for that ‘still small voice’ of instruction and perhaps the requirement to ‘change my own thoughts’.  Again in the words of Hudson Taylor: ‘I so want you to realise this principle of working with God and asking Him for everything.  If the work is at the command of God, then we can go to Him in full confidence for workers; and when God gives the workers, we can go to Him for means to supply their needs’. The mountains of pain and devastation are overwhelming, in fact enormous. There is no ray of light for the desperately poor, no sunbeams for the orphan, disabled child, no rainbow of promise for the unwanted abandoned baby.  They are without love and without hope, there is no way out. I thank the Lord for His unending provision – January to August 2017, has been met, He is the ‘fountain of life’ and in His light we see light.  There are important decisions to make before we return on 08 October; we go in His name knowing His guidance is ahead of all decisions.  I am not standing at a crossroads; rather I am standing on faith for I know the Lord will supply four thousand pounds to complete the year to December. I have made the Lord my trust.   Ephesians 3: 20.  Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us’.

I cannot walk away, I will continue to ‘Follow My Heart’  for 2018.  Walk with me.

Shirley, 24 July, 2017.

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