Mothers, and Father

I have had a busy week in a way, this week. I've been working full time this week, as my manager is on holiday, and I've been too tired to really think about doing much outside of work. Which has meant that there hasn't really been anything to talk about on here. However, yesterday was Mothering Sunday (not Mother's Day), and was also the end of a conference at church.

Mothering Sunday is not Mother's Day (which apparently is in May)-the origin of it was to celebrate at your 'mother' church, to enable families to spend time together. Read about it here if you want to know more. But it's still a good excuse to spend time with my mum, which I did. I didn't go to her church, though, as I had to be at mine in the morning to sell tickets for a performance by Springs Dance Company called 'Bread of Life'. It's on Maundy Thursday (March 28th) if you're interested.
Anyway, as I had to be there at the end of the service, it only made sense to be there for the actual service. Where the speaker was one of speakers we'd had at the conference during the week. He started by getting people to pray for people who had problems with back pain, all of whom got better. One is a good friend of mine, and I spoke to her after the service, and I can say definitely that she frankly said the pain was gone. Which is cool. And a good way to start a talk. I can only really remember a few things about his talk; the main thing being a story about a guy in a gang who first came to his church because he wanted to shoot him. He didn't do anything, and left in a hurry at the end of the service. Shortly after that, he got arrested; and Robbie (Dawkins, the speaker) went to visit him in prison. He was aggressive at first, and was in his face, and demanded that Robbie tell him what he did to him. Robbie didn't know what he meant and said so; he told him that when he went to the church he found himself unable to move until the end, so he got out of there. Robbie told him that was God, and He wanted to give him the chance to have a different life. The guy refused at first, but on being told that most of the N.T. was written by a murderer decided he wanted to. Robbie prayed for him in the interview cell, and his face changed. He said that he had been carrying round rage, hate and shame all his life, and it had gone. I had tears in my eyes at that point, though that wasn't the end of the story. If you want to hear it all, you can listen here- the talk is 'The Presence in the Boat'.

So then, I went to see my mum. My sister wasn't there, possibly as her daughter had decided she was going to come home early from her dad's house as she "should be with you on Mother's Day", and she was going to make her lunch. I don't know how that went; originally she was going to do breakfast, which she was quite confident she knew how to do. And so I spent a nice few hours with my mum, talking about all sorts of things, but I remember Lent and church came up in the conversation a lot. Which was nice, but all good things must come to an end (and, thankfully, bad ones); and so, I went back home-or at least to the evening service.
Where the talk was on grace. I can remember him talking about waves and tides cleaning up beaches; about how after a holiday weekend, the beach is in a real state, but with time and tides, it gets restored. This may seem a small, simple thing, but it's far from that. To realise, to remember that whatever has happened God not only can but will restore is a vital truth to hang on to. It may be all you do have to hang on to sometimes, until He does it. If you need it, that talk is available too, on the same page.
And then, I had some good times with friends, some I've only started to get to know recently. And I spoke to Dan Browne, who tried to get me to go to the A.S.E.T. ball this coming week. When I said I couldn't afford it, he prayed for me to be given money. Just in general, not money to go. So it will be interesting to see what God does.