Stones of remembrance

” What do these stones mean ?” Joshua 4:6

I have not long returned with some friends from nine days on the French Camino. I can only say what a fabulous time in so many ways and would encourage you, if possible, to walk it.

There have been many surveys done to determine the reasons people travel the Camino. The French Camino, a pilgrim trail, is one thousand years old but not everybody walks it for religious or spiritual reasons. Some look at the challenge of just walking 491 miles, some to maintain fitness and my friends’ comments when asked fitted into a number of categories.

Personally, I knew for me it was the continuing road to the healing of a broken heart. Jude has been in Paradise for nearly four earth time years but I still continue to miss my darl !. Yes, things are different now even the text books tell you that but grief is in the end still lived outside a book.

Jude would have loved the Camino but I was reminded of three things while walking and I would like to encourage you if you grieve a spouse in Christ.

Our lives are enlarged by the life of those that have gone before, we carry those precious memories.
There is a spiritual communion. Jesus has Jude and Jesus has me. There is a very fine liminal line between earth & paradise……think upon that…. it’s beautiful and one day at the resurrection of the saints we will be re-united, the veil will disappear.
No marriage is perfect but forgetting those things before we only carry forward the good.

I had collected some flat stones from Glendalough and had an idea what I would do with them so I wrote on seven of them along with a final round stone for leaving along the journey. There was no shortage of stone mounds so in my own away, often away from my friends I took a moment each day stopped and reflected on Jude, thanking God for her life, knowing she was safe outside of an ever increasing chaotic & hostile world……. Maranatha…Come LORD Jesus come!

The final stone ended up in a beautiful flowerbed, central Logrono!

Since my return I have had a desire to return solo and God willing I will return to Logrono on the 5^th August and complete the remaining 381 miles!!

Buen Camino

The Dawn Of A New Day !

The release of the Israeli hostages over the weeks has been both sweet & sour. The joy & ecstasy of families re-united coupled with the hard news for some of the death of loved ones. What an emotional roller coaster which will take a long time to heal. But it is good news for many and I would just like to share about the Dekel-Chen family in particular.

Avital Dekel-Chen was eight months pregnant when her husband Sagui was abducted by Hamas. What caught my eye was the child was to be called Shachar which means dawn or sunrise. Sagui certainly had been sitting in darkness in the shadow of death before the sunrise of release, such joy! His daughters name certainly prophetic, holding out in a time of darkness until the light came flooding in.

It took me back to the day Jude took her last breath, 2^nd September 2021 at 6.30am which was the time of the sunrise in Belfast.

Zechariah, John the Baptists priestly Father prophesied after the birth of John of the Christ and referred to Him as the Dayspring, which means the sunrise.

“Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:78-79

One of the greatest blessings I have received through bereavement are the writings of the Scottish divine Samuel Rutherford. One of his biographers quoted about the closing moments of Rutherford’s life into glory.

“With the dawn of the 29^th March 1661, “it was said unto him, ‘Come up hither’: and the renowned eagle took his flight unto the Mountain of Spices.”

For believers in Christ, this Jesus the Daystar should give us much hope when we are in a dark place or about to take our last breath. He can be trusted to do what’s best.

David Watson whose book “Fear no Evil”, outlines his battle with cancer said regarding our last breath,

“Death is only putting out the lamp at the rise of a new dawn”.

We thank God again for the amazing reunion of the Dekel-Chen family.

I would recommend the following books for encouragement.

Fear No Evil by David Watson Click Here

The Inspirational Treasury of Samuel Rutherford Click Here

Assist Us to Live Not Die

On Friday, MPs have the first opportunity to debate and vote on a proposed law which would give terminally ill people in England and Wales the right to choose to end their life.

The debate will last five hours with at least 150 speakers proposing to speak, which equates to two minutes per speaker according to a Sky News correspondent.

Please bear in mind, The Hunting Act which was passed in 2004 after a Government Inquiry had 700 hours of parliamentary debate.

This is a very close subject to me of course with Jude and I do understand every situation is unique and people can experience exceptional high levels of personal suffering in their last days. Emotionally it is a tsunami at the highest level.

I want to say first of all that for Jude, she wanted to live, and I too wanted her to live. The Doctors & nurses were amazing and throughout her treatment the levels of pain & distress were closely monitored. By the grace of God in that final evening and early hours of the following morning she was sleeping and there were no signs of any major anxiety, now that is what is called dignity in dying. Thankyou to all the staff at the City Hospital in Belfast.

As a Christian, I know that Jude after her last breath was in one moment absent from her body & present with The LORD. We should all be concerned more about what happens after our last breath. For more information Click Here

Sadly, as a nation in the UK we continue to gravitate away from our Christian pedigree which in times past influenced so many nations of the world with the Gospel. It breaks my heart to see how easy it is to get an abortion and now at the other end how easy it could become to end your life.

Even this morning in the book of Leviticus, God reminds His people Israel that taking or assisting another person to take their life is an act that carries the penalty of death. (Lev 24:17 &21).

I think God cares about LIFE, don’t you?

In the age of progressive medicine and palliative care we really do not have an excuse to even think on these things but Jeremiah was right when he said;

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (17:9)

I’m sure there are many who would like to have a member of their family, “Put down” because of what their family member is experiencing and what they too are experiencing emotionally but The Assisted Dying Bill is not the solution, we must simply continue working with the medical community and providing the funding that is so desperately needed to help in time of need.

Once we get, “Into our heads”, that the Assisted Dying Bill is a legitimate road it simply becomes a slippery slope when other things will be added in time, maybe somebody just depressed, fed up with life and there you go, the Assisted Dying Bill becomes a type of legitimate Suicide.

God help us as a nation to come back to Him and His principals for a blessed life.

If you know NOT Christ……. Click Here

The Trump Of God !

Some years ago, I remember seeing some beautiful flowers, resembling trumpets when delivering mail to a particular property. I knew the customers and after commenting on the flowers, I was blessed some weeks later with a gift of bulbs. They are called Nerine Bowdenii of South African origin.

The story goes that the flowers drifted on the seas from South Africa, eventually washing up on the shores of the island of Guernsey. It was this ocean voyage that earned the flower its name: ‘Nerine’, in a reference to the 50 beautiful daughters of the sea-god Nereus. The flower is also known as the Guernsey Lily in the UK.

Some say that the Nerine Bowdenii expresses what is often left unsaid, thus bridging the gap between heart and mind. “I care about you”.

As the flowers have just blossomed in the garden it reminded me especially in the area of grief, things that were left unsaid. Like so many others who experience deep grief you cannot help thinking whether you did enough and it takes time & prayer to bring healing to our emotions. You don’t always see things at the time but friends remind me I gave my best to Jude especially in the closing days.

Somethings are left unsaid, but love goes beyond words when it is deep & secure in a healthy marriage. I close with a “Life verse”, that encourages me daily regarding my re-union with Jude if I’m still living at the blast of a Trumpet !!!.

Be encouraged Christian if loved ones in Christ have been sent ahead…..

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so, shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thess 4:13-18

Praise My Soul The King Of Heaven

“Biddy watched the officers gently carry her husband’s casket into the peaceful quiet of the cemetery. Throughout the long days and nights beside him in the hospital, she had been so sure that Oswald would make it. The word from the Bible to her own heart during that time had seemed so clear, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.” (Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God page 9)

I remember like Biddy when faced with a sudden change in my own circumstances the questions & concerns about the future started to come. It was later in the chapter that I drew alongside her, the similarities were striking. At our wedding we sang, “Praise my soul the King of Heaven”, and I felt it should be included in Jude’s celebration of her life. Listen to what happened to Biddy next:

“Biddy closed her eyes, pulled Kathleen (their young daughter), close to her, and softly began to sing the hymn that welled up in her heart: “Praise my soul the King of Heaven, to His feet Thy Tribute Bring.” “It would not be the last time she sang those words when all seemed lost and her only hope lay in the grace of Almighty God”.

I have been so blessed reading the autobiography of Oswald Chambers. The famous devotional “My utmost for His highest”, came out of his writings.

New Years eve 1916 while stationed as a Chaplain in Egypt he wrote on a large blackboard:

“The Irreparable Past-Sleep on now. The Irresistible Future-Arise let us be going (Matthew 26:45-46)

It has been the grace of God that keeps me going forward with an irresistible future. I would like to write more on this subject about going forward and will do in June dv.