Evensong

Tonight I found myself asked to take evensong at very short notice - a bit of an emergency had happened;  so, instead of attending the service and sitting with Ann in one of the front pews, I took my place in the stall by the organ with a degree of trepidation.  It's been a few years since I last led an Anglican service, and my departure from the Anglican ministry was painful, traumatic and - I would have to say without saying more - reflected poorly on me.  It has been a long journey from where I was that day to the sense I have today of the beginning of a revived confidence in myself not just as a Christian believer and disciple but as a minister, and there's a fair way to go yet.

The service went well, I think;  I enjoyed it, we had a good sing, and one or two people said some very kind things at the end.  The testimony I gave was very personal, but clearly touched other hearts too, and I thank God for that.  I am still waiting on him, and maybe I need to learn to do that with more patience and hope;  at the moment so many things remain difficult, muddled, uncertain, unsatisfactory - while the answer I sense to my prayers is along the lines of 'Just hang on in there; you remain my dear child, and in my own time I will show you what must happen next.'

So I will just hang on in there.  Holy Trinity, Leighton on a bright and sunny Sunday evening in July is, in any case, no bad place to be doing it.  I am among friends, and in a safe and peaceful place.  When the time is right I shall reach up and reach out, and find his hand is waiting for me.