Returning to the north of Scotland from southern California
in November is always a shock to the system. One of the main contrasts is the
light – or lack of it.
After a couple of weeks basking in a daily dose of warm
sunshine, flying into Aberdeen in the late afternoon when it is already dark,
buffeted by the wind and lashed by the horizontal rain...it can be a pretty
unpleasant shock. Even though it is anticipated.
Still, sunshine awaited us, in the smiles of dear friends
waiting to whisk us home, in the blooms of the yellow roses clutched in their
hands and in the warmth of their greeting.
It awaited us in the refrigerator in the form of a delicious
risotto lovingly prepared by one of our dear daughters-in-law, and left with a
few essentials to start us off again.
It awaited us in the phone calls and text messages and
emails welcoming us home.
Recently someone said something to me which I heard years
ago from the pulpit. When asked what a certain place was like to live in, he
responded that it depended on your attitude. If you went in ready to make the
most of it, with a positive outlook and a cheerful visage, it was a wonderful
place with lots of opportunities for new experiences and new friendships. If you
went in reluctantly, expecting the worst, that is what you would find.
Life is what you make of it, in other words. We all face
challenges. Some of us live in the sunshine and some live in the snow, but
neither matters if the light of Christ is that which guides and empowers you.
It’s good to be home, cold and dark though it is. It was
good to be ‘home’ in California too, where I grew up and where part of my heart
will always be. But either place, or indeed somewhere else, it is good to be
alive in this beautiful world God has given us.
We are all blessed by the sunshine of his love. May you bask
in that today.
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