Our eyes are on You

 

We take a newspaper once a week: we like struggling to do the Saturday Times crossword. It takes us most the week and we don’t always finish. We marvel at the people who whip out the answers during a morning commute on the Tube. Better brains than ours.

Of course we do more than just engage with the crossword. We read the news, and these last three weeks I have been shocked by stories of the ‘rape culture’ in schools. Other stories have saddened me, but these stories lead me to conclude that the days are evil.

Lord, we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

I remember this morning two tiny events which God used to open up the life I have been blessed to live. First, the way I met Don, being directed by the hotel receptionist to ask my question of the handsome young man in the kilt, coming down the stairs at that moment. I did ask him my question, and I’ve been married to him now for over 45 years.

Second, as we looked for a new home when we moved from Huntly, the paper on which I had pasted the possibilities I’d seen in local newspapers during the week rested on the car’s dashboard. I picked Don up from the overnight train from London on that Friday morning, a glorious morning.  As we headed out past Hazelhead Park, he rolled down his window (days before electric windows…) The paper was sucked outside, and despite our wild searching all over the vicinity, we could not find it. All we had was that day’s newspaper, and the one house that we suspected might tick our boxes. It hadn’t been lived in for three years; it was smaller than the flat we’d just sold and didn’t have a shower. It didn’t actually tick many of our boxes, but somehow, we knew it was the place for us.

We’ve lived in that house now for over 40 years, and it has enabled us to raise four kids in rural freedom, to take in refugees, to enjoy B&B guests, to welcome home family, and watch grandchildren play happily in safety. Our boundaries have fallen in pleasant places.

God is love; he is forgiving; he knows what to do. He holds so much power: he doesn’t need to do much to change the disastrous direction in which we as a ‘civilisation’ are headed.

Lord, we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you this morning. We desperately need your help, Father, and we put our trust in you.