An Adventure in Ministry

This week I, along with many other ministers within The UK and Ireland territory of The Salvation Army met together for three days of worship and the word at our ‘Officer’s councils’. I have to admit that in the midst of an incredibly busy season, I was most looking forward to a couple of days away with my husband where I didn’t have to cook, clean or do the washing! However, as God often does, he completely surprised me and I had the most powerful time away.  The theme of the three days was ‘Lifting our eyes to the king’ and from the moment our time began I had a real sense that God was doing something. On the first afternoon, our Territorial Commander, shared with us about Peter walking on water and how we need to lift our eyes to the king, especially when we are in the waves and think we may be sinking. He shared with us some verses from Hebrews 12:1-3 and throughout the three days they kept playing through my mind. Five little words even kept me up in the middle of the night, a...

Recently I had a pretty scary experience with my daughter. She had been struggling with a cold and it had began to settle on her chest. One of the difficulties of children with Down Syndrome is their ‘pipes’ are usually a little smaller and so they can have colds move to their chest easier with a more dangerous consequence. As I sat and watched my daughter lying on me and having a second nap of the day (which is almost unheard of!) I started to worry. She was really laboured in her breathing. Every time she breathed it took the whole of her body to enable it and it was clearly getting worse. It wasn’t long before we were taking a very poorly little girl to accident and emergency. It was a very distressing night with lots of tests, lots of treatment and a good dose of oxygen. Thankfully the little one is back to her usual self and is doing well, but reflecting on the experience I have learned something about the nature of God. In the bible, in its original translation, the name for Go...

The other week I received the letter that I had been dreading would come. The letter that said ‘Your daughter needs to be shielded from Covid-19 for a minimum of 12 weeks’ and with that everything changed. Well to be honest it wasn’t as dramatic as that. We had already been isolating for five weeks already and in many ways life would continue much the same as in previous weeks, but as is often the case, along with the letter, the enemy seemed to enter my mind with words of fear, anxiety and worry. Looking to the news for guidance and reassurance did very little to help so I looked to the place that overflows with reassurance and words of comfort, I looked to scripture and I wasn’t disappointed. Psalm 28:7 says: ‘The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with songs I praise him!’ What a promise! The scripture makes it clear that God will shield us, in every situation and even as we shield those...