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I missed you last week (23 March)

This week’s Thought for the Week comes from Sandra Crawford, pioneer minister in Essex and member of EBA Council.

Last week I was given a biscuit by an 8 year old boy and I cried.

Almost a year ago I moved from North to South, from 27 years of busy ministry life to something very different.

I have moved to try and find a different way of being, a different way of living and a different way of journeying with God.

I have spent almost a year beginning to get to know the community here, walking the streets, volunteering in various places, and trying SO hard not to get too busy. I have felt God say to me repeatedly – I want to talk with you my daughter, my child.  I don’t want to talk to Sandra the pastor, the church leader, the project leader, I want to talk to Sandra and spend time with Sandra.   For so long my prayer life has been about the work I do and the people I meet and care about.  Over the last 12 months I have been reminded of Mary and Martha time and time again; Martha the busy one and Mary the one who chooses to sit and listen at the feet of Jesus.  I’m learning to sit with God, walk with God, paint with God, be with God.  I’m learning to notice the birds of the air, the flowers and their colours, to watch the sea and the sunset, to ponder, to listen, (please note the sunrise doesn’t feature in my watching, sleep is important too).  I wonder if salvation is not so much about a ticket to heaven but restoring our ability to see clearly, to reperceive the world around through the lenses of the Kingdom of God, attuning ourselves to God’s spirit?*

So as I’ve sat with God over these past months what have I heard?  What is my ministry going to look like in this new location?  Well, I’m still not sure about that because God had other priorities, he told me he loves me and wants me to sit with him, he told me I need to care for myself because he created me and there’s only one of me, he told me I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, and I am his treasured possession.

So back to the biscuit and the tears.   I was walking to the youth club where I volunteer and praying Lord why I am going, what do you want me to do this evening, who can I get alongside and encourage?   At the beginning of the session a boy came up to me and said, ‘I missed you last week, you weren’t here to sit with me’, I had a quick chat with him, and he ran off. At the end of the session, he came up to me to show me the biscuits he had made, he offered me one, but I declined and said, “no take them home to your family”. But he pulled one out of the bag and gave me a fairly squashed heart shaped biscuit and he said, “I made this heart for you because I love you”.  I was speechless (a rarity!) and a tear ran down my cheek, I had just heard the voice of God from the mouth of an 8 year old.

“I missed you last week, you weren’t here to sit with me.  I love you’.

*Shaun Lambert ‘Putting on the Wakeful One’  this book has been a huge help to me as learn a more contemplative way of being.

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