Journey mercies

Every Sunday I go to both morning and evening service in my church and try to avoid missing it as much as I can. In fact, if I have to travel, I try to at least make it for the evening service. Sometimes I'm thoroughly exhausted and ask myself why I need to go for both, when I have just gone for one.

It's good to be reminded why.

Truth be told, morning services tend to be about other people - where I try to make new faces welcome because I know how scary it is being in a new church, or when you've struggled for so long to find and settle in a church, you really need all the help you get from the regulars rather than being put off by yet another cold and unfriendly face.

Evening services is for me. When I'm what matters to me, and while I jump from one new face to another in the mornings, I usually gravitate to more familiar faces in the evening. The one person who I usually gravitate to is Pam.

Being 83 years old, you bet she has lots of things to talk about. But we must really be what one calls kindred spirit, she can never talk enough to me!

She looked a little more gaunt than I remembered, and something about her eyes made me a little worried. When people started to leave after the evening service, Pam and I finally managed to catch a short private moment to speak. She had shown me some poems she wrote of her late husband who passed away slightly more than 3 years ago.

What she wrote was beautiful, the love she had shared over 60 years is beautiful, but more importantly, the beauty of the gift of love she knew that came from the Lord's hand was most beautiful.

It was odd, but at one point, we looked into each other's eyes and I don't think I heard what she was saying, and I don't think she remembered what she was saying, but in that moment, we knew what was in her heart.

15 minutes later, she shook off the quivers of her heart, and she spoke more firmly, more of the matter of the mind than the heart and there she was, the person who would fight for the Lord till the very last breath. It really is my privilege to be able to claim a friendship with such a person.