Going well
The course is going well, and I have relaxed! Having been out of full-time ministry for over a year, I was feeling quite anxious about whether I was up to this task of facilitating a small group, but they’re all really nice people and very responsive, so they make it easy for me.
The weather yesterday was superb, warm and sunny, so I decided to go for a walk in the afternoon, when we have two hours free. I carefully checked the large map on the wall in Reception and mentally noted what looked like a good footpath which would provide a circular route across country and back here.
Oops! I should have remembered that I am severely directionally-challenged! I found said footpath, walked for miles – probably about four – found I was on a road in another parish and had no idea which way to turn.
So I decided to knock on the door of the next house I saw (there weren’t many.) Eventually I came upon a farmhouse, knocked and banged (no bell – this is Norfolk!) to no avail. I peered through the windows and saw a Zimmer frame, wheelchair and crutches, at which point I gave up and started to walk away.
But there is a God after all, for at that moment a small car turned into the farmhouse drive. I told the driver I was hopelessly lost, and asked for directions, which he gave me.
“Down here, straight across the crossroads to the Bungay roundabout. Then turn right, walk back to Ditchingham…”
I thanked him and set off again, somewhat worried by now as I had half an hour to get back.
A few steps down the road and I heard another car behind me (hadn’t seen any all afternoon. This is bow-and-arrow country) I stood to one side, but the driver stopped. It was the same young man, in a different car.
“Where did you say you were going?”
“The conference centre at Ditchingham. It’s where the convent is.”
“Hmm. It’s a long way. Do you want to jump in?”
I was in that car like a flash of blue lightning. The driver worked in Norwich for a large garage, and had been returning a car to its owner at the farmhouse.
He dropped me in the village after a four mile drive, I walked back to the centre and arrived on the dot of four o’clock, just as the lecture was about to start.
How’s that for evidence that God really is at work in our little worlds?