Memories

There are so many memories in my Mum’s house, its been in her family since she was a child; photos, furniture, the privet hedge (they must last for ages!). I still sleep in the attic just as I used to when we came over for family holidays each year to stay with my Oma, my grandmother.

As children, every day my brother and I sat at the meal table and Opa, my grandfather, would open the family Bible and read a passage before we could eat the meal. I’m sorry to say that Michael and I would sometimes find it all too much and burst into fits of giggles as the Dutch language sounded so hilarious, particularly Paul’s epistles, but when it came to the psalms we could see my grandmother nodding in approval to each word of Psalm 121 so we kept quiet and found her tears very moving (she so loved that psalm).

Memories can be key to who we are and what we are today, so I wonder whether those Bible readings encouraged us both towards ordination?

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
   from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
   who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
   he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
   the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
   nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
   he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
   your going out and your coming in
   from this time on and for evermore.

Hey, but wait a moment, what do the Dutch know about hills?

Yet hills or not, we all need to look beyond our circumstances to the eternal love and peace of God.

 

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