Catching a breath and taking regard

So here we are looking down the road to Holy Week and Easter. I am so glad that life is less rushed, less busy, despite my Martha ways, I am really a Mary, delighting in just being at the Masters feet.

How strange it is, that just when we should be slowing down in readiness for Easter Day, that Churches get busier and busier. I am so sure that all the preparations, the Bustle and Hustle, the sacrifice of time and effort, is never so sweet to the Lord Jesus as that precious half hour, when it is just Him and us, and in the stillness we are who we are, no pretence, no fuss, just Him and us.

Somewhere, in the book of books, we read that the Lord regards us from on high, and you know I like that word “regards” – it’s not as though the Lord so much as looks down on us from lofty heights, but that He sees us as we are, takes us we are, and still finds something to love in each one of us. He knows us through and through, (Psalm 139 says it much better than I ever could) God is truly acquainted with all our ways, but still loves us. And that love I know for myself when I am still, when I am quiet, when like Mary I look up and regard my Saviour’s face. When Mary looked up and regarded the face of Jesus on that last visit to their little house, when Martha peeked through the door, what did they see there, weariness, sadness, resolve. I would be happy to hear your thoughts on that, I think He noticed their looking, and was comforted by their regard, yes that word again, I think he read love in their looking, and that in his looking back was Love, regard.

However you prepare for Easter, let the Lord Jesus bless you, just sit still, be yourself and look up. 

This painting, a watercolour, was made by a friend, who died recently. She suffered her illness patiently with true Christian hope, desiring to be re-United with her dear husband Bert. I think it is a Red Kite, regarding the fields below, from on high.



Lord, open our eyes and we shall behold your glory

Lord, open our ears and we shall hear your call

Lord, open our hearts and we shall know your love

Lord, open our lives and we shall reveal your glory

(prayer from The Open Door by David Adam)

With my kindest regards,

Jean

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I haven’t been here for some time

I haven’t posted here, for some time…

I have been busy, occupied in preparing accounts for Auditing, getting church maintenance problems solved…. The list goes on, is long and boring, so I won’t trouble you with adding any more to that score.
I have kept my quiet times though, have been blessed with rest and quietness through them, and there have been other little things which have given such joy, the carpets of snow drops, crocuses in the church yard, and now the daffodils, even on the busiest of days such things give us little buckets of calm and refreshment. They are worth stop to look. I’m told we have a woodpecker in the churchyard now, I’m keeping a look out. He’s been heard, not seen.

Because Eastertide draws close I would like to share this poem with you, written by A.E. Houseman, it makes me smile, because I have seen a lot more than twenty springs.

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry now

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands without the Woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now if my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves with fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Houseman

Now, go look for a cherry tree or a woodpecker,

The photo is a detail from a lovely window in the Cathedral Church of St Philip, Birmingham, depicting Christ in Judgement.