Stones of remembrance

” What do these stones mean ?” Joshua 4:6

I have not long returned with some friends from nine days on the French Camino. I can only say what a fabulous time in so many ways and would encourage you, if possible, to walk it.

There have been many surveys done to determine the reasons people travel the Camino. The French Camino, a pilgrim trail, is one thousand years old but not everybody walks it for religious or spiritual reasons. Some look at the challenge of just walking 491 miles, some to maintain fitness and my friends’ comments when asked fitted into a number of categories.

Personally, I knew for me it was the continuing road to the healing of a broken heart. Jude has been in Paradise for nearly four earth time years but I still continue to miss my darl !. Yes, things are different now even the text books tell you that but grief is in the end still lived outside a book.

Jude would have loved the Camino but I was reminded of three things while walking and I would like to encourage you if you grieve a spouse in Christ.

Our lives are enlarged by the life of those that have gone before, we carry those precious memories.
There is a spiritual communion. Jesus has Jude and Jesus has me. There is a very fine liminal line between earth & paradise……think upon that…. it’s beautiful and one day at the resurrection of the saints we will be re-united, the veil will disappear.
No marriage is perfect but forgetting those things before we only carry forward the good.

I had collected some flat stones from Glendalough and had an idea what I would do with them so I wrote on seven of them along with a final round stone for leaving along the journey. There was no shortage of stone mounds so in my own away, often away from my friends I took a moment each day stopped and reflected on Jude, thanking God for her life, knowing she was safe outside of an ever increasing chaotic & hostile world……. Maranatha…Come LORD Jesus come!

The final stone ended up in a beautiful flowerbed, central Logrono!

Since my return I have had a desire to return solo and God willing I will return to Logrono on the 5^th August and complete the remaining 381 miles!!

Buen Camino

Mizpah !!

Bangor Harbour, Northern Ireland is such a beautiful spot when the sun is shining !!.

I couldn’t help notice the boat in the centre, its name Mizpah which reminded me of the encounter Jacob had with Laban in Genesis 31.

After 20 years of serving Jacob, The LORD finally told him to return to the land of his fathers and God promised He would be with him. (vs3). The LORD had also warned Laban to be careful when catching up with Jacob. (vs24). On paper it looked like there was going to be a showdown but, in the end, the two parties made a covenant sealed with a heap of stones as they went their separate ways saying, “May The LORD keep watch between you & me when we are away from each other”. The word Mizpah literally means ‘Watchtower’. I suggest if you’re not familiar with the whole context to read Genesis Ch 31.

Certainly, in Victorian times, there was an interest in Mizpah jewellery and the language turned more emotional to describe the bond between two people who were separated either by distance or death. This is a far cry from the original context as Laban and Jacob were not really in love with each other !!. But it spoke to my broken heart that day I saw the boat and ministered to me in a way that only God knows-thankyou LORD.

I write this on what would have been Jude’s 61^st birthday and I miss her incredibly more than words can say, but I am so glad I know where she is, “absent from the body but present with The LORD”, and birthday free !!.

As a token, I visited the ‘closet’ today and placed a stone, a very special one with the inscription ‘Mizpah’.

The Trump Of God !

Some years ago, I remember seeing some beautiful flowers, resembling trumpets when delivering mail to a particular property. I knew the customers and after commenting on the flowers, I was blessed some weeks later with a gift of bulbs. They are called Nerine Bowdenii of South African origin.

The story goes that the flowers drifted on the seas from South Africa, eventually washing up on the shores of the island of Guernsey. It was this ocean voyage that earned the flower its name: ‘Nerine’, in a reference to the 50 beautiful daughters of the sea-god Nereus. The flower is also known as the Guernsey Lily in the UK.

Some say that the Nerine Bowdenii expresses what is often left unsaid, thus bridging the gap between heart and mind. “I care about you”.

As the flowers have just blossomed in the garden it reminded me especially in the area of grief, things that were left unsaid. Like so many others who experience deep grief you cannot help thinking whether you did enough and it takes time & prayer to bring healing to our emotions. You don’t always see things at the time but friends remind me I gave my best to Jude especially in the closing days.

Somethings are left unsaid, but love goes beyond words when it is deep & secure in a healthy marriage. I close with a “Life verse”, that encourages me daily regarding my re-union with Jude if I’m still living at the blast of a Trumpet !!!.

Be encouraged Christian if loved ones in Christ have been sent ahead…..

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so, shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thess 4:13-18