I have just returned from a friend's house. I was telling her about the prayer meeting on Friday. Her husband was there. I couldn't remember the name of the meeting and knew it had something to do with colours and heat - it came out as "Green Fire" instead of Blue Flame - close enough!
We were round for a more sober reason. A friend of ours is in hospital and we have offered to look after the children. It's not an ordinary hospital but treats patients with mental health problems. With an appendix or a broken leg you can know for sure when they get out, but not so with a mental illness.
This is round two! Last year, during the last weeks of the summer holiday and the start of the school term the same thing happened. Same friend, same children. It was challenging and difficult, and rewarding and...well, you get the idea. I think we were both relieved in the end when they went home, but also a little sad - empty nest syndrome does not always have to take sixteen years to develop!
There were some really low moments in those six weeks - like discovering a bed so wet that you could ring out the duvet. The wee girl had been too frightened to tell me, and I had been too inexperienced to think about checking! The discovery of nits was another low point - nit combs and smelly lotion was a first for me. There were some really high moments too - Sitting in the sunshine on the patio reading her kid's girly magazine and doing the crossword together was fun.
I am aware that at sometime during the six weeks I had run out of resources and wasn't coping so well! Well, we have a support system this time - my "Green Fire" friend will take them on the weekends to give us time to recharge the batteries!
This is the Body of Christ at its best!
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