Day 44 right place right time

Yesterday someone I dont know particularly well asked me for some advice.  I said I'd do my best and settled down to listen to her story.   It turns out that just about every twist and turn in her journey was a road Id already travelled down.   From being the kid of divorced parents to having married a man I met on the internet and everything in between.  We both kept stopping to smile at all the weirdly specific ' me too!' moments. 

Im pretty sure we all have times when we wonder what on earth is going on.  Why do we have to go through that experience?  How could God possibly ever bring anything good out of that mistake?  Why have I ended up in this place with these people at this time?   And then there's a moment like I had yesterday where we see God piecing together all the seemingly random incidences of our lives to bring connection and understanding and advice for someone else.   Its soooooo good.   Good to be able to say '' Ive been through that and I survived it'  or ' I know just how that feels'  or 'dont discount your dreams because this is how God fulfilled mine.'

And I think this happens much more than we realise.   Just in the sharing of our every day lives with people.  We tell our stories and they resonate.  I suppose its not surprising really - we all live similar lives to those around us.  We all have shared experiences of being children and teens and going to school and work and having family and friends.  But I think we often forget the power of our testimony.   Our testimony isnt just the story of how we  became Christians. It's everything that has happened to us - all we have witnessed and have evidence for.  Our stories carry weight.  How many times in the Bible were God's people encouraged to remember the past, recite their history, memorialise the things God had done for them.    Everything that I have experienced in my life to date has led me to sitting here on the sofa in the sun writing this blog.   Its not just the salvation part of my story which is important (although clearly that is the most important part of all our stories)  but its the family I grew up in and the town in which I lived and the friends I had which determined that I would become a Christian when I did.   Its the church and the university and the country I was in as a young Christian that started my formation.  Its the friendships and the musical gifts ( and the piano lessons - thanks Mum) and the home I had ...... everything , every step along the way has been ordered by Him.   All the gazillion mundane everyday things as well as the occasional amazing thing. 

Over the years Ive occasionally been able to share what it feels like to be a child of divorced parents, (because I was one.) with divorced people who are really worrying about their own kids.  Ive had conversations about what it was like to be a step-kid with people who are about to become step-parents.  Ive had loads of conversations about what its like to lose a parent and have to look after the surviving one until they find their feet again.  Only yesterday I was reassuring someone that they probably wouldn't have to look after their 60 yr old suddenly bereaved father forever because he would most likely be remarried within a reasonably short time.  I remember what it was like to be faced with a helpless and desperately sad Dad.  And what it was like when he met someone new and embarked on a wonderful adventure with her. 

Our job as 'elders' in the church is to build up and encourage and support.  I don't think that needs to necessarily be a 'spiritual' thing all the time.  The fact that we are still here, still going after all that life and God have thrown at us is encouragement to those who are following behind.   Good King Wenceslas went out in the snow to rescue a peasant and the song says of the servant  '  In his masters steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted. Heat was in the very sod that the saint had printed'.  There are people coming up behind us who are walking in our footprints.  Their journey is less cold because of us