Monthly Letter - January 2012
What a difference a year makes! This time last year (I'm writing this on 16th December 2011) the deacons had only just met the first potential new minister and we had agreed that this was not the right person for our church. It seemed we may have a long road ahead of more batches of profiles to read and pray through as we tried to decide whether we wanted to meet any of them. We did meet some, but each time in our discussions together we became sure that none was the right one for us. Now, here we are a year later, looking forward to welcoming our new minister. Arrangements are well in hand for purchasing a manse, providing a new office in the church and for the Induction Service in mid February.
So here we stand at the start of a New Year and at the beginning of a new ministry in the life of our church. The New Year is a time for reflecting on what has gone on before in thankfulness to God for His faithfulness. As I look back, I remember in the first half of the year spending hours prayerfully studying those profiles and having a clear sense that God was leading, yet He never seemed to be saying 'yes'. Then, in July - when we were not due to receive any new profiles until September - we first heard about Aubrey as a potential new minister from a completely different direction! God is good at surprising us!
The New Year is also a time for looking to the future and for committing ourselves into God's hands. He alone knows what the future holds and that truth should help us rest trustingly in Him. One of the names that Isaiah gives for God's Son who was promised, was 'Everlasting Father'. God is the father who will never leave us and, as my own Dad died in October this year, that truth has come home to me in a new way. I was amazed at how God answered my prayers for my parents over the last few years concerning my Dad's death and that has been a great comfort to me. As we travel through life, parents and other people we love will die, but we can have an assurance that God will never change and will never leave us.
Carole Almond