Bill Cahusac

All that you can't leave behind

He hadn't been at our church long when he asked if we could meet.
"This just isn't how I imagined it would be" he sobbed into his coffee,
"However hard I try I feel my past being thrown back in my face."

The real tragedy was that the condemnation weighing him down wasn't so much a metaphysical experience- no, the ones ready to stone him had been his family of faith .

A community of faith who found it hard to let him move forward. To leave the past where it belonged. In the past.

He hadn't broken any laws of the land, he'd made some bad choices in his personal life. He knew what he'd done was wrong. He'd come to the foot of the cross, confessed it, known the freedom that forgiveness brings and joined his local church.

It struck me as I listened to him that while God consigns our past to history, sometimes there are those who find it harder to forgive and forget.
The worst part- the only thing he had done was be honest about his life before he had known Jesus.

It seemed to me to be so contrary to the character of God.
Who forgives.
Who heals.
Who says in him we are new creations.

Who says that as far as the east is from the west so far has me moved our sins from us.

Who has been waiting for us to come home, and when he sees us in the distance runs to meet us.

Who throws his arms around us and kisses us.

Who celebrates.

Stop (in the name of love)

Sometimes I need to stop. To down arms. 

To breathe. 

To enjoy the view from the top of the hill.  

To have the fire stoked again. 

Some people need time to switch off- to not just stop physically, but also mentally and emotionally. For years I thought that I was that kind of person. Don't get me wrong, I need the physical rest, and I crave long periods of quality time with my family- and in my family's case, they need me to give them my all during vacation times. 

It was only as I drove back to Tollington last night that I reflected on how much I had needed the time- not to stop, but to go. 

To go back to the parish in my minds-eye. 

To imagine what would could be. 

To see a community transformed by the love of God. To dare to dream what we could be doing in the next twelve months. To see the faces of people I haven't even met yet worshipping the God they have come to know through an outreach initiative we haven't thought of yet. 

I don't want you think I spent my entire holiday thinking about work- I didn't think about work at all. I just allowed God to stir me as I stepped into a time away. 

It made me think of the verse in the Song of Songs "I slept but my heart was awake." (5:2)

It's not that I am an out of control activist who can't ever stop. I love stopping.

It's when I stop that I start to go.