King's News 22

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19 - Power
20 - The future is family
21 - Fiery trials

The way we were by Ruby Davey

I remember a long time ago seeing a film with Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford called ‘The Way We Were’. As a young couple they met, fell in love, married and had a son. She becomes obsessed with politics and war and the marriage ends. One day, she is giving out leaflets about banning the bomb, and she looks across the street - and there he is standing with someone else. She crosses over and they greet each other and talk about how things were and how they are now. It is all very sad as she sings the song ‘The Way We Were’. But sad endings like this happen in real life too.

I used to live in a big house and during our time there my husband and I were able to help so many people. We never strove to do this, it just happened. Often when we would drive past in later years I used to look again at the house so wistfully, thinking of all that had taken place there but my husband would reproach me and say "You must not think so much about the past, you must not dwell on it, you must look forward to the future." Does not the apostle Paul say to us in Philippians chapter 3, ‘But one thing I do; Forgetting what is behind and straining towards to what is ahead, I press on..."

My husband died over ten years ago. I really had to seek God’s promises at that time. He said "Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted". Also Jesus stood up in the temple and said "I have come to heal the broken-hearted". It was only when I really believed these promises and I accepted them for myself, that God was able to come into my life and minister to me. When I look back and think of what I was like, all dejected and bereft, and think of how I am now, I am so grateful to God for His faithfulness, and now I am so able to understand when someone else is going through this experience, because I have been there.

Of that time I was also so grateful and privileged to belong to a fellowship that supported and stood by me. When I first entered the fellowship I saw a company of people who were genuine and sincere in their love for God and for each other. Now I see it growing stronger every day and being used to help people all over the world. There is such a difference in what they were, coming through many difficulties and hardships and hard times but at the same time being built up to the strength and unity that they are now.

Sometimes it is good for us to look back and see where we have come from and where we are now. So, if we are permitted to take a quick glance back (and let it be but fleeting) it makes us even more confident to press on ahead to greater things.
Ruby

 

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