One month on...

A month ago today I keeled over in my kitchen after inhaling rather too many mould spores in it. 

We've been on the move ever since. I can't breathe in my home so I've had to leave it. Since the 20th August we have been in a hotel on Hastings sea front for a week, then a tiny holiday let in Icklesham for a week, and this last fortnight, house sitting overlooking the sea and enjoying this glorious view every day. I've loved watching ships and boats go past and on a very clear day seeing France across the Channel. Tomorrow we move into another hotel, are viewing a potential temporary home some distance away we might rent for six months and I commute into work for when I'm better. We are mentally drained from living out of suitcases and being out of control of our future for a while. Our cats are in a cattery and it is unsettling. I know people have been shocked when I've got upset and I say I'm struggling but I am! 

This week, due to the generosity of a friend we are moving north slowly to use a cottage in the Lake District for some proper rest and recuperation so I might have a chance to return to work a little bit in mid October. I am still coughing, having violent hot sweats moments after any activity and am sleeping loads. I've brought books and DVDs with me but can't concentrate on them. I go into a shop and have no idea why I'm in it. 

Suddenly my health and my home and my ministry have been taken from me. I haven't been to church for three Sundays and that is worrying because I haven't felt I've wanted to go. I haven't lost God, I'm just very disorientated. I need to read some Psalms in full including being in the dark, angry and with unanswered questions. I have no idea what is happening in my Circuit and what they are doing and saying. I will be able to lay that aside once I'm away from this area. 

I keep coming back to Cardinal Newman - I think these are deep and profound words. I hope despite all this God still knows what he is about... Here's Newman writing on March 7, 1848:

God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.

 God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.