Travelling on again

Meena is very confused. "Why are we packing again?" her face asks, "are we going home now?"

Most of you will have heard by now that I have been signed off sick for at least two weeks by the doctor, following a nasty flare up of an old lung condition, caused by too much inhaling of mould spores in the manse which have built up over a long period of time and have now been left so long we are here. Lis and I are not living in the manse for the foreseeable future having a nomadic life enforced on us through circumstances we find ourselves in, moving from hotels, to cottages, to house sitting, to house sitting again then we hope to a long term rental the Circuit Stewards are trying to arrange for us. It isn't easy living out of a suitcase, and adapting to different surroundings. Three cats find themselves in prison and one is on the move with us, wondering what on earth is going on! 

I am led to reflect on the need to react quickly to events that happen in life. I am told not to return to my home. I pack what I need to function in a case and my study is in a Sainsbury's bag. I can't find anything! Most of what I need I didn't pack. More seriously how would we cope if suddenly we had to move to protect life itself? The news is full of accounts of refugees, on the run with nothing, but fleeing is the better option then staying put. 

This is not a new problem - remember the children of Israel who for generations after leaving the tyranny of Egypt lived out of tents in the desert. They got cross, they got stressed, they wanted a safe home quickly, they turned on the authorities for an explanation - read in Exodus the tongue lashing Moses gets! 

I have desparately, really desparately, missed leading worship today on the first Sunday of a new church year, the first time in 22 years I have not been able to do so. Indeed I haven't even been to church today, sleeping most of the day, apart from a late lunch in the pub in the village we have been staying in this week, and getting the key to the house we are staying in for the next fortnight from tomorrow. I then fell asleep through Vanity Fair, woke up to some dreadful impressions show, turned the channel over to Match of the Day as Mrs Wife was asleep by this point and I got the remote off her, but then I fell asleep again! I keep coughing, losing my voice, going hot which feels weird and feeling faint. It's ridiculous! 

I am being told by some to see this time of sick leave as a gift, I am being told by others when I start being negative to have more faith. I don't want to be here in this place. I don't want lungs that don't do mould. I want to be in my own bed in my own home, but I can't be and I have to come to accept that else I'll go crazy. There is that bit of the covenant prayer about being laid aside. I am there at the moment and I have to find peace in being there. 

When we are in uncertain places we need a bit of certainty. The thought of Christmas in a strange place is a interesting prospect. But I hold on to some hope and those with faith with nothing do this too. At the end of the journey stressed and exhausted and not trusting very much, the people receive this amazing promise: "It is the Lord who goes before you, he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."

From a position of vulnerability I commend this certainty to myself and to others who may be beginning this year not very positively and in a place they would rather not be. All will be well, won't it?