A silver spoon and the apostle Peter

The last week has been really frustrating. The heat at church is still off, engineers who agreed to quote for a new boiler failed to turn up, someone wanted £100 just to pick up and collect a portable heating device (that was on top of fees totalling over £200 for a weeks hire of equipment). It took me most of Saturday to track down some heaters and to finish off Saturday, a group who hired the church for two hours stayed for nearly three.

Arriving at work today (Monday) I plugged a heater in only to find that due to the extra load we had had to use to heat the church on Sunday the sockets had tripped and the fitting had burnt out! No computer, no heat, no hot coffee and the frozen Yorkshire puddings waiting for the luncheon club had defrosted. I was really frustrated and feeling sorry for myself. Cutting my losses, I went to do the afternoon shift at the food bank.

Then, something happened that began to put all my so called woes into perspective. A guy called C is homeless and regularly visits us mostly to talk and to have a hot drink. As he arrived he said that he had a gift for my church. He then presented me with a silver spoon which had Bethlehem written on it. He said it used to belong to his mom and that he wanted us to have it. This simple gesture from someone who had nothing was really touching. What had happened during the last week was nothing compared to what C has gone through and there I was feeling sorry for myself!

As I reflected on this, I was reminded of the message at church yesterday. The theme was loving others as Jesus loves us. It concentrated on Peter and the time he denied knowing Jesus three times. Jesus forgave him. We all know that Jesus has an infinite capacity for forgiving, but the point that Iain (the preacher) brought out and really hit me was that after the betrayal, Peter must have been wondering about his reception when he met the other disciples again, but he was accepted by them and together with them went on to do great things for God. The disciples forgave him and equally important along with the forgiveness went love, a love that could only have been God inspired.

Till next we meet, think on these things!