One of my favourite moths, the Brimstone, recently appeared on our balcony. Whether it then featured on a Magpie menu I do not know. I hope not. Actually since Captain B vaselined the balcony railings we have not really seen it - the magpie, not the moth.
We had three lovely talks from our Circuit Overseer during his recent visit, and one point I really want to remember concerns Jonah and the giant fish. How it took 3 days for Jonah's prayer for rescue to be answered - and why. It's a good reminder to keep praying and not to give up.
And he told us of this experience, one that really spoke to me. It was about a little girl of about 7 years old who was at church with her mother. She was obviously listening intently to what the preacher/vicar/minister was saying from the pulpit as when he stood by the door to shake hands with his parishioners as they left, she had a question for him.
His sermon had apparently been about both the immortality of the soul and the resurrection. The little girl was puzzled, and asked the vicar this: "If we have an immortal soul, why do we need to have a resurrection?"
She had a lot more sense than I did at that age. I was taught both those things in my convent schooldays; that we have an "immortal soul" - which is not a Bible teaching, and that we believed in the resurrection - which IS a Bible teaching. Yet I never saw the contradiction - or certainly not at her age!
Because if, as we were taught, our "immortal" souls went off to heaven, hell, purgatory or limbo then what on earth was the resurrection for? Why was it needed? We had never actually died.
The thoughtful little girl got no answer to her question back then, just a pat on the head, and a comment (to her mother) "How cute" (or some such, I didn't take notes for the first talk - my hands will only do so much these days).
It wasn't till later, when the child was in her twenties and two Jehovah's Witnesses called at her door that she got her answer. Which is simply that the Bible does not say that we have an immortal soul - it says we ARE souls, and we can and do die. But Jehovah can keep us safely in his memory and resurrect us into the restored earthly paradise. And then we will not be dying (as we all are now), but will have the prospect of living forever on this lovely lovely planet.
Which is why we need the resurrection!
That little girl is now a baptized sister and has been for many years.
Which makes me feel guilty. As yet again it underlines how important the door to door Kingdom preaching work is, and I am not doing it at the moment. I am doing letters and emails and fb posts - and blogs of course - but not going door to door. I am hoping to get out to the seafront one day this week, with a sister, and we will try to distribute some magazines and tracts.
Maybe, now there is all this electioneering going on, more people will be thinking seriously about what sort of government can solve our problems - because it is only the heavenly one, the Kingdom of God, that can.
And it will.
I did manage to totter the few yards to the seashore on Wednesday - both sea and sky looked so lovely - and we sat on the wall and enjoyed the view, and managed to talk to a few people who passed by. The result of my yard long marathon? A very sore right foot - but, hopefully, maybe the one person who did talk to me and who took a small leaflet about the Kingdom will read it and think seriously about it.
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