The July Calendar - the Frog Orchid

 

We chose a Frog Orchard from Col's photo gallery for our July calendar this year.  I am already starting to wonder what the theme for our next year's calendar could be.  A Finds Calendar maybe, featuring some of the detected artefacts?

That, of course, is if we make it into 2027...

With that in mind, my day started with a phone call from a young medic at the doctors, outcome of which is a new med and I am back on the blood pressure machine routine - just for 4 days this time, but 6 times a day.

The theme for the first day of our Convention - Friday - was Matthew 5:3: "Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need".

It is a Scripture I knew from my convent schooldays, but we knew it as "Happy are the poor in spirit", so I never understood what it meant.   What it does mean is very simple.  If we feel the need for our Creator, the need for his support and guidance, if we feel the loneliness of being born cut off from Him, in a damaged and dying state (through no fault of our own), we will seek for Him, even if we don't exactly know who it is we are searching for.

And if we seek for our loving Creator, Jehovah, he will let us find him, as He has promised.  And, as Jesus himself assured us, if you keep on seeking, you will find.  I found that to be true.

Here is a question asked by one of the Convention's speakers:  Are some of us so tired of being in constant pain, and life being a constant round of doctor's and hospital visits?

Yes. I think many of us are.  We are grateful, very, for the NHS.  But how we long for perfect health.

While the weekend was warm and sunny, it was not the return of the heatwave. Not yet.  Col was home on Friday - and gave me a consoling hug when he saw my eyes filling with tears during the Convention.  Episode 4 of the video series The Good News According to Jesus included Jesus healing the leper, and it showed how Jesus reached out to him and touched him just before he healed him.

How long since that man had been touched by anyone?  Leprosy is - or was then - so contagious that lepers had to stay isolated.

And I want to remember and treasure this, from Friday morning:

You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence is abundant joy;
There is happiness at your right hand forever.

Psalm 16:11

Happiness forever.  Don't those two words perfectly express what we long for?  And we long for it because that is what Jehovah made us for - to be happy, under the loving care of the happy God.