Met with my men’s group this morning for the penultimate time! All seems a bit unreal.
Our study out of Carl Beech’s great book ‘Spadework’ was about the one out of ten lepers who came back to Jesus and actually said thank you. We noticed how they were all healed, but only the grateful one was ‘whole.’
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Don’t ask me how the conversation ended up there, but we started talking about how there is something to thank God for even in the hard times, sharing about when we were boys etc. I remembered a really hard time my Mum and Dad must have been going through when I was about 11 or 12. I wanted to live at my friend Michael Holt’s house because his Mum always made me cheese toasties and I was sure they never argued.
I was still at the age then when I thought desperate prayer might just work – I remember hearing their arguments downstairs and praying that God would keep them together. A little while later i gave up on prayer for years. However I am so grateful they worked at it and came through, both to them and (now as I reflect) to God. Did you read about this recent study that found divorce is often every bit as damaging to kids as it’s always been?
This song started running around in my head and made me think how important a part we men play in the lives of our kids. Thanks to God and thanks to my mates here who have helped shaped me over these last years.