Peace on Sunday

Had a good service at church this morning. Visiting speakers, David and Greta Peters, are based in Auckland, New Zealand. They both lost their spouses a few years ago, and then remarkably met each other through the shared significance of the Redman song, Blessed be your name, for them.

It's a favourite of mine too, for similar reasons. 

... blessed be Your name

when I'm found in the desert place

though I walk through the wilderness

blessed be Your name

Every blesssing You pour out I'll turn back to praise

and when the darkness closes in Lord still I will say:

blessed be the name of the Lord!

Matt & Beth Redman © Kingsway Thankyou Music etc.  

They talked about the valleys of life and how God brings us through them. It rang with a lot of truth, as far as I'm concerned.

Sadly Williams did not prosper in Shanghai - no points at all. Hopefully they'll do better in Barcelona. They at least seem to have a talent for spotting promising young drivers, like Nico Rosberg. Perhaps their next young driver, Nico Hulkenberg, will come good for them. Still that didn't spoil my sunny afternoon. We sat out in the garden having our coffee, listening to the collar-doves and goldfinches - and the occasional passing car.  A red kite circled overhead. No sign of the volcanic ash which has been giving such angst and such peace in seemingly equal measure. We don't really notice the difference here, except foe absence of the high altitude vapour trails because our major aerial noise comes from the helicopters at RAF Benson. They don't seem to have been affected. Why, by the way, couldn't they fly beneath the ash cloud? Having lived under Manchester's flight path I can imagine the delight the residents of SW London had in uninterrupted hours of peace. When's the panic buying of bananas and mangoes going to begin? That's the question! And more seriously, when will our friends stranded in South Korea and Venice be able to get a flight home?