Gotta Lotta Love

Wow, today I gotta lotta love, but strangely, I don't feel all giddy inside. Antony didn't do anything particularly wonderful (although we pretended to break up because he said I couldn't come to the Men's meeting as a cowgirl... what? I had my whole skit planned out, I was gunna ride in on my horse, the horse would rear up, I'd jump off with my boots and spurs, flick the hat off whilst swinging the pistols around my fingers, then in a western accent accent say "howdy cowboys." Well I thought it went very well with the theme of "wild at heart" but Antony thought differently. Oh well, Mr Halliday liked it! Back to the point though...) So the reason I feel the loves inside of me is because Bryce gave a really beautiful sermon today about suffering. It was a bit of a tribute to his good friend Gary who is recovering slowly from a stroke and at this stage, looks to be permanently paralyzed and unable to speak. He spoke of what it means to suffer, why God lets us and how we get through it. It did not tell me anything that I don't already know in mind or heart, but what it did do was show a vulnerability amongst our church that I find really encouraging. To see many people in tears and prayer just showed that all of us hurt and all of us have the chance to heal. And as I sat there in tears myself, I realised that this is what it truly means to love each other - to be real, to see your officer nearly in tears himself because he's so close to a person in the corps that is suffering, to sit there and know that it's not gonna be alright tomorrow, but it will be alright. Today, I saw that verse "when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer" and finally, this is a major part of what unity is all about. Oh and by the way, before all of this, we had an advert for FUEL and when the video was on, three of the really little kids (like 2yr olds) ran out the front and started to mosh!!! It was so adorable... move over generation Y, the next lot are in!!!