My friends, I am grateful for your patience as I stepped back from this blog for a time to try to find my footing in the new world in which I now live without the presence of my wife, and in which my son now lives without the presence of his mother.  After 15 weeks, I can report that the footing in this new world is not particularly secure or solid - at least not that I have yet discovered.  And if it appears to you that I am doing well - well maybe what you see is a distorted picture, maybe what you see is my attempt to look like something I am not because I think that that is what is needed – needed for my son, needed for my church, needed for me.  But maybe what is actually needed is some honesty.  And maybe, at least here in the pages of this blog, I can share some honesty with you about my journey.  And maybe we can walk this road together for a while.

So, here’s a couple of recent random thoughts and observations.

Plants do not do well at my house.  At least, good plants struggle to survive there.  I guess there’s something wrong with the Ecosystem in and around my house.  The only things which thrive there are weeds, in accordance with the word of The Lord – “As you labor, the ground will produce thorns and thistles.” – Genesis 3:18.    

Despite all this, my wife loved her gardenia bushes by the front door.  Through the years, she labored over them, with I suppose some varying degrees of success.  But, somehow, for some reason, or maybe for no reason, and certainly not because of anything I have done since she left, the gardenias have absolutely exploded in bloom this year, far more than in any other year that I can recall.  Strange. 

Oh, I’m sure that a competent botanist could explain it quite easily – “It’s just because of some kind of perfect combination of sunlight and water and nutrients that just happened to happen this year.   There’s really nothing special to see here folks.” 

OK, if you say so.  But it somehow reminds me of the story in John 12 where a voice from Heaven speaks, and people said “That was thunder.”  Perhaps The Lord is trying to tell me something through these flowers – something beautiful in a time and place where my walk is difficult. 

I just returned from a three day session of The Pepperdine Bible Lectures in Malibu, California [oh the things I do for Jesus!].  As the trained and educated scholars and speakers skillfully opened the Scriptures to us, and as the gifted worship leaders sang so beautifully and eloquently, and even as I sat alone and viewed the vast, blue Pacific from high on the mountain, I found myself on the verge of tears, or openly weeping, the entire time I was there.  It was an experience of The Spirit, and it was a time of healing for which I am grateful.

And yet, something at least equally, if not even more spiritually profound than anything that happened at Pepperdine, took place right here inside our own little church this past Sunday.  Mother’s Day pictures were being taken on this, the first Mother’s Day without my wife, without my son’s mother.  My two sisters were here and, and they, in their words, “stood in the gap” so that my son could have a picture too.  It was a truly beautiful moment.

But, as great as that was, it’s actually not the experience that I had in mind.  As this was happening, one of the brothers here at church, a man and friend I have known for years, and have never known to be particularly “emotional”, if you will, came up to me as I watched the photos of my son and his aunts being taken.  He put his strong arms around me, and he hugged me, and he spoke sweet words of compassion and love and hope to me.  It was one of the most moving moments of my life.  [I am weeping again as I type this.]

And I thought, “This is church the way Jesus intended it to be; a place where the strong lift up the weak; a place where sorrows are shared; a place where emotions can be displayed without fear; a place where love is demonstrated; a place of “shining greatness” [Ephesians 5:27].  Yes, this church, our little church, is full of shining greatness, and I am so blessed to be included in this sacred, called-out assembly.        

You don’t have to go to the Pepperdine Bible Lectures to find The Spirit at work.  Open your eyes, open your ears.  That’s not thunder you’re hearing. 

Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd