Pilgrim Soldier

(Written Monday 19th February)

So the conference is over and after such an intense weekend I needed a day for reflection so I was grateful for today.

Being as I was staying in Crawley with friends I was only a short distance from Horsham. Now Horsham was the last town we lived in Sussex, which I arrived in at 10 and left not long before my 13th birthday. Horsham was the place I had my in-growing toenail fixed twice. It was the place I started secondary school. It was the place my parents reentered officership from after many years. It wa the place my love/hate affair with The Salvation Army really started. Horsham was even the place I had my first kiss.

But more important that all that, Horsham was the place I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 10 in The Salvation Army!

So Monday was the day I went back to after almost 25 years, and it felt a lot like a pilgrimage.

I went back to the street where I used to live . A lot of the sights were the same as were the places that we played as kids, but on either side of the stream we used to catch tiny fish in, new housing estates had sprung up over the years.

Amongst all of this, in a place that in my memory was a field full of wheat and that I could see from the back bedroom window, was a beautiful mock-gothic new church steeple towering high above the surrounding houses.

On a day my heart and mind were in turmoil I found a church in which a lively, local congregation of around 200 people worship. I almost go to Horsham on Monday due to the fear of nothing being the same. I almost didn’t go because I feared losing the memories I had. Instead God spoke and gently and lovingly reminded me what the weekend had all been about. I heard his voice telling me that he loves his people and that whatever may come my way over the coming weeks and months he is calling me to be his hands in the communities he will send me to.

I’m in His hands, I’m in His hands,
What ‘ere the future hold, I’m in His hands.
The days I cannot see,
Have all been planned for me.
His way is best,
You see, I’m in His hands.