Tidings of Comfort

I was planning to blog today about my time in Tanzania. But right now, my heart is just too heavy. 

While I was in Tanzania, it was the funeral for an amazing and special young man, Oli Williams. We have known the Williams family since we arrived in Tadley in 2002. I have wonderful memories of teaching Oli piano and watching him grow up in our church youth group. But a tragic car accident took his young life so suddenly, so much too soon. 

Last week, while I was in Tanzania, I received a message from Amisadai with the heart-breaking news that her friend had passed away. She was just sixteen years old. Emma and her twin sister, Michelle started school with Amisadai at Aldermaston Primary. When they were in Year 6, Emma was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma and over the following 6 years, Emma continued to be an inspiration to so many with her brave and cheerful determination. 

And now, just a few days after returning from Tanzania, we received the news that a dear Canadian friend, Jade, in Mwanza, a young and healthy mom, suffered a sudden stroke. She and her husband do an amazing job as directors of Village of Hope, Mwanza, working with vulnerable children. Jade and I were chatting at The Hive as she picked up her coffee just the other week. Now she is fighting for her life in Nairobi as we pray for a miracle and my heart is breaking for Julius, her husband, her three boys in Mwanza and all her family in Canada. So sudden. In an instant everything has changed.

Life is precious. I was reminded of this over and over while I was back in Tanzania. People are precious. Every person, regardless of age, gender, colour, race, wealth or status. Time with people is precious. We need one another and were not created to be independent. One of the things that hit me as I was back in Tanzania was the precious value placed on community. Life in Tanzania is never lived alone. It is so different to the current situation in the UK in which it feels like community has been threatened.

In Tanzania I was confronted daily by so many needs and hardships, by pleas for help and the struggle to know how to respond. The burden can feel so heavy. So much time spent with people, which, yes, can be exhausting. But precious people. Less precious time. The way it should be. And in it all, we walk together. Life is precious. 

Today is the first Sunday of advent and the heaviness of waiting feels that much heavier this year. Waiting for light in the darkness. Praying for comfort in the darkness of the night. Our own weight of sadness of losing home and belongings and community this year and waiting for a new one, pales in light of the weight our friends are now bearing. But I keep thinking about tidings of comfort. Yes, there will be joy, but right now, it is time to embrace one another, to value what is most precious and bear tidings of comfort. 

Now to the Lord sing praises

All you within this place

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace

This holy tide of Christmas

All other doth deface

O tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

O tidings of comfort and joy