The Joys in the Christian Life

Image Credit:  All images are from Pixabay

What are the special moments in your Christian life?  Your welcome into church membership?  Your baptism?  The first time you read a lesson in church and especially if you got through it without stumbling over the words?  Your realising over time more of just what agonies our Lord went through for you?

Reading the Lesson

I think as you go through painful experiences in life, it can open your eyes up more to what He must have gone through and so to a deeper appreciation of His sacrifice.  Maybe that is part of the point of painful experiences.  (In a way I hope so.  I’ve always found suffering that seems pointless to be especially difficult to bear.  Where something good can come out of a situation… well there is comfort to be had there and usually at a time when you need it).

Baptism of Jesus by John

My special moments include my full immersion baptism as I was a member of a Baptist church for a long time.  The water was cold incidentally and our minister at the time came down with a nasty chill shortly afterwards.  There were, I think, three of us being “done” at the time.  Happy memories for us, less so for our then minister perhaps! Then there was the new NIV Bible my parents gave me, which is now looking rather worn, and the more recent one given to me by my son.  There is a real sense of the generations here.

This pool is similar to the one in which I was baptised.

Other special moments include my church wedding (by then I’d gone to the C of E) and, later still, rejoining what had been my late in-laws’ URC chapel.  My late father-in-law had been church secretary for years (and we think our current secretary is hoping a Symes will take up the role again at some point - not me incidentally!).

A verse that has been on my mind for the last few days, and one we usually only hear about as part of the forthcoming Nativity story, is that “Mary treasured all of these things in her heart”.  If anything conjures up an image of a mother, that is it for me.  I also think of her at Easter time when the prophecy “a sword will pierce your own soul too” did come true.  She must have had that reverberating around her mind as she saw her son on the cross.

Mary treasured these things in her heart - joyous memories and agonising ones.

But on Sunday, 19th November, I was in the “treasuring things in the heart” zone of life and happily so as, with my husband, I watched our 21 year old son, Daniel, being welcomed into membership of our church.  My only regret was his late grandparents weren’t there to watch it (especially my husband’s parents with their strong links to our church), though our  Minister’s wife reminded me that, from where they were, they had a better view of the proceedings!

Joy expressed in flowers.  Image taken by Allison Symes.

My (and now my son's!) church at Braishfield in Hampshire.  Image taken by Allison Symes.

The great thing then is your special moments can be a real joy to others.  So can theirs to you.