I do hope God isn’t being prophetic on me. I had a day off this week and spent the morning labouring in the garden trying to tame the wilderness: blunt axes, sharp saws, secateurs that could take your hand off at the wrist – all vicious stuff.
I achieved a certain amount of success and decided to stop while the going was good. It was a beautiful day so after lunch I got out the hammock for its first outing of the year, armed myself with biscuits, coffee and an unworthy paperback, deposited my rear end on the hammock, let it take my (I hope, not unreasonable) weight and CRACK – the heavy wooden support gave way, bashed me on the head, narrowly missing my eye, and left me dumped on the ground wondering if I was now toothless. Rest assured, as those of you I met at the Christian Resources Exhibition will have noticed, I have a gorgeously black eye but am otherwise unharmed.
But if this is God’s way of saying that my job is labouring in the vineyard, not lounging around in it, I wish he could have been more subtle about it.
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