Will you come with me?

Will you come with Me and follow

Where few people dare to tread?

Will you enter into stories filled with pain?

Or will you watch each tear-stained face

From a comfortable place?

Will you see but then just turn away again?

Will you be part of My story?

Persevere against the odds?

Will you stay though you just cannot understand?

Will you love when things aren’t lovely?

Will you give of what I gave?

Will you watch, or play your part as I have planned?

Will you run to somewhere ‘nicer’?

And install a new TV?

And buy a chair to watch the world go by?

Or will you listen, will you linger

At injustice feel my anger

And be there to hold my children when they cry?

I know you chose to follow

And you don’t know where I’ll lead

And you long to go where you can laugh and sing.

But you’re living in My story

With My love and for My glory

And there’s joy in store for children of the King.

I wrote this in January, when things with the girls weren’t going well, and we had to realise that we could not control the timing, nor could we be sure of when we could get back to the UK even for a visit. Some people don’t have a choice – life is just hard. Some of us have more choice than others and we can choose to enter the hard places for God, where He is already working. For me, two months later, I am already starting to feel the truth of the last line, not just due to the circumstances, but through looking for the things I can be thankful for – and for this I should thank my friend Carrie who lent me the book ‘One Thousand Gifts: A dare to live fully right where you are’.