Weekly Update – 30th August

Heaven if for REAL.

What you may not know is that, in the first few months after I started, I used to preach my sermons in front of my mum. She was brutally honest about whether they flowed. Sometimes we need people who will tell us the truth, and parents often do that best. They also know how to support and comfort us, and for me, that is something my mum has always done so well.

In February this year, my mum, Panzena — Panz for short — spoke the library into existence.

“Sweetie pie, open a library so your congregation can read Christian books.”

Over the next year or so, you will see more books in the mobile library, and I may even have an organised system for borrowing and returning them. My mum has more unread Christian books than I do!

I’m not sure whether anyone has looked inside the front cover of the brown notebook that you sign when you borrow a book, but it says, “This library has been opened in honour of my mum, Panz.”

She went home last Sunday, and she was gracious enough to wait until I had finished church. If I say that a sense of jealousy surrounded me as she took her final breath, it is because I believe she did not truly die. She has been born into a new life and is now with our sister Dolly in heaven. She has met Jesus face to face, and in that moment,

I thought, “Aw man, how blessed and honoured is she?”

I’ve been told that grief comes in waves, and I suppose it will. On Tuesday I had tears, yet today, Thursday, I have a smile on my face as I type this update.

Rev Claude