These past few days have been pretty quiet. Christine and Jarred left Monday morning, which leaves just Ange and I to close up shop here in Salford. We have been busy finishing up our last ministry opportunities, cleaning, taking care of the bills, and other odds and ends to finish up. Going from living with 11 people to 2 people has been a nice change and the silence in the house has been a welcomed experience.
Last night I helped out with a community carol service put on by the city council. It was a very nice event with some lovely Christmas carols led by a brass band, a word from the Vicar Henry, and a visit from Father Christmas. Today will be my last A-Zone of the semester. I’m honestly going to miss the young people I have been investing in there over the past 3 months. Tomorrow I have my last lunch with Madeline for the semester. Everyone can rest assured that I will be heading home well fed. I also have my last youth club tomorrow night.
In the stillness and quiet of the past few days, I have had loads of time to reflect on God’s goodness over this semester. 
A moment of reflection . . . .
As I was reading in Psalms this morning I was reminded of the verse:
Not to us, O Lord, but to you goes all the glory for your unfailing love and faithfulness. Psalm 115:1 (NLT)
I truly have experienced God’s unfailing love and faithfulness. This semester has been no cake walk, bringing many new challenges and learning through my weaknesses and failures. How fortunate am I that I am loved by a God who loves me in my weakness for then he is able to be strong in me.
I recently finished the book “Leading with a Limp” by Dan Allender. Two great thoughts I want share are:
. . . . leadership is all about maturity. A leader’s first calling is to grow, knowing that he is the one who has the furthest distance to mature. Dan B. Allender “Leading with a Limp” p 185
To be like Jesus in character is to imitate his way of relating to others. W survived the “What would Jesus do?” (WWJD) craze. This is not a helpful question because what Jesus would do would be too odd for anyone to do and still keep his job. Jesus’ radical and infinitely wise way of being with others enabled him to be both profoundly rude to those who needed to be disrupted and tender beyond words to those whose hearts were full of sin and shame. So if this sort of question is to be asked at all, it would be far better to ask: “How did Jesus relate to different kinds of people?” But, of course, HDJRDKP is not nearly as catch as WWJD. Dan B. Allender “Leading with a Limp” p 185
In all my wisdom and maturity of 24, I’ve learned that I still have so much learning and growing yet to do. I think learning to relate to all different kinds of people has been a great lesson and a huge lesson for me this semester. But again, God has shown me his unfailing love and faithfulness through my weakness and my failings when as hard as I may try, my life looks less like Christ than I desire.
I’d just like to close with this thought:
“My gracious favor is all you need my power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may work through me. Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Dan B. Allender “Leading with a Limp” p 199
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Chad
