This is my wish for you...

"Comfort on difficult days,

Smiles when sadness intrudes,

Rainbows to follow the clouds,

Laughter to kiss your lips,

Sunsets to warm your heart,

Hugs when spirits sag,

Beauty for your eyes to see,

Friendships to brighten your being,

Faith so that you can believe,

Confidence for when you doubt,

Courage to know yourself,

Patience to accept the truth,

Love to complete your life.” - Anonymous

A close friend of mine from uni gave this quote to me (as part of a photo in a frame) on our last day at Durham, and I just found it under my bed. I thought it would be nice to share it.

So, last weekend at Carus we looked at influences, and how we influence the people around us. We took it in turns to share with each other a person or group of people we have influence on. Then somebody from the group would pray for that person. Now, I chose my place of work as somewhere where I feel I should have influence, but find it hard with so many restrictions in place to really talk about my faith and what I believe in. So somebody else prayed about that for me, and then we moved onto the next person and I kinda forgot about it all. Until the very next day, when I got to work and found a very excited little girl from my class and her mum waiting for me. "WE SAW YOU IN THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW!" they exclaimed as I got there, and they proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions about the army. Her mum then passed the headmaster and mentioned to him about seeing me, and he came up to me asking if I'd do a whole school assembly about the Salvation Army and what it was all about! Which took me completely by surprise, as our assemblies are nothing like that usually. And although my close friends at work know where I go every Sunday, most of the school certainly don't. So I'm really looking forward to that.

It was only on the way home that I started thinking about the day before and remembered that prayer. And it made me wonder whether sometimes prayers are answered in such unexpected ways that it completely goes unnoticed. Maybe I need to open my eyes more to what's going on around me...