D is for DRAMA

I've driven very fast a couple of times on the motorway, which is a bit out of character, since I can usually grow a beard by the time I've travelled its forty mile length, which either says something about my normal driving habits or else about my facial hair. One of the reasons for not acting like a rally driver on these long stretches, stems from an incident many years ago, when I was still a student and driving a car that was eminently less robust than my present vehicle but could still get up to amazing speeds with a following force nine gale. On one particular, starry night, on my way home from the big smoke, I had to pull in on the hard shoulder to check one of my tyres. There was little traffic on the road that night and I couldn't see a headlight in either direction but when I stepped on to the tarmac of the motorway, it was just like a skating rink, with a smooth, shiny layer of glassy ice, camouflaged against the dark background. I realised that if anything had happened, I would have had little hope of avoiding an accident and it was a lesson well learned.

The last time that I had cause to drive beyond the legal limit was just over two years ago when mum began to suffer very acute pain in her battle against terminal illness. Despite the doctor's heavy injections and his encouraging words, the pain didn't subside and the only alternative was to travel to the local hospital via the quickest route. The motorway was not only quick but also more convenient to the hospital and since time was of the essence, I chose it in preference to the main country roads where tractors and lorries often provide barriers that are well nigh impossible to overtake. And in hindsight, it was a good decision, for though the pain remained unbearable on the journey, the relief was just that little bit closer for all of us. It was indeed a night of drama.


So when one of our primary one boys closed his finger in the door this afternoon and the damage. partly concealed by blood, appeared to be more than any sticking plaster could solve, a quick discourse later and we were off on our way to the hospital again. Drama part two. Past history and an acknowledgement that this was the middle of the afternoon when town would probably be jammed with vehicles and soon we were on the slip road leading on to the motorway. But this was a journey with a difference, for no sooner had we pulled on to the main carriageway when up ahead, about five or six cars beyond, were the familiar yellow stripes of a police car, cruising along at exactly the legal limit. I was suddenly amazed at just how many other drivers were also travelling at the same speed and together we formed a long convoy in the outside lane, everyone on their best behaviour and watching the luminous four wheeler on the inside lane in the hope that they would choose the next exit. But they didn't leave the motorway until it was also our exit and then almost travelled right to the hospital in front of us. As my colleague remarked, it was almost like having your own police escort. Anyway, the drama didn't become a crisis and I hope that the injured is getting some tlc tonight.


Yes life is full of little dramas like that, which often only affect our own family unit, while the rest of the world goes on about their own business. Often it's the kids, with broken limbs, digestive problems, childhood illnesses, stings, bites, allergies, problems at school, fall outs with boyfriends or girlfriends, exams, adolescence or a whole range of other issues, each one a drama in its own right. And as we get older some of the dramas are actually our own but more likely to involve our parents as they succumb to the effects that Old Father Time has on their mental and physical well being. And you know, we get through them all, maybe not always in the way we had wished and maybe often with more than a few tears and sadness , for these dramas are not the stuff of films, the players are not acting, we don't have a script to tell us what to say or do and we don't always live happily ever after.


But Jesus says 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' And I always remember the first line of that most famous of all Psalms 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want' and that other lovely line that says 'He restoreth my soul.' How precious to know that in the midst of life's greatest dramas, God is still there and waiting to comfort us. And the fact that He is always there, should always be a reminder as to how we live each moment of our lives. Not just when the police car's around.

D is for DAFFODIL

I know the names of very few flowers, which in itself gives some insight into my love of gardening but at the same time neither explains my love of colour nor my liking for the flowers that I can call by their correct titles. Like most lads living in the country, dandelions and daisies were never far away and sometimes far too close and it may seem a strange thing but I never ever quite captured the exact moment when the yellow florets of a dandelion head became grey, feathery parachutes, ready to carry their cargo into the next field and beyond. How fortunate too for the dandelion that most kids loved nothing better than blowing the heads off the stalk and thereby helping the plant complete the job that should have been solely reliant on a gust of wind. Anyway, regardless of whether they got human help or not, the next year the dandelions had set up home in the front garden and in the ditches and fields close by. I suppose as that great maestro Dylan once said 'the answer is blowin' in the wind.'

And they gave good company to the daisies that had seemed to have a permanent residency on our front lawn for most of my childhood. So bad did they become at one stage that I remember mum and dad actually spending a couple of days digging each one up, until the lawn was a mass of tiny circles of exposed soil, much more unsightly than their former residents. It did work, at least for a year or two, but back they came with a vengeance and I think eventually some sort of non-verbal agreement must have been reached with the king of the daisies for the spade was never taken out again.

We also had some lovely red and pink roses in a bed near the top of the garden, which had been planted before I was born and although their blossom was beautiful, their thorns were painful and their rambling nature often made mowing the grass difficult. Behind them and all along the front hedge were clusters of Orange lillies that seemed to come into bloom at just around the right time of year during the marching season and further down the garden stood a few red poppies, erect and posturing towards the road beyond the hedge. After that, I begin to struggle, though I do remember a couple of purple pokers and a rambling mass of nasturtiums that dominated the hedge next to the field and which dad cut back religiously most autumns. Years later he planted some in a hedge below the dwelling house and before long they had taken complete control there too, a testament to their resilience and growth.

Out in the fields we had another plant though generally it was much less welcome than even dandelions or daisies. We knew it as Ragweed though it is probably more commonly called Ragwort and it bore beautiful yellow flowers in several clumps every summer. Unfortunately, despite its beauty, therein lay a deadly poison, which if ingested in any quantities, especially after being cut from its root, could cause illness and even death in cattle and especially horses. But it was just so hard to control and seemed to spread at will from one field to another. Many times I remember fields in the area with patches completely covered in a yellow mass of the weed and the powers that be were often quick to instruct its removal or face some sort of penalty.

Yes we had plenty of natural colour in our lives and we always had daffodils. Dad saw to that. By early spring the evidence of his bulb planting began to appear at different points around the garden and on the roadside. And while he was still in good health, he spent a day or two, with a small garden trowel, hiding bulbs beneath the grass verges at the entries to our own house. Every year since, just about this time, small shoots begin to appear above the surface heralding the closeness of spring and reminding me of my dad's thoughtfulness and legacy and my Father's goodness and ever presence. Daffodils remind me of William Wordsworth, St David of Wales, our local Cancer charity, Easter and a minister who once ate a daffodil during a children's sermon to show us God's love, though I can't quite remember how he arrived at the punch line. Just this week, I've noticed the first three or four stalks rising above the grass again and I remember how dad always taught me never to cut the old daffodils too early until they had stored up enough food for the new growth to spring forth. And as I continue to feed on God's Word, I wait for the day when He says that I am ready for the new challenge that He sets before me. There's nothing more patient than a daffodil but it's always ready at exactly the right time. May we all learn digest its message.

D is for DIARY

It was my first taste of being in a real studio. We had spent that Thursday, recording vocals and listening to a steel guitarist as he overdubbed a few tracks late into the evening, then it was a quick bite to eat at a pizza cafe, a cup of coffee followed by a jaunt in an old Ford Transit van back across country from Chester to Liverpool and a few hours kip on a sofa, before getting up in the early hours for a flight back to Belfast.

How different things had been a year earlier. I was still at school, arriving home on the late bus after a gruelling rugby training session on a muddy pitch to find the local village in the middle of a bomb scare, mum just having returned from the hairdresser and dad home with a few cattle from the market. The whole family was together for tea and I spent the evening watching Scotland scramble a draw in Spain.

Move on just a couple of years and I'm entering the final stages of my university life and the day is mostly uninteresting apart from an evening of studying and a phone call to my then girlfriend before catching an episode of Monty Python just before bedtime.

Almost thirty years later and part of my evening would be occupied waiting for youngest son to have his weekly music lesson after I'd just finished a long day teaching and attending to some basic caretaking duties in the absence of the school janitor.

Today couldn't have been more different, apart from the long day at school bit, but after a lengthy and exhausting afternoon of parental interviews and a morning brightened only by an over indulgence in our cook's delicious pancakes, I returned home with wife, of 'my then girlfriend' fame above and we enjoyed some more home made versions of the cooked batter with a dollop of ice cream. And that was the fifth of February in my life , just over thirty years in the making. I know, for I have the diary to remind me.

How things change for now it's the boys who spend their evenings at university, play rugby, study, give music lessons and record in studios, admire girls and drink coffee in cafes. Yet some things haven't changed at all for we still have meals as a family when they're home, school days are just as long, Scotland still struggle to beat Spain and Monty Python is just as popular!

I kept my first diary in 1974. It was one of those small ones that fit into a trouser pocket but didn't allow any elaborate recording of the day's events. Then somebody bought me a five year diary that Christmas and for the next half decade I became a diligent scribe, daily noting down important moments and trivial happenings and of course, being a student, I had all the time in the world to keep it up to date. It had a red cover and lock and key though some time during 1977, the locking flap broke off and I lost the key but since it didn't contain any classified information, I reckoned I was OK if it fell into the wrong hands. Mind you, it's funny looking through the window of your past life and seeing Christian names without surnames, who were important friends in days gone by and now not having a clue whom they might be.

After that my desire to maintain a yearly account remained but usually by February, the recordings had petered out and though many years I've tried to revive my scribblings, I just don't seem to have the drive to keep it going into the springtime. Until last year. A good friend bought me a diary when I'd reached the half century not out and at the start of 2007 I began to keep a daily account, but this was a diary with a difference for it was titled a 'spiritual journey diary.' Now there were no football results, no Six Nations scores, no records of phone calls or visits to town, just a simple account of where I was with God each day and what He was trying to teach me. And you know, every day, there was always something to write, probably more than I'd ever written in a normal diary but the greatest thing of all was that it helped me to focus on Him each day and realise the blessings that He was bringing into my life, many of which I might have allowed to go unnoticed if I hadn't been keeping a record. I suppose it's a bit like writing this blog every day, for even if nobody else ever reads it, I am able to focus more clearly on my own life and in particular, be able to see the way God has been working in so many areas that I never even considered. That's why, when wife of 'my then girlfriend' fame, wanted to be used more by God and we talked about her starting a blog called '365 blessings' I don't think she realised that six months later, she would be able to find that God had blessed her every single day. I couldn't put it any better than Paul in Ephesians, when he says, 'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.'

D is for DESSERT

My wife has a bit of a thing for desserts. Not really about eating them, you understand, more about making them and she is willing to try any new recipe that floats across her antennae. She reminds me of that wonderfully entertaining yet desperate housewife, Bree, from Wisteria Lane whose sole purpose for having dinner parties is to provide a dessert for all present to enthuse about. When we have a few friends round for a bite to eat, you can be pretty certain that two or three different concoctions will be revealed before their eyes, each one as appetising as the other and all very edible. For a long while it was the cheesecake for which she had found a new set of instructions. This wasn't the sort of which you get a nice, if rather small, triangular piece in a restaurant and usually flavoured with Baileys. No it was an altogether more substantial piece of pudding, a sort of a main course after a main course, if you know what I mean, full of raspberries, Philly cheese, condensed milk and jelly, I think, lying prostrate on a thick crunchy base. The whole thing was about four or five centimetres tall, but the problem was that it continued to lie prostrate inside your belly for the rest of the evening and most of the next day. So we quickly learned that, while our eyes had initially been bigger than our bellies, it was always better to err on the side of caution when deciding how big a slice to have, with the best rule of thumb being to go for exactly half the slice that you had had set your greedy eyes upon. Still, many a sucker got caught by its beauty and deliciousness but didn't allow for the way it seemed to expand inside the digestive system.

Crumbles were also another big favourite and even as I write, one lurks menacingly in a frozen state within its icy prison, but I guess, living in the middle of apple country, that is to be expected. And they were also delicious, though distinctly lonely and depressing without the addition of cream, ice cream or custard or indeed all three. But rumbling over the hill was another giant of the dessert world, looking remarkably similar to the raspberry cheesecake but light green in colour and with more than just a hint of lime. This was the piece de resistance at dinner parties for some time and almost always the freezer kept one in reserve for emergencies, though emergencies with at least a day's warning to allow for defrosting. Now this was definitely a social dessert for it was best eaten in company, preferably the company of ice cream and again there was a necessity to request a slice that was inversely proportional to the amount you thought you could swallow for this dessert disproved the old saying that you can never get too much of a good thing. I would rather remember it by that other phrase which my mum often quoted, 'good things come in small amounts.'


Since that time we have gone through a lengthy period of succumbing to chocolate mousse, without a squeak from us, though I did think I found a piece of antler in my helping, a delectable fruit salad just waiting to be accommodated on the palate and a pineapple and coconut dessert that I hope they make in heaven and now we have arrived at the latest creation from the kitchen which she simply calls 'Fog', though I can't exactly see where she is going after this! But I know where she's not! And that is to Pavlova Land. For to be a member of that society, one needs to have respect for not only birds but also the shelled food that they so willingly provide and unfortunately the road to Pavlova Land is strewn with birds who have no meringue nests! Anyway, I always reckoned my mother was the Queen of that land with her rich pineapple and cream topped Pavlova and there isn't any room for princesses. In truth, wife is a wonderful dessert maker. I just want to know why they always seem to be in the freezer.


I suppose we act a bit like that in our Christian walk too, when we see all the good things that God is willing to give us to enrich our lives and yet we are not ready to be filled but only take a little of what He offers and usually set it beside something else. Yes we do want to feel God's power and presence on a Sunday but maybe not if it clashes with a rugby international or a football cup final. We want to go and share in the breaking of bread in an evening service but only if we can be home in time to catch the big movie. And of course, the midweek prayer meeting or Bible study is essential though work has just been so busy this week and we haven't had any family or me time. Or maybe God is opening the door for service that HE has specifically earmarked for you so to appease that nagging voice inside your head, you give up a few weeks in the holidays. It's really God in tandem with something else you rather enjoy or won't do without.


And what does God say? 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.' That doesn't sound like sharing Him with anything else. Feast on His goodness and enjoy what He has prepared for you.

D is for DRUGS

She was one of my heroes of the track. I couldn't believe a woman could move so elegantly at such speed compared to the rest of the female race and in victory she was always magnanimous. For a few years she dominated her sport, winning gold medals at the Olympics at an age when most athletes in her chosen discipline were well down the rankings and she produced world records that still stand today, even though some experts suggest that they may have been wind assisted. All this was in contrast to her career just a few years earlier when, although an obvious talent, she only scaled the heights of the victor's rostrum on a few occasions. Analysts also pointed to her markedly changed physique which they suggested could be linked to use of illegal steroids rather than to a more comprehensive training regime. Her untimely death in her sleep at the young age of thirty nine, added fuel to the fire for those who believed her world domination was not won simply on ability, but no evidence was ever found that she had been a victim of illegal drug use either inside or outside her sport, though the coroner was never given permission to test for such substances. Still, I remember 'Flo Jo' for all the excitement she brought to athletics during her reign and especially for the fashion statements she made on the track in her choice of running costumes and exquisitely manicured and artistically painted long nails that never seemed to get damaged when she knelt down in the starting blocks.

When I was a youngster the closest any of us came to using drugs to enhance our performance, was a bottle of Lucozade before the start, or a Mars Bar that helped you work rest and play but lay in your stomach like a lead weight all through the game. Then there were those Dextrosol glucose tablets that melted in your mouth like soft snow and were supposed to provide you with extra energy throughout a game and for a while I always carried a packet until I got tired of it!

After I left school and continued to play club rugby, one of our guys openly took drugs before every match for he could be seen sitting in the changing room getting the last few drags from a cigarette just as the referee knocked on the door and told us to get out on the pitch. From what I can remember about some of his displays, they certainly weren't performance-enhancing! Another team mate did appear at training on several winter nights with plenty of legal drugs in his system, which he had managed to acquire over the bar in the few hours prior to our session so his training was restricted to a few ill timed tackles, a word from the coach and an early bath.

These days there seem to be very few sports that are not tarnished with some allegations of drug abuse and last summer's Tour de France became something of a non-event by the time all the positive users had been expelled. Even the animals can't escape though at least they are not responsible for deceiving the punters when their performance is drug fuelled. But even some of the substances that are now deemed legal in helping athletes and other sports people to better their performance or increase muscle amount or tone are questionable in the longer term damage or increased risks of side effects that they may directly or indirectly cause. Now so many crave success and want to win, and the phrase once uttered by that great soccer pundit Alan Hansen when he said, 'First is first and second is nowhere,' appears to become even more prophetic as the years pass. I suppose, apart from anything else, the financial rewards are so great and fame is just around the corner that the temptation to succumb to anything that might help achieve such success is always just sitting outside the door. So it's often strange that in the sport where drug aid 'appears' to be less prevalent and where the financial gain is now completely out of proportion to a player's ability, so many footballers regularly use substances such as alcohol, nicotine and 'party' drugs that neither enhance their performance nor improve their credibility off the pitch.

Such is our desire to be successful in the eyes of man, to be better than others, to be world famous or even well known locally, that many resort to methods that, under close scrutiny, are shameful and deceitful but because they remain in secret, allow us to be something we were not intended to be. And while drug use and abuse is only a small corner of such activities, it is there that the physical and mental scars become so apparent and lead to so many other problems within our society. We would do well to remember that all who have achieved fame or notoriety, whether it be through drug use or hard work, through improper or proper means, will some day pass beyond this world and will give account for how they lived their lives. Peter says, 'All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.'

To children born in this century, 'Flo Jo' and many like her are only names on a page but God knows every detail of their lives and ours and in Him is found everlasting glory. And that makes Him a real Champion.

D is for DOOR

There are some doors you just want to walk through, others you just wish they'd open and a few you just want to stay shut. And then there are doors that you know will open but the waiting is the hard bit and you just don't know whether you want to see that handle move or not. I've stood on either side of many doors so I guess I see it from both perspectives.

I remember sitting in the staff room waiting for my first job interview and trying to make conversation with the other applicants but knowing that everyone had their subconscious eyes on the door handle. There was always a smiling face that greeted you in those situations when the door finally opened and equally a room of similar visages when the next door to the interview was pulled back. It was in the days when you knew that night if you had got the job so after the formalities and the questions, it was back to the staff room and again the waiting for the next time the door would open and the smiling assassin who would kill the hopes of all the applicants bar one.

It was much the same in the dentist or doctor waiting room, sitting around until a assistant or nurse smiled in your direction that false smile of assurance that you were next for the chair and in truth you could have sat all afternoon in the waiting room and hoped the door never opened but again it was inevitable and so it was better to get it over. Just like waiting outside the teacher's study, going over in your head a thousand times what excuse you were going to make for being there and finding that your story changed every time. But sometimes it was you on the other side of the door and when it knocked a guessing game began inside your head as to who might be waiting there. But at home we could often tell who might be there because of the door involved. Local neighbours never came to the front door and although most knocked when they arrived at the back door, it was usually only a rap as they opened the door, just to let us know they were on their way into the house. Strangers or infrequent callers always rapped on the front door knocker but less people made it beyond this door than through the rear entrance. These days, at our own house, nobody visits by way of the back door and often interviews are conducted on the steps outside the front entrance, depending of course, on the nature of the call.

Years ago, at home, we had the unusual sight of a door at the top of the staircase, that dad closed and locked when he was retiring for the night. I suppose an element of safety and security was involved and it certainly was necessary later on when my grandmother used to 'wander' from her bedroom and could easily have fallen down the stairs if not for the door barring her way. My other grandmother also had a door that I remember well, down at the basement of her house, that led into a dark cellar type room. It was a eerie experience and because the door had a couple of frosted glass panels, all sorts of shadows could be seen lurking beyond the door and for many years, I never ventured to open it. When I did, I discovered little more than an old bicycle, an unused sink and a toilet in one corner.

Jesus makes many references to the door during His time on earth, most notably when He says 'Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.' But He also urges us to 'Make every effort to enter through the narrow door' for there will be a time when the door will no longer be open.

On Thursday morning, I sat at my desk in the classroom as the wind howled and a few stray flakes of snow drifted downwards. It was only 8:30 but in those final moments of getting organised for the day ahead and with the children due to arrive in ten minutes, I heard the faintest knocking at the door and as I waited, it continued and became more incessant. I knew it was a young lad who invariably arrives early and waits around outside but the coldness of the morning and the lights within had tested his patience to the limit. For a while, I ignored it and finished off my last pieces of preparation yet when I returned to the room, the knocking was now continuous and more perisistant than before. With a last glance at the clock, I relented and let him in. And that reminds me of a verse I learned as a child in Revelation chapter 3 which says 'Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.' Jesus is at the door but how long are we going to keep Him waiting?

D is for DAD

He was born on the fourth of March, 1915, a first child into a house that would later be home to another three brothers and a sister and eventually be his own home, with his own family and one which he would leave for the last time on October 13th 2004, having never slept anywhere else, except on his short honeymoon to Scotland and on a few summer holidays that he pampered himself with, after he retired. He was a straight man with no back doors, as they say, so if he thought something about you, then most likely you were going to hear it, regardless of your reaction. I think it probably made a few enemies for him down the years but it probably gave him more friends because he always said what he thought.

By the time he had reached his mid teens, his compulsory education was complete and no longer did he walk the mile and a half or so from home to the little, one-roomed school that still stands but is now a dwelling house. From then on, his learning was from his own mistakes or from the people he met every day, either around the farm, in the neighbourhood or on his travels with his own dad to the various cattle markets and horse fairs that were common place at the time. And when he wasn't working at home or checking out animals, he was just as likely to be found heading off to a social, squatting in a neighbour's house or heading an old leather ball on the football field. And though the memories were in black and white , life was lived in full technicolour.

He was over half way towards his three score and ten when he chose to settle down to married life and within four years his family was complete, though he became a grandfather twice in the late eighties. He liked to drive quickly, loved to knock the car out of gear on a hill and freewheel downwards and there were certain roads that he knew well where he could do so for a couple of miles and as he travelled, he spent most of his time glancing over the hedges at other people's cattle, such was his love for all things bovine. And he knew his animals well, so well in fact that many local farmers, less well versed in the attributes of a good animal, asked him to be their buyer and often seller, such was their respect for his knowledge. Of course it hadn't happened overnight and he had long years of training under the direction of a good master at home. And it wasn't just farmers who made used of his service for every week he bought cattle for a local butcher, whose meat on the shelf then became renowned around the area. The advantage to us was that Harry, the butcher, always gave him a lovely piece of roast for our Sunday dinner as a gift for his help. Often I went with him to the markets and watched as he would deal with others for their stock and also as he would help the auctioneer put the cattle through the ring and probably at quite an early age I realised that this was never going to be a career for me for I could never have reached the heights of knowledge or understanding he had acquired nor did I have the mind of a dealer. Still I marvelled at the way he could manage his animals, only needing the help of a vet in the most extreme cases of illness and usually being able to administer drenches, medicines and the like, out of an old stout bottle and injections from an ancient glass syringe that he kept well oiled inside a little Milk Tray box. And for most of his years, he didn't have the luxury of a cattle crush in which to keep the animals steady, but simply could catch a heifer or bullock by the nose in an old shed and have the dose administered before the animal knew it was caught. Often he would stalk the cow for ages until he would just know the right moment to pounce and then he had taught me to screw its tail up so that it wouldn't try to reverse out of his hold. And it worked almost every time, though once or twice I did see him hanging on for all he was worth as the animal took off around the inside of the shed. There was almost no ailment that he couldn't treat and no ailment he couldn't spot and even when an animal was standing some distance away in a field he could sense when it was unwell. So I only remember about two occasions in my whole life when he lost one of his herd through illness.

Long after dad retired officially, he continued to keep a few animals on the land and when he finally decided to let go of all his stock, he still felt it necessary to care for the tenant's animals and could be seen most days, propping himself against a gate and gazing into a field full of Charolais, Limousin or Hereford cattle as if they were his own. I think he really never let go of his love for cattle for it was the one thing that he had devoted his life to and there is no doubt that he loved his work. Even as he fell into ill health during his last weeks of life and his mind began to wander more than his legs could take him, I have a vivid memory of him telling me to go and feed the couple of animals that were in the sheds around the yard, though no livestock had been there for over ten years.

As I reflect on his life, the life of a man who found peace and contentment in the simple things of life and satisfaction in his work and where he lived, I am also reminded that long after his retirement he found that inner satisfaction and joy which only comes from knowing Jesus as Saviour and in true style was never ashamed of the Lord to whom he had given his last years of human existence. And I think of how Jesus said in John 10 'I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.' And just as dad knew his cattle well and they knew him when he came to feed them and recognised him not to be a stranger, how much more my heavenly Father knows me and as I read His Word and spend time talking to Him, how much better I get to know Him too. That's why I can pray 'Our Father, who art in heaven' and really mean it.