Outwardly wasting away

Very sadly, Dorothy’s sister Elizabeth died on 7th December.  She was only 48 and had been due to move back to Ireland as I write today.  We are so sad that she never made it home to Ireland, but we know she’s now at home with the Lord which is better by far. 

 A few years ago she wrote something for her local church’s magazine which I would like to share with you

 “There’s a line in the Bible that has meant a lot to me “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). I have a muscle wasting condition and so ‘wasting away’ is a phrase which strikes a real chord with me personally. Not that I am unique in that, wasting away is something that happens to most of us to one degree or another as we make our way from the cradle to the grave!

 So if ‘outwardly wasting away’ got my attention and grabbed me personally what about the bit about ‘being renewed day by day’ does that describe me? Well, yes! Maybe I should go back to the beginning. I was brought up in Ireland – I came here for work – very original!. Mum and Dad brought me up in the Christian faith.  As I got older and stopped just assuming that everything my parents said was true I came to believe for myself. Believe what? Well, that the Bible really is God’s word, that Jesus really is God’s Son who came to pay the price for our living for ourselves and not for our Creator. I came to believe that Jesus really did rise from the dead, that He gives me spiritual life so that inwardly I am being renewed and made more like Jesus, that one day Jesus will return to judge the earth and to make all things new, including my body. That’s not to say that my faith has been a nice easy progression in a forward direction all the time or that I am not a work in progress. I know that my life doesn’t always look like Jesus is my Lord, and I am so grateful that His love doesn’t depend on my deserving it. There have been times when I have questioned everything, even wondering whether I’ve been fooled and really there’s no God, nothing there at all. Each time, however, God has held on to me even when I haven’t felt able to hold on to Him.”

You can watch a video of her funeral below, I was especially encouraged by Ruth’s thanksgiving at about 10mins in, and Marc’s sermon which starts at about 28 mins: