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• THE JOURNEY IS OVER (JOURNAL 90)

  3 June, 2016

  If you were to read our journal entry for this day last year, you would read the following Today's instalment… [more]

• JOURNAL 89

  22 May, 2016

  Hi sweetheart, Sometimes I experience periods of “What if…?”. These are times when my mind seems… [more]

• JOURNAL 88

  17 May, 2016

  Hi Darling, Coming home from the hospital with a mechanical device fitted to my chest – a P.E.G. I think it… [more]

• JOURNAL 87

  13 May, 2016

  JOURNAL 87 The doctor said I can go home this morning. The surgery has had the desired effect and this new means of… [more]

• JOURNAL 86

  10 May, 2016

  JOURNAL 86 MOTHER’S DAY Hello sweetheart, I haven’t spoken to our children as to… [more]

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• Today's "Moment with Mark" (91)

  20 February, 2013

  He went on a little farther and fell face down on the ground. He prayed....." ( Mark 14:35 NLT)

  Jesus so much wanted His disciples with Him as He faced the ordeal that was just ahead. As they entered the Garden of Gethsemane He instructed His disciples to sit where they were while He went and prayed. I can't say for sure just why He chose to take three of those disciples with Him. Maybe He saw in them a greater sensitivity than He saw in the others. This was not the first time that He had called Peter, James and John to accompany Him to a different level of involvement. Remember the Mount of Transfiguration? I think Jesus recognised that these three men had a greater capacity to support Him at such a time as this.

  But then comes the phrase ".....a little farther....."

  There are some experiences in life that we have to navigate on our own. As I watch this scene unfold, I realise that Jesus engages with His Heavenly Father in prayer at a level and with an intensity that can only happen one-to-one. That phrase "....a little farther..." might as well read, "a million miles". I imagine the three disciples were within a stone's throw from Jesus geographically but were a million miles apart spiritually as Jesus fell face down and prayed.

  For many of life's dramas it is good and necessary to have the support of others. That's one of the key reasons why we meet together as believers. But there will be times for you and me when Peter, James and John (or the equivalent people close to us) will not be able to share that drama. You will be alone. Just you and your Heavenly Father. So far as others are concerned, you have gone "a little farther".

  For some that will evoke their criticism because they will see you as a loner. But others will know better because they have been there.