Providence. Strange thing, providence. We've to thankful for the remarkably good things - as well as for the aggravating things.
Last year, when we were at Lyme Regis, there was a blue beaker - part of the stacking set sold by ELC. We asked a nearby family if it were theres and they said not. We added it to our buckets and spades sack and when we got home I found that it is the exact one which we had lost. Now we had never taken our ELC stacking beakers to the seaside (not even last year) and that the lost one shoudl be exactly replaces in this astonishing way was a pointer to the fact that our Heavenly Father concerns himself with all kinds of details and sometimes he SHOWS us that He has us in mind. Thas was fresh in my mind when, yesterday, I drove three times through the Wheelhouse carpark without finding a space. Never mind, we could go AFTER the homeschoolers christmas concert. Joy oh joy, there was a space. The blue-badge meant I didnt' have to pay for parking. I left Thomas and some of the little ones in the van and when I got back to the van I found that I was in reciept of a parking ticket because my van wheels couldn't fit inside the parking spaces painted there. This, too, is part of the providence of God.

We were to have good friends to visit this afternoon - the stipulation was that if there was any sickness in the house they wouldn't come - having many young children they are not keen on spending Christmas nursing (and clearing up after) the sick. Yesterday Victoria was taken with an upset stomach - and she isnt' over it yet. I, too, have been got by the same thing , so our visitors are cancelled. Mysterious, aggravating, dissapointing or a cause for thankfulness to our all-wise FAther?

Last night I finished Packer on Prayer. I think if I were to have only two books (apart from the Bible) they may be this book and Sproul on Holiness. Now all I need to do is start all over again and try and assimilate the stuff about prayer again...