Indian Blanket

Look at this beautiful lady growing at the front of our chapel. It is Indian Blanket flower, and, despite its name, it hails from Mexico. It is considered common on the sandy plains and deserts of Central and North America, so what is it doing in rain-drenched Lancashire? Clearly, it was not sown in the wild, but was placed in one of the boxes by the one who delights to populate our chapel’s grounds with the colourful and exotic.

I think the Lord does the same thing, but with people. We have some unusual folk in our church; the quirky, the amusing, the colourful, the peculiar, in addition to the plain and the regular. We have persons born in India, Ireland, America and Germany. We have people who can knit, cook, mend and paint. We have individuals with curious pasts and others with exciting futures. What brings us all, like the gorgeous flower, to the rainy hills of Lancashire?

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,

Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy,

And gathered out of the lands,

From the east and from the west,

From the north and from the south.

Psalm 107:2-3, NKJV

One day, we shall meet with an even wider range of people, not just from all directions, but from all times and eras, gathered not in Lancashire, but before the very Throne of Grace.