St Martin's, Gospel Oak

St Martin’s Church at London’s Gospel Oak is a queer building, eccentrically designed with pinnacles and a tower that might feature in a remake of Sleeping Beauty. It was built by John Allcroft, Conservative MP for Worcester and evangelical Christian, to commemorate his late wife. Remarkably, on that grand tower and in spite of his grief, he had inscribed those beautiful words from Psalm 103:

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits

A ‘sacrifice of praise’ does not just mean singing loudly and triumphantly in times of plenty and good fortune, but singing, perhaps quietly, in times of grief and sorrow. If, despite grief and pain, you can still sing praise to God and sincerely mean the words of the psalm afore-quoted, then you are tried and tested, proved and approved.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.

Ps 42:11, NKJV