Lives Well LivedSusanna Rychiger - 28 Mar 2011
A toast to…
Leaders of the 24-7 movement are sitting in an old Quaker barn just outside Guildford that once hosted people who started a great movement of the Spirit. Once again I’m surprised… and yet not surprised that some of the 24-7 family is meeting in such a significant place. It touches my heart… looking around the room I’m grateful for what God has done and is doing through this movement!
Sitting in this barn as a Swiss girl surrounded by a bunch of English people (and some Americans, a South African and a Canadian) I assumed that something funny would be happening. You have to know that the Swiss, known as very down to earth practical people, always serious in meetings, always looking for the agenda, are stretched once in while by our English 24-7 friends. But I want to say in advance – it is a good thing – to be stretched helps us Swiss to open our eyes, to laugh more, to break out more, to get things done… sometimes in a different way than expected.
So here we are to give a toast to the dear ones that have departed from us over the last few months to be with God. Wow – have you ever done that? – not me! But being part of the 24-7 Prayer family I love new things! Isn’t it great to remember people that had an impact on our lives, had a heart for us and for this movement. People that have poured themselves into the lives of their friends and the lost. Listening to the impact that Ken McGreavey, Jo Norton and Rob Hall had, the way they lived for God and people makes me cry, touches my heart.
My thoughts return to last year – suddenly I realise that I could have been one of those being remembered today, not one doing the tear filled remembering. These friends could easily have been toasting me today. It was a close call… illness, sudden complications and the doctors had to fight for my life in hospital, as did many of my friends through prayer.
On which side would I prefer to be? Looking down and cheering on, listening to the thankful hearts of friends still on earth? or sitting in that barn, listening and understanding that there is a price to be paid? I don’t know I haven’t it figured out yet. But I do know one thing – it is a very good thing to toast saints who lived lives to the full, impacted loads of people and are now cheering us on in heaven. I know they are proud of this bunch of people sitting here. And so am I!
Next… we start toasting people sitting in that barn, people alive and well who sit across the open fire from one another – how strange and how wonderful! This reminds me, that we should toast each other much more often, telling one another how we appreciate each other, how great it is to be on a journey together, how great it is to learn from each other.
One of the toasts was for me… and now I know, right now I love it more to sit in the barn being among my friends than cheering them on from heaven. My path is still here on this earth and I decided once again, I want to live my life to the fullest for my God – I will never know when my path may be finished on this earth and I will be move to cheer my friends on from heaven. So I want to live today – it could be too late tomorrow.
I toast this great movement that God started with a bunch of friends… I toast my friends within the 24-7 movement wherever they are on earth and in heaven. God is with you – God is with us – I love it!