Ministry Lucy style...

Home again!

Lucy finished her treatment at about midday on Thursday and we were out of there! All good - perfect temperature, no vomiting or anything to keep her in hospital, so now we can really say 5 down, 1 to go!

When I stop to think about our lives and where we've ended up I can't help but be a little surprised! Lucy especially has certainly taken us places and introduced us to people that we would never have otherwise known. And it is she who, despite her youth is having a great impact on people.

Take Tuesday for example.....

Adam stayed overnight at the hospital, and as I was running a little late for him to get to work he asked if a volunteer might be able to come and sit with Lucy for half an hour. A lady arrived in her signature pink stripey apron in record quick time. On meeting Adam, she mentioned to him that she had been a volunteer for 3 years but never been to the oncology ward, as she had always asked not to go there. She had lost a brother some 50 years ago to leukaemia, and just didn't feel able to face the oncology ward. Anyway, on Tuesday she was asked if she could pop up to Camperdown to look after a baby for half an hour. It wasn't till she was half way there that she remembered what Camperdown was. But, instead of turning around and asking someone else to go, she decided to come and make it a special time for herself and take that first step into the oncology ward.

Adam phoned to tell me this before I arrived, so I came to the room not quite knowing what to expect. When I arrived I found Lucy and this lady having a lovely time - Lucy being her usual cheeky cheerful self, laughing and playing, and unknowingly helping the volunteer to take some more steps down the path of grieving and growth. And how kind of God to give her Lucy - a baby who loves everyone she sees, who looks and is healthy and happy, and who even still has most of her hair - possibly the easiest introduction to the oncology ward there.

I was so struck by God's kindness in this circumstance, and, as I have often done since Lucy's birth, thought to myself "well maybe this is ministry Lucy style". I'm hoping she'll teach me how to use these situations to point people to Jesus and the God who, even (or especially!) in confronting and hard places, shows such kindness to people.