These striking sculptures ‘les Voyageurs’ by artist Frances Bruno Catalano stand by the sea in Marseilles, evoking the sense of loss experienced by people who for whatever reason leave home for another place. It’s like we leave a part of us behind.
In January 2016 it was estimated as many as sixty million persons worldwide have been ‘forcibly displaced’ from their homes. Each of these ‘statistics’ is a human being, made in God’s image, someone’s father, mother, child, brother, sister. Some of the stories and pictures are harrowing.
Yet for all the painful losses and risk involved, people dare to believe there can also be gains - new horizons, new opportunities, new friends.
When we trust in God and seek His will for our lives, through time we discover the journey has been mapped ahead by Him. While some questions will long remain, we find His compassionate heart generously provides all we need.
Most of Jesus’ original disciples suffered cruel persecution and eventual martyrdom for sharing their faith, an activity banned still in many countries today. Yet their courage, sense of hope and even joy in the face of their oppressors demonstrated they were also proving the truth of their Master’s words in Mark 10 v 29-31:
‘No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.’
May we know His kind, guiding hand in our journey today.
In January 2016 it was estimated as many as sixty million persons worldwide have been ‘forcibly displaced’ from their homes. Each of these ‘statistics’ is a human being, made in God’s image, someone’s father, mother, child, brother, sister. Some of the stories and pictures are harrowing.
Yet for all the painful losses and risk involved, people dare to believe there can also be gains - new horizons, new opportunities, new friends.
When we trust in God and seek His will for our lives, through time we discover the journey has been mapped ahead by Him. While some questions will long remain, we find His compassionate heart generously provides all we need.
Most of Jesus’ original disciples suffered cruel persecution and eventual martyrdom for sharing their faith, an activity banned still in many countries today. Yet their courage, sense of hope and even joy in the face of their oppressors demonstrated they were also proving the truth of their Master’s words in Mark 10 v 29-31:
‘No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields – and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.’
May we know His kind, guiding hand in our journey today.
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