Thank you for warm welcome

[Colin]

Wow......some speedy replies to my introduction .....thank you all....I am still feeling my way with the computer and "experimenting" in how to answer .......forgive if I take the "wrong option" now and again with a programme that is "foreign" to me.   A bit like learning to speak Chinese is how I feel.    I know....young children do that quite easily in China....but I'm of an earlier "vintage".
A few months ago, I had been looking at Matthew 25 and considering the separation of the two groups mentioned as the sheep to the "right" and the goats to the "left".    I thought about what will be the "essential demarcation".
Simplified, it is all about those who will have served others versus the ones who ignored the plight of those in need.     
Within a day of contemplating that, I received a phone call from the Hospice and Palliative Care folk who had been instrumental in providing help to us, as my wife inexorably approached her final days with breast cancer. 
I was asked if I had ever considered becoming a volunteer.   They explained that it was not prudent to expect it of anybody, too soon after a bereavement.     
God's timing is brilliant!     I could see that if I grasped the opportunity, that it would reinforce what I am wanting to learn and here God was opening the "door of the schoolroom" and giving me the encouragement to walk through it.
After an initial period of training, I was given the addresses of two men who both have brain tumours.   I have been providing assistance to one man, aged 74, by staying with him while his wife does shopping and has a break out of the house.  The second man (aged 65) lives alone and requires transportation to town from an outlying area so as to shop and also attend doctor's appointments.   It is uncertain how long each man will survive, but they are both classified "terminal".   
This has provided me with a very real way in which to put the principles of Matthew 25 into action.  It has been rewarding and at the same time instructional, while dealing with folk who are suffering a condition that is debilitating and where mood swings are also a feature to be dealt with gently.   Dealing with such folk makes me even more appreciative of the truth which I have been blessed to learn.   These folk are totally unaware of God's plan.  It is timely that with the advice given lately on the forum, I realise more acutely that it is not my place to mention such a topic, unless I am asked about it.  That may never happen in this life, but the time will surely come when they will be able to appreciate how God works and that He had inspired and directed me (and others) to accept the challenge to be of assistance.    It is a "practice run" to qualify for the job ahead, where a complete new system will be in operation during the millennial reign.... On a much grander scale.   
As we read, the time will come when, after enlightenment, they, as well as us, will give God the glory and know the value of their awful suffering and learn why it was designated.
That will include my wife, who would not ever read what Ray wrote......and also her pastor who came to visit but could only offer clichés, in his unsuccessful attempt to comfort her.  He had no real understanding of why suffering is part of the system that God uses to save mankind. 
As Ray taught us (Eccles 3) , there are no "lucky accidents" with God.....everything has its appointed time...
The hours I devote to the Volunteer work might mean I don't have as much time to sit at the lap-top.....on the plus side, a bit of physical exercise will be good for me.      Again, thanks for the welcome    Colin     

[repottinger]

You're very welcome, Colin, and thank you for all of the contributions that you've already made to the forum on your first day!
Randy

[Kat]

Hi Colin, yes God is putting us all through these life experiences that I believe is training/preparation for what He wants us to become. What we learn through experience in this life gives us practical knowledge and puts us in a place of better understanding of those going through similar situation.

1Co 12:11  All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
v. 12  For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

Eph 4:15  but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
v. 16  from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Col 2:19  ...holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

I left out that first part of Colossians that applied to the previous verse. We are all being shaded and formed by our experiences, to make us that part of His body that Christ needs.

mercy, peace and love
Kat