Class Fellowship Zooms

Martin & Elizabeth's Class Fellowship continues to meet virtutally using Zoom during this Pandemic.

They catch up on each others news, discuss a couple of questions, hear a story, sing and pray together.

They all find this continuing "face to face" on screen Fellowship strengthens the bond of faith and love they share.

Not all their Class could join them this week, but they do meet once a fortnight.

After their catch up this time, they shared their thoughts, ideas and views of their "Personal Heaven" and how they "manage stress" in their daily lives.

Martin read a story entitled "Struggles" (see below or attached) which summed up how struggles can help shape our lives and then they sang "The Lords my Shepherd" the Stuart Townend version and closed with prayer.

They meet again on Tuesday 2nd June 2020 @ 7.30pm when they will be sharing their thoughts, views and ideas on "What do we believe stands between us and complete happiness" and "What's something we think every person should experience in their lifetime?"

God bless and keep safe.

Every blessing

Martin

Struggles

retold by Alice Gray

When he was a small boy, he had loved butterflies. Not to net and mount them, but to wonder at their designs and habits

Now a grown man with his first son to be born in a few weeks, he found himself once again fascinated with a cocoon. He had found it at the side of the park path. Somehow the twig had been knocked from the tree and the cocoon had survived undamaged and still woven to the branch.

As he had seen his mother do, he gently protected it by wrapping it in his handkerchief and carried it home. The cocoon found a temporary home in a wide topped Mason jar with holes in the lid. The jar was placed on the mantle for easy viewing and protection from the curious cat who would delight in vollying the sticky silk between her paws.

The man watched. His wife's interest lasted only a moment, but he studied the silky envelope. Almost imperceptibly at first, the cocoon moved. He watched more closely and soon the cocoon was trembling with activity. Nothing else happened. The cocoon remain tightly glued to the twig and there was no sign of wings.

Finally the shaking became so intense, the man thought the butterfly would die from the struggle. He removed the lid on the jar, took a sharp pen knife from the desk drawer and carefully made a tiny slit in the side of the cocoon. Almost immediately, one wing appeared and then out stretched the other. The butterfly was free!

It seemed to enjoy its freedom and walked along the edge of the jar and along the edge of the mantle. But it didn't fly. At first, the man thought the wings needed time to dry, but time passed and still the butterfly didn't take off.

The man was worried and called up his neighbour who taught School Science. He told the neighbour how he had found a cocoon, placed it in the Mason jar and the terrible trembling as the butterfly struggled to get out. When he described how he had carefully made a small slit and the cocoon, the teacher stopped him.

“Oh, that's the reason. You see the struggle is what gives the butterfly the strength to fly and so it is with us sometimes it's the struggles in life thus strengthen our faith the most