You cannot expect to be too mobile in the few hours after an operation. No, dear reader, I am not going to bore you with the details of mine!
But, when the young teenager came onto the ward to ask if anyone would like to be taken to the Hospital Chapel for Morning Service, I was glad to take up his offer. I clambered gratefully, if a little painfully, into his wheelchair. (It is a wonderful service they provide, the Chapel Escorts).
I enjoyed the service - not least because it was led by a Reader in Training, a young lady from Winsford. I vaguely recognised her. As we chatted afterwards, she told me that my face was vaguely familiar to her, too. We decided we must have seen each other at Readers' A.G.M.'s.
But back to my Chapel Escort. He was doing everything for me. In my present state, there was nothing I could do for him. Or so I would have said.
We chatted on our way back to the Ward. He asked which church I attended. He knows, and has visited, our church of St. Boniface at Bunbury, in return, I asked the name of his church. It was in the Winsford area - and it rang a special bell for me!
"I know it well," I told him.
Then I explained that, a few years ago, I had produced the recording of a Christmas Carol Service from the,particular church, to be broadcast later on Hospital Radio.
"I was at that service," he relied, somewhat wistfully, "I would dearly have loved to have had a copy of the recording, but didn't get the chance.
Suddenly, there was something I could do for him!
"Let me have your name and address," I told him, "and when I get back home again I can make a copy from my tape and send it to you."
Two complete strangers meet ‑ and can immediately help each other in some way! earlier that morning, I had no idea whatsoever that a young man I had never met before would be my means of getting to worship. Even less would I have said there was any way for me to help him. We never know when opportunity is going to knock on the front door of our particular life, to enable us to help another.
This is even more important when it comes to opportunities for Christian witness. Some opportunities are obvious. Any clergyman will tell you that 'occasional' services Baptisms, Marriages, Funerals all offer them opportunities. So, too, do home and sick visits.
Parish magazines such as "The Link" provide opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus, too.
Only we cannot all be clergy or magazine editors. Yet, the call to witness is a call to every single one of us: who can claim to follow Jesus are his disciples of today, just as much as were Peter and Andrew and James and John and the rest of them. Very often, our 'opportunity' to witness for Our Lord will come along to us, unexpectedly.
Are we always ready for such opportunities to witness, to share our Faith? Or are we so engrossed in ourselves, in "Number One", that nobody else gets a look-in? Or - dare we ask it? - do we even feel we could be wasting our time?
If we do, the opportunity can be gone, for ever.
Like the good Scout or Guide, may we always "Be Prepared" to respond to any opportunity, however unlikely it may seem to us to be.
We, too, may well seem to others to be very "unlikely material", but God will not give up on any of us. For He sees what we can become, given the opportunity.
Be assured - Christian witness is the most precious and the most privileged service that any of us can offer!
W.W.W.