TEST!

Smith Wigglesworth, a General of the Christian Faith, said,

"Great faith is the product of great fights. Great testimonies are the outcome of great tests. Great triumphs can only come out of great trials. Every stumbling block must become a stepping stone and every opposition must become an opportunity."

Those iconic photos of Londoners dancing in the fountains of Trafalgar Square, on VE day in 1945; the smiling faces of street parties up and down the land, did not happen without the bloodied scenes on the beaches of France, less than a year before, or the humiliation of Dunkirk before that!

Every war culminates in a great battle, or a series of battles, before victory is grasped.

It is the grasping of nettles, searing the fist of the victor, but a victory nonetheless.

And victory brings liberation.

In 1991, while expecting our first child, Dean, (my husband) and I, travelled to France for a touring holiday. Our first night's stop after a storm buffeted ferry journey, was in a town called Sainte-Mere-Eglise; the first town in Cotentin, Normandy, to be liberated by American Paratroopers.

This small, ancient town, carrying the histories of ages and generations past, was punctuated, by a brief period in its story by its capture and subsequent liberation in World War 2.

We found a town profoundly marked by the sacrifices of men who had most likely never even seen the humble town before the days of June 5th & 6th, 1944.

We stayed at Le Six Juin Inn and dined at Le Six Juin Hotel. We posed by the War monument in the Town Centre. The battle, hard fought and won in the heart of their homes, that returned their freedom, was a defining moment in their 'histoire.'

A child conceived in pleasure, will inevitably be birthed in blood shed. Birth is not possible without it. There is stretching. There is pain. There is sweat. There is endurance. There are tears. There is the moment of testing to the uttermost limit of what we can bare, but then we bare the fruit of our labours! A life! A new chapter for a family and the first chapter continues for the little one for whom all this struggle was for! And there is such joy. It's not that the pain is forgotten, but is rather overwhelmed with a greater impression on our beings.

The willingness to suffer unto even death, for the sake of another person or persons, is the essence of love. It is, in nature, divine. It is the way in which God loved the world, through Christ.

Jesus faced the greatest test of all. He wrestled and agonized. He won. Liberation from sin and death was the spoils of victory, made available to everyone who turn to Him.

Be not surprised, believer, when you find yourself embattled; when you emerge fresh from victory, and soon feel the burning of the next battle heavy on your brow. We are at war.

We fight with an unseen enemy, a fight that touches this life, with consequences on the next.

For every Saint-Mere-Eglise hard won, there remains dozens, even hundreds of 'towns' and 'villages' before us.

But we take heart, for the God of the Angel Armies rides with us. He is clothed in Victory, His name, Indisputable Conqueror, Lord of the Nations, King of the Heavens. His Spirit clothes us in power.

Jesus is with us! He never leaves His soldier's side.

We cannot fail. We must not fail.

Grasp the nettle! Seize the day!

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