creative prayer ideas interceding for older people

We’ve uploaded a new resource to our new and topical page. The creative prayers it contains are all about helping us to be inspired by, and value, the older people in our families, churches and communities…

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…and we’d like to dedicate it to the memory of one of the most inspirational big sisters in the faith we have ever known.

Because Margaret Davson will always be a heroine to us both and she’s inspired many more women than just us to spend their lives trying to be ‘mini Margarets’.

What we will remember her for above all, and try to spend our own lives working towards, is a radiant, almost transparent Christ-likeness, beautifully lit by the brilliance of humility.

Margaret would stand in front of you, take both your hands and look you full in the face – even when her eyesight was mostly gone –  and speak soft and strong words of encouragement with the most extraordinary love and normalcy combined. You couldn’t really tell what was Margaret and what was Jesus anymore, because she’d spent so much time in his presence and seeking to love like him.

Her vicar, Tony Hurle, who still leads St Pauls’ Church, St Albans (the Sanctuary’s sending church) used to say the thing he admired so much about her was that she refused to be offended at God. He was right – she’d seen a lot of suffering – but she always ran into God with it, rather than away from him. She never seemed to wield it at him angrily either.

Pretty much everyone of every age that encountered her valued her, because she impacted them all. But some of the most remarkable things she did weren’t always seen or heard.

She was a woman of faith who, together with her inspiring husband Noel, instantly recognised the Sanctuary’s vision as being from God and faithfully supported its outworking in prayer and through little notes, cards or phonecalls filled with encouragement, scripture or pictures they’d seen when praying for the project.

Margaret embodied the sense of all life – even the last years of it – being a demonstration of an ‘upward call’. That you were never to frail to be used by God. When she couldn’t leave the house as much she simply prayed all the more in it instead.

There are lots of cheesy cards that talk about people being aged to perfection, or being like fine vintages – in many cases they’re twee optimism. But Margaret really did finish so spectacularly well that they would all be appropriate.

And we like many prized her for this active, constant pursuit of the ‘upward call’ as much as for her wisdom; her kindness; and her humility. So we are very sad that she’s no longer with us, even though we know she is now at home, and at rest.

Thank you Margaret. It isn’t enough. But one day it will be, because you will see the impact you have had on us all as we strive to live our lives fully for him, becoming more and more like him every day until we too – like you, and in part because of you – are transparent, glass-like people for his love to shine through.

With much love to Noel and everyone at St Pauls’ today as you celebrate Margaret’s life – we wish we could be with you physically as well as in spirit,

Liz and Jill

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