A resource for quiet reflection and prayer in small 
groups, services, personal devotions and the like

Aim
To help people explore feelings and faith resources when facing or resisting limitations.

Focal point
A cross and a crown of thorns.

Introduction to the theme
Invite people around the group to read a verse each of the hymn "O love of God, how strong and true" and then play some music.

Find some examples from the newspapers which illustrate the high value put on hard work, keeping going, being independent. One example might be the stress still put on older people to "be useful".

Think of some of the phrases we hear people say : 
"I feel I'm just a passenger now"; 
"If only I could do what I used to"; 
"She's a good church worker". 

We are going to explore the world of limitation which may arouse a mixture of feelings.

Choose from the following facets of the theme, being sensitive to the people present and their households.

1. Resisting limitation
   Most of us struggle to accept limitation. Perhaps this is a healthy initial reaction. Can people think of examples from the Bible or elsewhere of people refusing to accept everyone else's view of what is possible? (For example: Matthew 17.20; Mark 10.27; Mark 3.5 ; John 5.6). 
   
   Spend some time in quiet jotting down times when we have been helped to overcome difficulties. Examples might be recovering from an operation; the end of a relationship; other losses. What helped and hindered? 
   
   Let there be an opportunity for sharing and thanksgiving.
   
2. Enforced idleness What about limitations which don't go away? 
   
   Look up 2 Corinthians 12.7–10. How do people understand what Paul is saying? What are the "thorns in the flesh" ? How comfortable do people feel with Paul's testimony? Invite people to look at or even hold some thorns and think about their own experiences. 
   
   Joyce Rupp in her book "Praying our goodbyes" suggests that in the painful process of saying farewell to old freedom we can find it helpful to name the loss and mourn it and find some little ritual as a way of symbolising the journey - for example emptying a seed pod. 
   
   It is helpful to have companions with whom to share the feelings of loss, frustration, anxiety, etc. Jesus had to face this in his own journey. Let people have some time to respond to this and then perhaps spend some more time with their thorns.

Two pictures to reflect upon

1. The first is a scene in an African village. An elderly woman is sitting on a patch of grass weakly scratching away with a hoe. Eventually the young children will be back but in the meantime all she knows is a lifetime of hard labour. There is something almost compulsive in her digging ...
   
2. The second is of a woman who has had to move into a residential home after a stroke. She sits much of the time by some French windows looking out at what is at first sight a not very impressive backyard and a couple of trees. When a busy minister calls she can manage to say "Look" - and to keep on saying it. The minister begins to see the bright blue sky, the vapour trails, some flowers in an old pot, the movement of the leaves on the tree, the glory of God in a little piece of creation he normally doesn't notice ... 
   
   "Let me employed for you or laid aside for you". 
   
   What speaks to people through these stories of God discovered in enforced limitations?

Moving to a smaller house
Introduce this as an imaginative prayer exercise. Think of what would be involved in having to move to a smaller home. What would be the losses and the advantages? What would it be important to take with you? What would have to be left behind? 

Name the feelings which each situation evokes or suggests and pray for those who are at this moment having to confront limitation or diminishment.

"It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our relationship"
 People may like to read "Adam – God's beloved" ("Henri Nouwen" Darton, Longman & Todd) which tells how an academic gave everything up to work in a L'Arche community and gained immeasurably from a person with severe medical difficulties. You could read extracts with silences.

A concluding reading
Paul faces the future: Acts 20.21–24; or the labour pangs of creation in Romans 8.18–25; or mutuality in the body of Christ in  I Corinthians 12.19–26.

Worth pondering
"I thank God for my handicaps; for through them I have found myself, my work, and my God" (Helen Keller).

"With the help of the thorn in my foot, I spring higher than anyone with sound feet." (Soren Kierkegaard).

Other resources for further ideas and follow up
"Grain in winter" by Donald Eadie (Epworth, 1999)
"The stature of waiting" by W H Vanstone (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1982)
"Tears of silence" by Jean Vanier (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973)

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