I guess, like many of us, I have been challenged, over the last month, by Fred and Chloe’s experiences and stories of their time in Mozambique.

The question it raises again for me with regard to healing (and it’s not a particularly new or original one for many of us, I suspect) is, 'What is it I should expect to see? What is it we should expect God to do?'

I neither want to over-claim nor under-claim what it is that God has promised in this regard. Equally, I do not want us to miss what God has clearly been doing - and continues to do - among us in maybe less spectacular ways.  John Coles, leader of the New Wine Network, wrote in his latest newsletter:

"Being normal - I remember, a number of years ago, J John, in talking about effective evangelism, urged us at New Wine to 'just be normal!' Of course, leading someone to decide to make ]esus their Saviour and their Lord requires thoughtful listening and clear explanation. But, in our society, vast numbers of people are deprived of deep caring relationships because their nuclear or extended family has been torn apart through neglect, abuse, breakdown and divorce. For them, the offer of relationship within a community of wholesome 'life-filled' people is extraordinarily attractive. They want to how much we care, more than how much we know."

And one of the things l rejoice in most, at the moment, is that 'extra-ordinary' supernatural work that God has been doing among us in recent times, transforming us, shaping us and making us into that kind of community. I long to see more and more of that.

The issue of healing (unless we manage to break, here in Cromer, 2000 years of Christian history) is, I suspect, one that we might not find universal agreement on!  But, in the words of the chorus of a Rend Collective song that sticks with me at the moment, Your will, done Your way is a prayer I hope we can all own as we rejoice in the sometimes 'spectacular' and often 'not-so-spectacular' things that we see God doing in this part of the world.

Rev’d Canon Dr David Court - Vicar of Cromer