Nine years ago, in June 2013, following an unexpected invitation a few months earlier, I joined the Board of Trustees of the Nazareth Trust. The Trust, a Scottish Christian charity with roots going back to 1841, owns and operates the main hospital in the town of Nazareth along with a Nursing School and the Nazareth Village, a representation of life in the time of Christ. 
 
My awareness of the work in Nazareth goes back to childhood and led to me spending time in the hospital as a student and later as a junior doctor. As a result my interest in, and affection for, the place, the people, and the work of the Trust is long-standing and runs deep, and the opportunity to serve on the Board, and to revisit Nazareth many times over recent years, has been a joy and a privilege. However tenure as a Trustee is for three years, renewable twice by mutual agreement, so at our AGM, due to be held this coming Friday in Nazareth, my formal engagement with the Trust comes to its natural and rightful conclusion.
 
Endings are often accompanied by the sense of loss, and that is not wrong. Indeed if something has played a valued part in our lives it would in some sense be devalued if we did not regret its ending and sense its loss. But it is also true that loss and regret can all too easily trap us in disappointment, even bitterness. 
 
Reflecting on the conclusion of my current role takes me back to the little word ‘unexpected’ in the opening sentence. The key issue cannot be regret that this season of engagement has ended - but gratitude that, in the kindness of God, such sustained involvement became possible in the first place. Although my interest in Nazareth may have persisted over the years the options for ever spending time there again appeared to have disappeared with the passage of time - until the phone rang, unexpectedly, in March 2013.
 
We serve a God who knows us from our mother’s womb [Ps139], who loves us, and whose purposes for us are always good. The times and seasons of our lives, our roles and our responsibilities may come and go, but his faithfulness endures forever [Ps117]