“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the  Lord  be  praised”  Job 1 :21b

It was a beautiful winter morning. Cecil was sitting in the kitchen with his first coffee of the day, and staring out of the window. He loved mornings like this. The lawn was sparsely covered with a layer of frost, so thin the green of the grass was also poking through. The cold pale light from the early morning sun revealed itself from the hills on the distant horizon, casting an accusing glare through the mesh of winters denuded trees.

“The best time”, thought Cecil to himself as he picked up a note resting next to the phone. A list of hymns for the service this morning. Cecil was on the rota to play this Sunday. He liked the early mornings. He could drive to Crosham early and have a quick practice of the hymns before the service started.

The next step was to defrost the…