This week I needed to buy some helium balloons to leave in someone’s house to welcome them home from honeymoon.
My local balloon shop was, annoyingly, shut, so I had to travel further afield.

On entering the unfamiliar surroundings of a new balloon shop I was greeted by a lady (with what my Grandma would describe as “unfortunate teeth”) and asked, as plain as day if I was “Maid Marion.”

I was slightly aghast. I looked at myself bemused. I wondered if someone had very quickly thrown some kind of medieval garb onto my person without my knowledge.

Again came the query,

“Are you Maid Marion love?”

I wondered about replying, “No. It’s just the way I’m standing…”

“Are you Avitar then?” said the lady with the aforementioned teeth, that were like the ten commandments- (all broken)

“No. I am not. I am not either of those. I just want to buy a balloon.” I said, now rather flummoxed.

“Oh, right!” she said.

“Maid Marion?” she shouted.

A lady at the back of the shop came forward… “Yes!” She said “That’s for me… and Avitar as well?”

It was only then that I realised that the shop was a fancy dress shop too.

Talk about mistaken identity!

Sometimes people see something in us that we cannot see – some gift of the spirit that we are unaware of, or some skill or character strength that we cannot find within ourselves.

A few days ago a guy came to see us who has known us a long time, through different seasons of our lives. He has known us as leaders, movers and shakers, as well as family people… as a father and a mother. (The only thing I move and shake right now is the occasional cushion.)
He described me as he saw me.
I confess that I did not recognise the person he spoke of. I certainly no longer feel I have many of those attributes. It was unsettling. It was as though someone was asking me if I was Maid Marion.

I know God must be doing something and that others can sense it. I however am totally numb and unable to see anything other than what is right in front of me. Praise God that my faith does not rest on how I feel or what I can see.
Faith is being sure of what I can’t feel and see.

God never has a case of mistaken identity. He gets it right every time.