Dear Editor,
I was sorry to read the letter published in the May issue of en by the ex-pastor’s wife, expressing how she had been ill and not received the care she had wanted. I do hope that she has been able to speak to her minister, and that together they have been able to move forwards; her being able to offer him support in this vital area of church life, and he being able to reassure her of the possible reasons why on this occasion she did not receive the care she wanted.
I was also sorry though that this letter was published, since it was a letter of complaint. In Exodus 16, when God’s people grumbled (in this case against their leaders), God took that grumbling personally and says that it was actually against him. To grumble is to say to God, ‘You have not provided’. No wonder, as CH Spurgeon puts it, ‘Jesus wept but he never complained’.
