The Gift of Being There

🕯️ Sometimes the ministry begins before we even realise we've arrived.

This morning I set out to attend the baptism of a man I'd never met. Zoë had invited me, and I went to support her.

I walked into the hall not recognising anyone. Almost immediately, I wondered whether I was even in the right place. Nothing looked particularly like a baptism or church service was about to happen. There was no obvious gathering around a baptismal pool, no familiar cues to reassure me I'd found the right room. A few people were simply sitting around tables, chatting over cups of tea and coffee, the gentle clink of china and the easy hum of conversation filling the room.

I stood there for a moment, puzzled and uncertain.

Am I actually in the right place?🤔

Then I heard a man call my name and saw him coming towards me. He met me at the door and greeted me with a hug.

Wait…
Who is he?🤔
More puzzling still:
How does he know me?🤔😄

It took me a little while before the pieces finally fell into place. This was Emil, my friend Zoë's boyfriend, the very person being baptised today.

✍️ I've carried that moment home with me like a small, warm stone in my pocket. There's something tender about being recognised before you recognise. I had arrived feeling slightly lost, unsure of my footing, and before I could find my way, someone found me. He knew my name. He came to the door.

Isn't that exactly what the Good Shepherd does?🤔 He doesn't wait for us to work out where we are or whether we belong. He meets us at the threshold of every unfamiliar room and every uncertain season, and He calls us by name. Long before I knew Him, He knew me.

🕊️ After the Word, Emil shared his testimony ahead of his baptism. Earlier this year, Zoë had relayed my encouragement for him to see faith as a relationship rather than a religion, and as he spoke, I realised that simple invitation had become a turning point for him. I sat there quietly marvelling at how the Lord takes a few words, passed gently from one heart to another, and waters them into new life. I hadn't planted anything grand; I'd only offered a seed, and God had given the increase.

Later, I stood near the water's edge. Dark tiles, still water, soft light from the window resting on its surface. A man with a guitar led us in worship, and the room that had looked so ordinary only moments before became holy ground.

There's something about baptismal water, how it holds both a burial and a birth. Emil stepped down into it, not into a religion but into a relationship, and I watched a man lay his old life beneath the surface and rise to walk in newness of life.

🪨 I keep thinking of those teacups on the tables. We're all a little like pottery, aren't we?🤔 Each of us cracked in our own places, chipped by the years, some of us held together more by grace than by glue. Baptism isn't a declaration that we've arrived whole and unbroken. It's a declaration of whose we are. The Potter doesn't discard what's broken; He fills every fracture with gold, like kintsugi, until the very places we thought disqualified us become the places His glory shines through.

✍️ That night, Zoë sent me this beautiful message:

"Thank you so much for your support today Trixi. I didn't know I needed it till you were there so I could hug you & hold your hand. I love, value & appreciate you so much. Emil recognised you straight away! ✝️🙏🫂🎁💜💯"

There's one sentence I keep returning to:

"I didn't know I needed it till you were there."

What a tender description of the ministry of presence.

Zoë didn't say that I fixed anything. She didn't thank me for having exactly the right words, solving a problem or somehow making a difficult or emotional moment disappear.

What mattered was wonderfully simple.

I was there.
Close enough to hug.
Close enough for her to hold my hand.
Safe enough that she discovered she needed support only after that support had already arrived.

🕊️ Sometimes we imagine ministry as something we do. We look for the words, the answers, the prayer, the solution, the action that will somehow make us useful. Yet some of the holiest expressions of Christ's love are simply embodied.

Sitting beside someone.
Staying when something feels tender.
Offering a hand without demanding an explanation.
Allowing someone to lean towards us without immediately trying to make their vulnerability disappear.

📖 "A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity." — Proverbs 17:17 (NKJV)

Perhaps there's something profoundly Christlike about love that doesn't first ask, What can I do?🤔

Sometimes love simply says,

I am here.

🪨 Then there was Emil.

I can't help smiling when I think about that moment at the door. There I was, wondering who on earth this man was and how he knew my name, while he apparently had no difficulty recognising me whatsoever. 😂

Zoë's little addition, "Emil recognised you straight away!", makes that moment even sweeter. I had walked into the room feeling like the stranger, yet somehow I was already known. Perhaps he recognised me so quickly because my words had reached his heart long before I walked through that door.

There's something unexpectedly beautiful about that. I wasn't merely another person who happened to turn up for a baptism. My presence belonged within their story that day.

Perhaps that's the deeper treasure I want to keep from Zoë's message.

The gift wasn't my usefulness.

The gift was me.

Not Trixi the organiser.
Not Trixi the administrator.
Not Trixi the artist.
Not Trixi the speaker.
Not Trixi who knows what to say or what needs doing next.

Simply Trixi, the friend who showed up.
The friend who walked through the door.
The friend whose hand could be held.
The friend whose arms were available for a hug.
The friend who didn't even know she was needed until someone leaned into her presence and quietly revealed that she was.

💔💖 Perhaps this is one of the quietest ways my calling to broken hearts is lived out.

Not always from a platform.
Not always through a painting.
Not always upon the pages of something I've written.

Sometimes the calling looks remarkably ordinary.

A chair beside someone.
A hand inside another hand.
A hug held for just a little longer.
A familiar face walking unexpectedly through a doorway.

📖 "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." — Romans 12:15 (NKJV)

There's no instruction there to fix, only to be with.

Jesus Himself continually demonstrated this kind of nearness. He entered people's grief, sat at tables, touched those others avoided, wept alongside mourners and allowed people to come close. His presence was never passive. His presence was love made near.

🌱 Perhaps that's what I witnessed today in such a small and beautiful way.

I thought I was simply attending Emil's baptism. I wondered whether I'd even walked into the right room. Meanwhile, God knew there was a friend inside who would need a hug, a hand to hold and the quiet reassurance of someone familiar standing beside her.

I didn't need to know that before I arrived.

I only needed to come.

Sometimes, perhaps, that's enough.

✍️ I walked in not recognising anyone. I walked out knowing I'd been seen by a new brother in Christ, by a friend who needed a hand to hold, and by the Shepherd who has always known my name.