It’s Spring Harvest – week 1 day 3 – in the evening - interview with Robin

 

 

Probably – oh about 1999 we were actually sitting in a seminar in Spring Harvest. Pete Meadows was speaking. Talking about Christians being involved in the community. I’d already been a governor at the school my daughters were at but that had come to an end. I really felt that I wanted to do something for the Lord in the community.

 

As I was sitting there listening to what Pete was saying, I quite clearly heard the Lord say to me (I’d been involved in some counselling) that He wanted me to formalise my counselling training; the other thing I heard was I want you to be a magistrate.

 

I did an Abraham! I laughed because being a magistrate was not something that was natural to come into my life. I said, the first part's easy to fulfil – I know how to deal with the counselling bit, but how on earth do I go about sorting out becoming a magistrate?

 

I went home and then a couple of weeks later I picked up our local paper, which is a bit of a rag and I don’t normally bother to read it. I looked at a part of the paper that I had never looked at before, which was the public announcements, and there was a box that said ‘Have you ever thought about becoming a magistrate? If so ring this number’.

 

So I rang the number and the woman said to me ‘Where did you find the number?’ – so I told her, from the local paper. She said, ‘local paper? Just a minute...' when the lady came back she said, 'you’re right – we’ve never done that before', and in fact they’ve never done it since.

 

I got the application forms through, and it took quite a long time because in fact I’d just missed the year applications. I got an invitation for an interview in 2 stages. Did the first stage and I was told ‘You won’t hear from us for 3 – 4 months, and if we choose to take you on to the next interview, it will be some time before you hear’.

 

So that was the Thursday evening – got home Friday evening as I’d been out all day, and there was a message from the court asking me to give them a call. I had to wait all over the weekend because the offices had closed. Phoned them on the Monday and they said we’d like you to come back for a second interview please. Where the 3 months had gone I don’t know quite!

 

Went back for the second one and I was asked a question by someone who turned out to be the high sheriff who was chairing the meeting at the time.  I was given a sernario to answer and I was seriously scratching my head but must have given the right answer as this very severe woman looked at me and a big smile spread across her face.  She said that’s absolutely spot on, that’s just what we’re looking for - must have been God!

 

And so even with that – the Lord not only told me He wanted me to be a magistrate but he supplied all the answers as well!!  I was appointed and sailed straight through it.

 

About 10 years now.

 

Absolutely.

 

I’ve met other Christians on the bench and it's been a mutual encouragement to know Christians are in this line of work.  I’m a family magistrate and we often spend quite a lot of time trying to sort the best for children involved in family disputes etc – we would much rather the family work things out amicably between themselves than have us force a solution on them. So we will happily wait for them to talk things through.

 

This waiting period gives us lots of time in the retiring room to talk things through ourselves and you wouldn't believe the number of conversations we have where my faith and Christian values are mentioned.  In fact the number of times I’ve been able to share the above story with other non-Christian magistrates has been quite staggering and lots and lots of them have just been blown away by the whole sequence of events.  I also sometimes take the time to pray for the families.