Poulton Halls

I was a little surprised to discover that there are two places claiming to be Poulton Hall in north-west England. One is located at Poulton Lancelyn on the Wirral and is a private residence whose owners are pleased to hire it for weddings and functions. The other is at Morecambe, where once the small fishing village of Poulton-le-Sands was swallowed up by the growing Victorian seaside town. In a small park are the remains of a thirteenth-century doorway, all that is left of its ancient manor house, having been demolished in the 1930s. One, a functioning home and business; the other, a single set of remains.

With time’s passing, I see that I increasingly resemble the latter Poulton Hall- decrepit, decaying and dilapidated. As youth evaporates and older age approaches, my body will become increasingly ruinous, my bones brittle, my skin sallow. Yet one day I shall have a new body- fresh as a baby’s, yet as eternal as the resurrected Christ’s. One day this mortal body will fall, but a new, glorious body shall I be given. Ill health is a horrible affliction, but it is never more than temporal.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

1 Cor 15: 42-44, NKJV