The lift reached my floor, bringing our conversation to an abrupt halt. We had been discussing ways in which she might be able to support me in my task of promoting prayer in the UK Salvation Army, but we’d run out of time, so the rest would have to wait for another day. I got ready to say my hasty goodbye, standing across the threshold of the lift to stop the doors closing on me, but she interrupted me.

“It’s like this,” she said. “I will do anything I can to further the cause of prayer in The Salvation Army, even if it’s making the tea!”

And that’s what she’s done. Yes, as it happens, she’s made me countless cups of tea over the years, but she has done far more than that. She has prayed, she has taught on prayer, she has ministered freedom and healing, and, along with her husband Alan, she has planted The Salvation Army’s first ever boiler room. In fact, Major Jo Norton (and this may be one of the only times I get to use her title without hearing her groan!) really has furthered the cause. In fact, she’s taken said cause by the scruff of the neck, given it a jolly good shake, set it on its feet and sent it hurtling off into the distance at an alarming rate! There are people all over this country who pray because Jo inspired them to. What’s more (and for the record she’d be more proud of this one) there are people all over this country who know Jesus because Jo introduced them to him.

Four weeks ago today, Jo suffered a severe aneurysm. It was totally baffling because she didn’t seem in any way ill … in fact, she was at the top of her game. I had just spent a weekend with her at a conference, with lots of time to chat about all kinds of things, and I had never known her so motivated and fulfilled. She really was flying. Then suddenly she was in hospital.

The next 3 weeks were a journey of wonder as God brought her through, answering our prayers for healing in all the ways we most love them to be answered. She didn’t seem to have any brain function loss, and though they were unable to repair the bleed in surgery because of its location, she seemed to be getting stronger every day.

Then, just a few hours before she was due to come home, she suffered another severe aneurysm, but this time she didn’t regain consciousness.

For four and a half days we prayed. We prayed as Jo herself used to pray for those who were beyond the help of human medicin. We prayed in faith, knowing that our God can raise the dead. We prayed out of deep love for Jo. And most of all we prayed the prayer we knew she would be praying – that God would be glorified, and that his Kingdom would go forward, no matter what the outcome of this so painful situation would be.

Part-way through this time, I had the privilege of going in to see Jo and praying with her. My friend and I sat at her side for about four hours, singing over her, reading the Bible to her and praying every prayer we knew to pray. She always used to tell me that she longed to be able to do a good ‘clean-up’ on people, if they were dying too early. She wanted to do the thorough kind of spiritual warfare that would ensure that there was nothing oppressing them or hastening their illness. Well, that was the least we could do for her.

As we finished praying with her, I saw a picture of her climbing up from the bottom of a long spiral staircase. I knew there was an exit from that staircase on to the floor where I was standing, but I also knew it carried on up. I felt strongly that she was climbing, and that her sppirit had the choice as to which floor she came out on.

At 4:30pm on Saturday afternoon her body died, and we finally knew that she had carried on up to the one she loved and lived for. Theories abound as to what she will be doing up there right now … some have her partying, some have her checking in on friends who got there before her, and some even have her chasing God around with her famous notebook, asking the answers to all the questions she’s been storing up all these years! Me, I think she’s looking for the kettle.

For those of us she has temporarily left behind, the loss is terrible. To us, she just wasn’t meant to go yet! She was such a large part of so many things – such an influence … such a powerhouse of encouragement and vision. She leaves huge gaps all over the place. Right now, it all feels like more gaping holes than fabric without her.

I will miss the visionary in her. True visioneries are pretty rare, and perhaps rarer still in The Salvation Army, but she was one. She lived at a level of faith for this movement that I can hardly match, even on my best days. She saw the impossible as entirely doable, so long as we kept praying and working towards it.

As one who is not a visionary like she was, I can vouch for her ability to keep your faith truly stretched and challenged! She would say:

“Lyndall, all we need is to see this and this and this, and then we’ll be there!”

Trouble was, all the ‘this’s’ were huge faith-goals, every one of which daunted me all by itself. I would patiently and carefully explain all the obstacles of structure and system to her … all the reasons why these goals might not be reached quite so simply … and she would smile and say:

“Well, I leave all the politics and stuff to you because you know more about that. I just know that’s where we’ve got to head, so I’m praying and believing for that!”

And the thing is, frustrating though I sometimes found it that I couldn’t believe for the big things she was believing for, I never felt like she was pressuring me or leaving me behind. She was a true partner. If Jesus sends his disciples out in twos, then she is the one he sent me out with when I first started my job. She was always there … unswervingly and unstintingly committed to the cause of prayer in The Salvation Army. Oh, she had the busiest diary and the most hectic life sometimes, but her dedication to the work we were doing never failed. She believed in carrying the vision, not just seeing it.

I once failed to invite her to join the leadership team of an event we were running because I thought her diary could do with one less engagement in it … only to find she was offended at having been spared the work!!! I have rarely met anyone so willing to shoulder their load as she was. She didn’t complain, she didn’t try to wimp out. She just got on with it.

She was the kind of leader you could safely look to and learn from. She had the ability to lead from the front when it was needed, but she also had the ability to give strength and support from within the ranks. Position and status had very little importance for her (except in the Kingdom inheritance sense of the words). She just wanted to see the Kingdom advance, and she truly didn’t mind who took the credit for that. I’d ask her what role she wanted to fill in a team, or what responsibilities she’d prefer to have in a particular project, and I’d give her first dibs, before inviting anyone else, but she’d just look slightly bemused and say:

“Well I’ll do whatever needs doing.”

It’s been my incredible privilege in life to have some wonderful mentors, and Jo was one of those. She just knew stuff! I could listen to her talking about her experiences of ministry for hours. She would go on courses, then read the notes out to me. She would answer my questions, and she would let me bounce ideas off her. She genuinely was something of a fount of knowledge!

But she was also a stalwart armour-bearer. Whatever happened, I know Jo had my back. She would check what my diary included, and she would pray for me in the things I was doing. She knew without needing to be told that some of the engagements were going to be tough or frustrating or painful, and she would text me to assure me of her love and prayers. And when there were breakthroughs, she was first at the party!

There are hundreds of little things I shall miss: being greeted in an embarrassingly loud voice from 10 yards away across a crouded train station … watching her turn blank spaces into prayer rooms … waiting in anticipation as she consulted her vast filing system for just the right renunciation prayer …

But most of all I will miss her steadfast love and faith. I remember her telling me (several times) that when she arrived at the Salvation Army Training College, as a new cadet and a relatively new Christian, she assumed they would be taught to do things the way they were done in Jesus’ day and in the early days of The Salvation Army. She fully and entirely expected there to be classes on healing the sick and raising the dead!

She didn’t find those classes (though it never seemed to stop her praying and believing for those things anyway. Perhaps it is an even greater accolade to her to say that, though this limping church wasn’t the place she thought it should be, she never gave up on it. She set her face to seek the Lord, and, like the Herald she was, she went out into the driest darkest corners and sowed a vast crop of hope.

I so look forward to seeing it spring up!