Dear Friends,
How are you? I am sitting writing this after a night of thunderstorms and spectacular lightening displays, aware that some people loved them, others hated them, and yet others slept right through. I must admit I am in the I love them camp! As I reflect upon that I am reminded that in all of what we are going through at this time, we all come from different places, some of us full of hope, others not so much.
The news this morning tells us that the UK is in recession for the first time since 2008, and predicts a gloomy forecast going forward. Young people waiting for exam results are anxious, businesses and schools are struggling with all that is required to open and function. Nothing is normal, and perhaps in the midst of the struggle that is the greatest gift that we have.
Nothing is normal, so we need to find a new way of being, and along with a new way of being, a new way of seeing, perhaps lifting our eyes again to God, bringing ourselves in prayer. In that light I offer you one of the Scriptures from our Covenant Service, I have taken it from The Message Version:
12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Can we trust as we walk through these days that God will bring us through, surely, we have stories of coming through difficult times before, and of course Scripture is full of them! So perhaps we dare to return to our Covenant with God, and in this time of being laid aside seek to find the gifts and graces in that as we look to the way forward, remembering that forward is not getting back to, but finding our way in a changed and changing world, the constant being that the love and promise of God are still firm and sure! Even in this God is making all things, including ourselves new!
So, I offer you a poem, and hold you in my prayers…
Love has me,
love holds me,
through my doubts and fears,
through the restless shadows of the night,
the whispers of deep despair,
love has me,
love holds me,
love does not let me go.
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Love has me,
love holds me,
through rejections,
questions, fallings, failings,
oft repeated stumblings,
through turnings and returnings,
love has me,
love holds me,
love does not let me go.
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Love has me,
Love holds me,
calls me out, and
calls me on,
takes my hand in the deepest valley
even in the darkest days, draws me back
to life..
love has me,
love holds me,
love does not let me go.
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Love has me,
love holds me,
too deep, too sure
for my muddled mind to grasp
as it denies again the call again,
but love insistent and persistent
has me
love holds me,
love does not, will not, cannot,
let me go!
(Sally Coleman August 2020)
May God bless and keep you, now and always
Reverend Sally Coleman
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Eternal footsteps 