Hello
If you are reading this, it is another small sign of our lives have remained very different, although it is perhaps a life we are becoming accustomed to, as the lockdown continues we cannot safely ask people to distribute hard copies and so with so much more of our lives we are online.
This last lockdown has been hard hasn’t it coming so soon on the restrictions last year and then the changes just before Christmas meaning that many of us didn’t manage the family celebrations we were planning.
We are however, coming through the worst of the short days, spring is approaching, the days are becoming longer and with the vaccine there is hope, light at the end of the tunnel, but it is a very long tunnel.
Many of us are coping with the lockdown and isolation and that can be struggle enough, but as the number of Covid deaths in the UK have hit 100 000, there are many people who are asking ‘where is God in all this?’ or perhaps, ‘why has God done this?’
This is similar to a question asked of Jesus when confronted with a blind man:
“Teacher: whose sin was it that caused this man to be blind? Did he sin or did his parents?”
“He didn’t sin,” replied Jesus, “ nor did his parents. It happened so that God’s work could be seen in him”.
Jesus wasn’t looking back at what may have happened to this man, in much the same way as I am sure he hasn’t sent this ‘curse’ upon the world, but what it does mean is that just as Jesus was saying he was looking forward to what God was going to do with the man and his blindness, we can look for the work of God in our world today.
Jesus healed the man, and as we look around our world today, we see the touch of God. If you have missed them then let me give you an idea.
The gifts that have enabled the vaccines to be developed and produced.
The rapid adaptions we have made in treatments.
The dedication of so many people in caring professions.
In the many small acts of kindness shown by strangers to one another each and every day.
To the many prayers being answered.
God works through each of us, if we let him, God is with us in every moment of joy, frustration, loneliness, anger and grief. God didn’t do this to us, but through his gifts and his love, we will come through this.
God Bless Carolyn
Thurlby Village together with Northorpe 