Weathering the Storms
As I write this it seems that the winter might at last be with us. With the ground frozen it was a real pleasure to take our dog for a walk and not have to wade through seas of mud. A stormy and warm December was the wettest calendar month on record and many people in the UK have suffered devastating loss of homes and livelihoods in the resultant flooding.
The total cost of insurance pay-outs, uninsured losses, rebuilding communities, improving flood defences, losses to businesses, etc. has been predicted to be nearly £6bn. That’s not counting the impact on eco-systems and the way that many plants and insects will be affected by the unseasonal warmth and the frosts that are to follow. On top of this the emotional cost to people caught in the floods is impossible to calculate; many precious possessions lost, many days of clearing up and throwing away, many months with the smell of damp and always the fear that it may happen again.
It seems like we keep getting new extremes in our weather and there has been speculation that climate change is behind it. However, the Met office has stated that it was primarily factors other than climate change that caused the severe storms we had in December. They say it will be many decades before this level of extreme winter weather becomes the norm. But, whatever statistics may tell us, when you are battling to save lives, or possessions, from flooding and all you can see is the waters rising around you then the challenge you are facing can seem overwhelming.
In the same way in our lives there are many times when we individually, as a family, in a place or work, etc can face some severe ‘storms’. And, like the weather in December, these storms in our lives can sometimes come one after another so that we can feel overwhelmed.
God does not promise that life will all be a bed or roses, but that he will be with us in all the challenges we face in life.
Looking back, I can see that some of the most difficult times in my life have been times when I have grown a lot as a person. However, when you are in the middle of a storm it is not always easy to believe that ‘things will work out’. When we are in these places we don’t need platitudes, we need people around us who will just be there for us, lift us up, support us, listen to us, encourage us, pray with us, believe in us and, sometimes, challenge us.
One of the things that can keep us going is the hope that the storm we are in will abate and that things will ultimately get better.
The focus of a six week course that we are running in Lent this year is the 2012 musical adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic ‘Les Misérables’. The story follows the lives of several characters as they battle ‘storms’ during a very troubled time in French history.
As the characters battle through their storms, the story explores the powerful themes of law, grace, justice, compassion, reconciliation, love, truth, responsibility, fellowship and more.
We will be exploring some of these themes in our Lent course. Themes that will help us in the storms we face in our own lives.
There are 6-7 groups in the area (some meeting in the daytime and some in the evening) that will be meeting together to do this course. The groups will be light and informal and will meet for 1.5 to 2 hours each week during lent.
If you would like to come along please contact Pete Ashton (01926 640981) and he can let you know the times and places that the different groups are meeting.
We hope that you can join us!
Rev Barry Jackson