Time is short

Time was short today, because I had my weekly outing to the grocery store. I confess that I came home grumpy. I’m getting tired of the mask and fussing with plastic gloves. I’m really tired of washing and wiping down the purchases when I get back.

Then I feel guilty. I have it so good. I can afford to buy the food we want. I can drive to the shop. I come home to a husband and daughter and enjoy a poached egg and coffee which they have prepared. I have no complaints, only gratitude for my undeserved blessings.

In keeping with my ambition to play my cello every day, I squeezed in a quarter of an hour just now. I didn’t bother with my glasses or the music. I played from the heart, to my king. Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest. The splendour of the king. Thank you, Lord. Praise your name.

How great is our God. I am so grateful that although I have no idea how we will ever get out of this fearful pandemic, God knows. I hold before the throne of grace all those who are suffering with the illness or the loneliness or the bereavement or the anxiety or the exhaustion. Grace and peace in the name of Jesus, our Saviour.

Life Strategy

A curtain of fog hung over the land this morning, obscuring all in its swirling raw dampness. We could not see beyond the nearest point in the fields. Yet the birds were singing; above the cloud, the sun was shining, and before long warm rays broke through and beamed a light down. Gradually, the mist dissipated and the view returned.

Every news report seems to lead with the most recent 24-hour death count, draping a pall of doom over us all. But yesterday on Facebook I saw the smiling faces of dear young people in Illinois, welcoming the birth of their fourth baby with exclamations of joy. An atmosphere of death cannot stifle the power of life. Life, light and love will break through. God is the Lord of Life.

It was a quiet Easter, but a powerful one. Living through the chaos of this pandemic, where nobody has suggested a strategy which guarantees a safe exit from the lock downs, it is comforting to know that God has a strategy. Even at creation, he recognised that a pall of death would threaten us and would require his personal intervention as the Lord of Life.  

Remain in me, Jesus told his friends, and I will remain in you. Nothing can separate us from the Lord of Life. Rooted in Jesus, may we all bear the fruit he is bringing at this time, whatever that may look like.