Hope

I opened the living room curtains on this bright morning to find a deer grazing nervously beside the big tree. The grass is white with frost and the thermometer reads -5C. It’s cold out there.

I rushed round to find bags of bird food to put out – they must be cold and hungry. Dusty, of course, is in her element. With her long fur, this is her sort of weather. She was racing down the drive as we left for our walk, invigorated by the cold that drives me in.

Crazily, I’ve hung out the wet sheets. They’ll be taut as plywood when I bring them in later, I’m sure, but there’s always the hope that some of the moisture might evaporate outside rather than leave puddles of condensation on the utility room window.

It’s a glorious Monday morning. For me, just another Monday, which I’ll spend working through my To Do List. But it’s made me think of those for whom it is not just another Monday. For those whose lives were changed forever in the conflagration on the motorway in Devon the other night, due possibly to the smoke from a Guy Fawkes’ bonfire cutting visibility and causing mayhem and carnage. I see the glory of the day and praise the Lord; how many others look at its beauty with blind eyes, broken hearts leaving them empty and hopeless?

For them I pray the phrase from Romans 15:13, which we were encouraged by at church yesterday. ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’

In fact, I pray that for all for whom I pray this day. And all who may read this.