It can often seem in winter that not much is happening. With short days and cold weather many of us may choose instead to enjoy a log fire and an early evening, and perhaps the next episode of ‘War & Peace’! It’s hard to see always what’s going on in people’s lives, not least our own. It’s not like the summer where the freedom of the milder weather and long evenings means that we tend to bump into each much more readily in the village.
However with the daffs popping up and the year hardly begun, more things are flourishing than meet the eye. I remember a Saturday in January when all that beckoned seemed a pretty gloomy day with the promise of rain…all day long! However it was so exciting to meet over a dozen children and their families at Harlton woods for games and hot chocolate at the Sunday Club social, and then to whizz over for lunch at Oasis where over forty older guests joined together in a reunion from the summer staycation, which is organised between people from Harlton Church and All Saints’. So much to thank God for, and so much flourishing. I hope all those who helped or came along as a guest felt blessed in some way by those events – I know I did!
In my letter this month in Haslingfield’s Church and Village magazine, I reflected on the importance of Lent and preparing ourselves for the celebration of Easter – the burst of life from what can feel like a long journey of waiting, the work going on in the inside. But of course, the more we attend to our inner lives, the more we will, I believe, flourish and enable others to do the same. I love the bit in Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus where he prays for them. I have often used this for myself, for those I love and care for, or even find hard to love – possibly the bigger challenge!
‘My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit – not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength – that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.’
Ephesians 3: 14-20 (The Message)
This is my prayer for Lent, that I may know his love more fully and deeply – will you join me?