Area letter from one of our readers, Maggie Hatchard; November 2020

Why worry??

This year has been a strange one - we are certainly living through a time that will go down in history. Children in the future will be learning about this time in their history lessons. I wonder what they will call it.

We have all had time on our hands and perhaps we have managed to use it well by clearing out cupboards, sorting through things that we have not bothered with before, doing lots of gardening, taking walks and rediscovering the place where we live.

But I’m sure that there have been times when we have worried about the future – what is our world going to be like? What might happen to me if I catch this virus? What must I do to make sure I don’t catch the virus? Is it safe to go out? Is it safe to go to church? Is it safe to meet friends, to go shopping? So many things plague our minds when the world becomes a place that we don’t recognise.

In Luke’s Gospel 12:22-26, Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”

Jesus is telling us that if God provides for even the birds of the air then he will provide for us, as we are so much more valuable than the birds. Worrying won’t add time to our lives - so what is the point of worrying!

But this doesn’t stop us worrying does it? What I think we have to do is to take each day as it comes and make the most of each day that we have. To see the joy as our seasons change, as nature takes its inevitable course. We’ve seen the growth in our gardens and the fields that surround us and the crops that we and the farmers have produced. The joy in the singing of the birds and humming of the bees, the colour in our gardens. The conversations we have had with our neighbours and other people we have met on our walks. The phone calls we have held. There has been and still will be joy to be found in our lives.

I believe that God is with us always and when we hold a conversation with Him and recognise Him working in our lives through Creation and through the people we meet, we are blessed. And of course, He will work through us as we hold conversations with people and in whatever work we do to help one another, whoever they are.

Maggie