Thought for the Week

As I prepared to write ‘Thought’ for the first week in a new year and a new decade, I began to think back over the past ten years.

I must admit to becoming depressed as I thought of all the awful things that had happened in our country and throughout the world.

I thought of Aleppo, the atrocities perpetrated on the Rohingya people, the unrest in Hong Kong and the terrorist attacks in Manchester, Paris, Boston and other parts of the world.

I thought of Grenfell, the Clutha disaster, the riots in Tottenham, the increase in food banks, the Arab spring uprising, the plight of the Palestinians, gun attacks in America, the deadly effect of climate change as Australia burns and the Arctic melts. There seemed to be no good news. Yet, we have just been celebrating the good news brought by God to his waiting people.

We have been celebrating the birth of a child who would come to show us a new way.

Is there hope amidst all the pain and the cruelty that is part of our world; amidst the devastation of forests, the extinction of many species; amidst the melting of the ice caps and the inferno in Australia? Can we really hope into this new decade?

Yes we can.

In contrast to the bad news, there have been stories of courage, faith, hope, endurance and altruism.

These stories don’t always make the headlines, but they are there - stories of kindness, stories of caring, stories of love.

In this new year, this new decade, please listen for these ‘hope’ stories and share them.

May God bless you with peace in the hearing and the telling.