Ashbourne News Telegraph

WORD OF THE WEEK

- by Rev Tim Morris Ashbourne Methodist Church

IS it me, or are my clothes shrinking? Is it me, or does the battery in the bathroom scales need changing?

Is it me, or what? Excuses, excuses, excuses!

There’s no escaping it, no matter how I try, the problem is not my clothes, nor the condition of the battery. It’s something different. It’s me. It’s me that needs changing, not “them”.

Almost a year on from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite all my best efforts and good intentions to use some new spare time to keep fit, get in to shape and rejuvenate myself, almost the opposite has happened!

I’ve put on weight, sometimes can’t remember what day it is, I feel tired despite having more time and, sometimes, just sometimes, feel unable to make decisions!

Awash with all this “looking in the mirror”, I know I need to do something.

I found the use of the Covenant Prayer this year particular­ly poignant, and I know others have as well.

So, riding off the back of this, Lent this year of years in lockdown, is hopefully going to be a poignant moment too, a challenge to really commit to the things I always promised I’d do. So, watch this space.

The realisatio­n has come that the clothes haven’t really shrunk, the batteries are working and the scales really do tell the truth!

And I won’t be trying to blame everything else and everyone else for the burdens I carry and the injustices I feel (think weight and batteries!).

I will know that the responsibi­lity rests with me, and I need to do something about it.

So bring on Lent, and by the grace of God, by commitment and resolve let us enter this holy season with one eye towards Easter.

But keep the other on the scales that don’t lie, yet tell us what we really need to know about ourselves.

 ??  ?? How many of us are battling the scales?
How many of us are battling the scales?

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