| Timothy Dudley-Smith wrote the hymn, 'Lord for the years your love has kept and guided, urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way, sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided: Lord, for the years, we bring our thanks today.' Do these words resonate with you?
During Morning Prayer a few weeks ago, the words of a Psalm reminded me of a record I had in the seventies. I decided I would like it as a CD and tracked it down, thanks to the Internet! When I played it, I remembered being struck by one of the other songs about God making everything beautiful in his time. In 1977, I hoped this was a promise, although at that time I'd no idea how God could ever make things beautiful for me.
As I write this, I'm looking forward to the next decade of my life, and I know other people in our Benefice are doing the same this year. We're all facing the 'Big O' - 50, 60, 70, 80, and even 90! Looking back, I see how my life has changed and what has brought me to the present. I was a student when I was twenty. I had an identity crisis when I was thirty. I did a major house-move when I was forty. I started the journey to ordination when I was fifty, and here I am about to be sixty, draw my pension and apply for my bus pass!
The years have not all been happy or fulfilling. The tapestry of my life has dark threads for difficult times and brightly coloured threads for happy ones. All of them, the good and the bad, make me the person I am today. And those hard times helped me build the relationship I now have with Jesus.
The gift of our years is something we all have. It's an invisible package to be opened and enjoyed one day at a time. We cannot buy it, sell it, or hoard it against the time when we are confronted with a certain shortage of future. It's a free gift that cannot be earned, or taken for granted, for it's not presented to all equally. It holds joy and pain, laughter and tears, success and defeat, triumph and disaster. As time goes by, it may hold bodily weakness and limitations, but it can also contain increased spiritual strength and effectiveness. There are no experiences from which we can't learn something, and God can be active in all of our lives if we want him to be.
These words of William J. Gaither sum up how I feel about where I am with God today:
'Something beautiful, something good, all my confusion he understood. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but he made something beautiful of my life.'
Whatever your life is like, or has been like, I hope you can feel the same.
With best wishes, Joy Hance
| | | | Midweek Communion takes place on the first Wednesday of the month and is celebrated at 09:15 at St Peter's Church, Charney Bassett | | | | See below for details of the monthly Village Diner. | | | | As well as the usual Sunday services, members of the Benefice can meet in their local church for 30 minutes on a weekday and join their clergy in the 'Saying of the Office'. This custom started in the Benefice during 2005 and has grown so that currently a score or more members now make it part of their weekly Christian discipline. The service is started by the tolling of the Church Bell in three lots of three followed by nine tolls, so the entire village knows that someone is saying prayers for them. The rhythm of saying aloud the psalms, hearing the bible passages of the day and spending a few moments praying for the world, the Church of England and one's own village, becomes an uplifting part of one's spiritual journey.
At a church near you the Daily Office is being said, so why not come and join in? Books are provided. The weekly timetable is as follows:-
Tues 9:15 am at Longworth
Weds 9:15 am at Charney Bassett
Weds 6:00 pm at Buckland
Thurs 9:15 am at Littleworth
Fri 9:15 am at Pusey
Fri 9:45 am at Lyford
The clergy are usually available for a quick chat afterwards.
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