Pilgrims Progress - 18th June 2010
WE are all lamenting recent events in Cumbria. What we have to offer at this time to those caught up in that tragedy are our prayers and blessings. Little else will have much significance for now.
A question often posed to Christians is: 'Where is your loving God in all this?' I would like to offer something in answer.
Once in a Soviet work camp one prisoner turned to another, an Orthodox priest, and posed the same question. The priest's answer was rather surprising. He just said, 'It's a beautiful day.'
What the priest was trying to do, based on his own long experience of prayer, was to see the good things which are present each day in our lives.
These are just as real as the bad things and, if over the years we have cultivated this attitude, then, when the bad things happen,
those "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune', we will have a way of coping with them.
It will not take the pain away, but it can control the agony and let us see the presence of God, even in the darkest hour.
The prime instance of this was Jesus on the cross. In the midst of his agony he cried out, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' but finished with the words, 'Father, into your hands I give my life'.
What happened in between those two very different 'words'? Perhaps his eyes met those of his mother Mary.
Remembering then all her loving kindness to himself and his father, Joseph- the true manifestation of her unwavering trust in his Father in heaven- he made the final leap into that same Father's arms.
BRIAN HAMILL
St Austin's Wakefield
Churches Together are at www.wdco.org/site/Churches-Together-in-
Wakefield
Pilgrim's Progress is edited by Nick Shields
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Weather for Wakefield
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
