Dear Friends,
Well, it’s actually arrived. The day I dreaded has finally dawned. I’m sat in front of the computer, about to start writing my latest Wednesday letter, and I cannot think of anything to say. I’m not someone who is usually lost for words. But this evening, that is how it is. I guess I’m just feeling a bit flat. I’m not quite sure what the future has in store; the immediate future, or looking further ahead. Hoping for the best, while fearing for the worst is an oft repeated mantra precisely because it sums up the mood of many of us right now…
…Anyway, enough of me. What about you? We all have to face up to the uncomfortable truth that to a greater or lesser degree, as the pandemic continues to radically disrupt our lives, whether we like it or not, all of us have been affected mentally. Is it too much to suggest that for all of us, our mental health has taken a hit? Perhaps not to the extent of needing professional medical intervention, or of needing to take particular prescribed medication, or of requiring any other form of treatment, but we know just how much we have been affected, or do we? We are heartened by the news that a vaccine may well become available sooner rather than later. But it will not automatically cure all our ills. As we wake from this Covid-19 induced nightmare, none of is likely to emerge totally unscathed. All of us need to take seriously the likely lasting impact this whole experience will have had on our mental health…
…And the same will be true for our spiritual well-being. What we are presently experiencing is bound to have caused us to ask questions of ourselves concerning our faith in God; our understanding of how God works in the world; wondering why God allows all of this to happen; how can God stand idly by while so many people suffer illness and death; where has God been while all of this has been going on; why is so much more difficult to pray; why, when I do pray, don’t I get the answer I wish for. If as a person of faith, you have not found yourself wondering about any or all of this, then of what value is faith. For faith to flourish, it has to be confronted by doubt…
…There will be some for whom this whole experience has been so overwhelming, that they have ‘lost’ their faith; their ability to ‘believe’ in God has been tested beyond breaking point. We all ought to sympathise with those who are presently feeling this way. You, as you read this, may be one such person. All I would say is this; even if you have lost faith in God, God has promised not to lose faith in us. Even if we can no longer say that we believe in God, God promises never to stop believing in us. It may not mean much to you now, but maybe, sometime, it will come to mean an awful lot……There, I found something to say. It may just be that I’ve been talking to myself as much as to the rest of you…