February: Thoughts from Huw

Dear Friends,

Some years ago I found this meditation and would like to share it with you.

`Nothing so marks the passing of time as does the passing of the seasons. We make seasons in our lives, too, and how speedily those seasons go by. In the springtime of our lives we have a sense of things beginning and life awakening. We emerge from our shells, full of life and energy, brimming with hopes and dreams. Life stretches out endlessly before us. Anything seems possible.

Spring quickly gives way to summer. Things are progressing nicely. Life is full and joyous. There aren`t enough hours in the long day to do all the things we want to do.

All too soon summer dissolves into autumn. Our energy begins to wane and life slows down. There is joy, however, because we reap the fruits of what we have sown. But there is sadness too because we realise how fleeting our lives are. How quickly life`s stream runs down to the sea. And finally autumn is swallowed up in winter. Now are lives are cold and empty. We are stripped bare. It seems life has stopped, and we are not really living, only enduring, merely hanging on.

Death is like winter and when winter came for Lazarus, his sisters Martha and Mary, were plunged into gloom. But Jesus said to them `I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die will live.` John 11 v25.

We can feel sad at the onset of winter and during the months of January and February in particular. However, we are not too despondent because we know that spring will renew everything again. Just as the expectation of spring takes the sting out of winter, so the resurrection of Jesus takes the sting out of suffering and death.

So, at Wesley as we journey through winter into spring, let us put our trust into the hands of the Risen Christ.

With good wishes

Huw