A midwinter reflection by Iain Anderson, our Support Manager.
I find the new year a really strange time. It’s often presented as a time to be reinvigorated about the year ahead, a time for new starts and making resolutions of what we want to do achieve or change over the next twelve months. However, personally, I often struggle a bit with this. Sometimes I don’t quite feel ready for a new year - I’m still recovering from the last one! It can feel like extra time is needed to recover from the busyness of Christmas. After a enjoyable but hectic week of travelling, seeing relatives and not knowing what day it is or when the bins go out, I never quite feel fully prepared to get back into the swing of things. And the dark and cold of January doesn’t help either. Perhaps I could just hibernate till March?
However, even when we’re going through the winter - literal or metaphorical, there is still reason for gratitude, reason for thanks and reason for Hope. I was talking to Andy our bookkeeper recently who mentioned a reading in Habakkuk 3:17-18 which says:
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Saviour.
It sounds pretty depressing and desperate, a time of hardship, need and suffering but it reminds us that we should always have hope and reason for thanks. For those with a Christian faith, it is the Hope we have in a faithful and loving God and that He has plans and to give us hope and a future. We may be in midwinter now, but spring and then summer will come.
It’s a difficult line to walk of course. When you are going through a tough period, being told just to be thankful and praise God anyway doesn’t always feel very sympathetic or helpful. But this isn’t saying if you have just a bit more faith or belief or positivity then all our troubles, worries or pain will disappear. They often don’t of course. But it is saying that we can look forward and be thankful for future hope, something a bit deeper than temporary happiness - an inner contentedness regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. There’s a line at the end of the film The History Boys that I’ve always felt comes close to expressing this, where one of the characters says “I wouldn’t say I’m happy, but I’m not unhappy about it”. Most of the truly inspiring people I've met in life (including plenty at Hope) haven't been people who've had things easy. They've been people going through difficulties or situations immeasurably worse than anything I've had to contend with, but with a graciousness and generosity of spirit that I've found remarkable. Perhaps it's that their focus has been outward rather than inward. And that's maybe where a Hope in something better to come or a faith deeper than temporary troubles can really help.
Another verse that has been mentioned to me by colleagues this week has been Isaiah 43:18-19 which says:
Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
So perhaps it is time that I embraced a bit of the new year feeling after all! Looking forward to what may be rather back at what was. Or as Helen our Operations Manager put it "the windscreen is bigger than the rear view mirror." After all, it may be cold and dark now, but it’s not that long till spring.
Comments