At the gate of the year …
Dear Friends,
At the beginning of every January, many try to foretell what the new year will bring. While some things are predictable, other things - like the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic nearly two years ago - take us by surprise, and can leave us anxious and uncertain about what might happen next. As you and I journey into 2022 there are so many uncertainties confronting us at all levels - personal, national, and global. Even in our church life, big changes are on the horizon, with the whole Leicester Diocese - including our Ironstone Villages Family of Churches - starting to explore what the new diocesan framework of ‘Minster Communities’ will mean for every church.
None of us can foretell the future. In December 1939, our nation had been at war with Nazi Germany for three months, and the future looked bleak. King George VI had to deliver his Christmas broadcast at a time of great crisis. The book The Servant Queen and the King she serves,1 recounts that the thirteen year old Princess Elizabeth handed her father a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins, from which King George quoted in his broadcast:
‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way”.’
Queen Elizabeth, whose Platinum Jubilee celebration we look forward to in June this year, continues to live by faith and trust in God, and she herself quoted Minnie Louise Haskins’ poem in her forward to The Servant Queen. The title of this poem is ‘God Knows’, and another of its verses continues with these words:
‘God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.’
You and I cannot know the future; we cannot even be certain of tomorrow. But we can faith-fully put our hand into the hand of God-in-Christ, and take the New Year as it comes, step by step.
Wishing you every blessing for 2022,
John Barr, Rector
1 published in 2016 by Bible Society, HOPE, & LICC in celebration of the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth
Dear Friends,
At the beginning of every January, many try to foretell what the new year will bring. While some things are predictable, other things - like the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic nearly two years ago - take us by surprise, and can leave us anxious and uncertain about what might happen next. As you and I journey into 2022 there are so many uncertainties confronting us at all levels - personal, national, and global. Even in our church life, big changes are on the horizon, with the whole Leicester Diocese - including our Ironstone Villages Family of Churches - starting to explore what the new diocesan framework of ‘Minster Communities’ will mean for every church.
None of us can foretell the future. In December 1939, our nation had been at war with Nazi Germany for three months, and the future looked bleak. King George VI had to deliver his Christmas broadcast at a time of great crisis. The book The Servant Queen and the King she serves,1 recounts that the thirteen year old Princess Elizabeth handed her father a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins, from which King George quoted in his broadcast:
‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way”.’
Queen Elizabeth, whose Platinum Jubilee celebration we look forward to in June this year, continues to live by faith and trust in God, and she herself quoted Minnie Louise Haskins’ poem in her forward to The Servant Queen. The title of this poem is ‘God Knows’, and another of its verses continues with these words:
‘God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.’
You and I cannot know the future; we cannot even be certain of tomorrow. But we can faith-fully put our hand into the hand of God-in-Christ, and take the New Year as it comes, step by step.
Wishing you every blessing for 2022,
John Barr, Rector
1 published in 2016 by Bible Society, HOPE, & LICC in celebration of the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth