I hope that you have managed to enjoy the warmer weather we have been having recently. It feels as though summer has finally arrived. Unusually, the Hoppings has had a relatively dry period this year as we often associate wet weather with it. Hopefully the dry weather will continue over the next couple of months and that any outdoor events you may have planned will be a success. 

 

Many of you will know that Ken and I have recently been on holiday. Last year, after not having been abroad for several years due to Covid, we decided to have a winter sun holiday abroad in February/March 2023 and, having not succumbed to Covid when the pandemic was at its height we unfortunately came home with it. Whilst the hotel that we stayed in was nice there were too many children there for us. As a result, when we began thinking about a holiday for this year, we decided to go back to somewhere we had been before that was quiet and relaxing. As this hotel has fewer rooms than a lot of hotels it has a lot of returning guests so it was fully booked last summer. The other decision we made was to go for 14 nights to offset a little bit more of our carbon footprint than we would have done if we’d gone for our usual 10 or 11 nights. It was over six years since we last stayed at the hotel but we hoped that it was still the same as we remembered.

 

We needn’t have worried as the minute we arrived we saw some faces that we recognised amongst the staff and some of the staff recognised us. Although we didn’t know the staff on reception we were given a warm welcome. When we got to our room there was a welcome gift and it didn’t take long before we were beginning to relax.

 

About three weeks before our holiday, I had been asked to take a funeral on the day before we went away. The reading the family chose for the funeral was Psalm 23. When I take a funeral I like to offer the congregation some hope in what is sometimes a difficult time. I try to make the service meaningful for the family and try to find things that they chose that speak of the deceased. When that Psalm is included in a funeral I talk about the things that restores our soul, such as memories. The words of that Psalm came to me as I relaxed on holiday and I realised that I was in a place that was restoring my soul.

 

Life today is lived at a frantic pace. Everybody wants things immediately. Patience is a virtue that few people seem to possess today. Whilst things slowed down during Covid because we were limited in where we could go and what we could do, for many there are few opportunities to slow down and walk beside still waters, to have our souls restored. When life is lived at a frantic pace then mistakes are made and it causes problems for both our physical and mental health.

 

When the children are on school summer holidays a lot of activities pause. Whether you have the opportunity to have a holiday or just a break in your normal routine I hope that you find time to lie down in green pastures and/or to be led beside still waters. I hope that you find opportunities for your soul to be restored ready for the new Methodist year.

 

God bless,

Lynda