Sutton Hill Church

Mrs Beckie Dotson

Intergenerational Missioner

07563 382 752

07

104 Southgate

Telford

TF7 4HG

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Hi all.

 

Another day and the rain is here again.  You can tell the school run is back with that one.  Always seems to happen on the way there or the way back.  Back to the early mornings and days’ work before the daylight sets in.  We have continued to enjoy once upon a time and got to the last and final season.  There have been many moments that have seen light overcome darkness and yes, I know it’s only a TV show and totally made up but my goodness, what a journey we have been on with these characters.   If you knew me when I was little,  there is no way that I would have watched anything like this at all.  Way to dark and scary, however, we all change over time.   I’m not the same person that I was last year, let alone the person that I was 20+ years ago.  Not giving you any more than that, otherwise you’ll work out my age. Maybe.

On a Sunday afternoon as girls and family,  we would watch a show on a Sunday afternoon,  Little House on the Prairie was a favourite – one show since watched and enjoyed by my girls.  Anne of Green Gables and other pretty shows like that.  I will be honest and say I love a good classic.  A fairy tale story of true love (not how it is shown in the movies and glamourised).  Do you remember the BBC adaptations of C.S.Lewis’ classics “The Chronicles of Narnia?”  I may shock you now but the only one that I have read is “The Magicians Nephew” and that was it.  Sunday went from pretty, to well, not sure how to describe it.  For me,  it was awful.  I found them scary but the worst one of them all was “The Silver Chair.”  I was so scared of the white witch that I would hide behind anything that I could.  I never read the books because of that.  I have decided, that now as an adult, I am going to read them  - all of them.  I have started again with the first one  - which I never understood why it had never been made into a film. 

I am sure that my blogs may well, begin to take a Narnia turn but anyway, back to Once Upon a Time. We have been to Neverland, the enchanted Forest, Storybrooke, Boston and Wonderland.  The darkest of all of these though was the underworld.  It’s their interpretation of a space called Limbo where people who have died are waiting and have unfinished business.  A place where they wait till they have completed their unfinished business where they then pass on.  Please remember, this is a story and I am in no way saying this is a belief of mine – just in case you wondered, but it did make me think about Heaven and Hell.  I think we should be challenged by things, because it is in these moments that we learn to grow. 

If anyone knows anything about Greek mythology, you have read about the underworld, and Hades and all of those characters and you can imagine how dark it is.  No sense of hope, dreary and not a place you want to go.  When we go through really rough and hard times, it feels like there is a no sense of hope and a sense of foreboding.  We have to hold on to that small glimmer of hope, the promises from our Heavenly Father that He has us in His arms.  We need to look for the light in the dark times.  When there was no hope in the underworld – the goodies enter in – they are no dead themselves but they got there one way or another.  They began to bring hope to the underworld and out of the darkness and hopelessness, in the corner of a dark crevice, there was a flower beginning to bloom.  This made me think of the verse in John 1 v 5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”  When there is light, how we live our lives, there is hope.  We can choose to focus on the positive and the promises. These are the things that can help us to focus on the light of a situation. 

The challenge that we can set ourselves is to  think of a verse that has helped you through a difficult time in your life and write it out.  Place it somewhere that you can regularly view it and reflect it on.  If there isn’t a specific one, maybe you could find one that you could use. Maybe we could become a community that shares these verses.  A place to encourage one another with our words.  A place that we can build each other up.  I would love to hear what verses have spoken and helped you.

If anyone would like to follow along,  I have started a blog and can be found at www.outofthebexblog.wordpress.com.

Rebecca St James – Battle is the Lord’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg4Afz08JLI.

Hope that you are managing to keep safe.

Take care

Beckie Dotson

Intergenerational Missioner

Sutton Hill andWoodside & Diocese of Hereford

07563382752 | Rebecca.Dotson@hereford.anglican.org

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