Last weekend Paul and I were playing a board game in our back garden.  Suddenly our peace was shattered as one of our cats jumped from a low roof above our dining room onto the parasol we were sitting under.  As his claws went through the fabric and the umbrella started to spin under his weight, he made a leap for the fence nearby.  A good plan but he didn’t factor in how jumping would speed up the spin and therefore quite how badly he’d miss his target.  Uncompassionately, we howled with laughter as he sat a distance away from us feeling a bit sorry for himself! 

I guess for some of us, being in lockdown still feels as uncertain as that umbrella did for our cat and none of us can factor in how COVID is going to continue to be with us and at which point we might be able to jump towards some of those things which felt steady and secure before our world faced such unprecedented times.  However, as Christians, we are certain of one thing … what ever the circumstance and however the ground seems to be shifting under our feet, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  We hold on to the certainty we have in Jesus and we trust in his Sovereign grace.  My hope and prayer for you this coming week is that you discover fresh expression of His presence with you and we will see new signs of His activity in our lives, in our families, in our communities and in the wider world which He holds and He loves.

Astrid Vaswani