The Vicar's Wife

So when I restarted this blog back on 26th February, just 26 days ago, no-one would have imagined that by time Lent was hardly half done we’d all be locked down, that church would be shut, that weddings and baptisms would be forbidden, that the Vicar would be recording Bible reflections and Morning Prayer to YouTube and Facebook and that all our meetings would be happening on an app I had barely heard of until a few months ago.

And I also didn’t realise that my reflections on coping with a messy head would actually become tips for coping with the weirdness of a global pandemic. I had a messy head about other life things, but now Covid19 has come along to mess with all our heads. So much is not normal. So much is strange. The boys are home schooling. The Queen is sat in her student flat with the campus almost empty. Our days are revolving around video uploads and contacting parishioners online and over the phone.

The Vicar’s reflection tonight was about lament, and there is so much to lament at the moment: the removal of the normal, the deaths that have come and will come, the battles faced by medical staff, the struggles of businesses, the increase in domestic violence, the anxiety and the disruption. And we are lamenting and will continue to do so as this virus causes pain and trouble.

And yet we are people of hope here in the Vicarage and in this parish. God’s people under siege in Jerusalem so many years ago could say that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. And we can say it too. We are waiting here too. Waiting quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

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