Dear Friends & Neighbours,

I don’t know about you, but I find mazes fascinating. Particularly those mazes where you begin in daylight and then walk through the paths in semi darkness until you emerge in the centre back into the daylight. Then you embark on the return journey! It feels to me that over the last year we have been in some kind of maze as we have negotiated our way through the pandemic with all the twists and turns that it has brought upon us. Yet as I write at this time of year, it feels to me that we are on that return journey out of the maze towards the light in more ways than one.

We are slowly beginning to emerge out of the maze of winter into brighter lighter days and there are signs of spring appearing all around us. We are beginning to slowly emerge from the maze of lockdown. The road map out of lockdown has been given to us, and we are negotiating the twists and turns of that maze each day… looking forward to a new freedom and a new way of living.

As the Church, we have been journeying through Lent and the maze of reflecting and thinking about our faith and relationship with God, and now we’re preparing for the light of Easter. We’re looking forward to celebrating Easter Sunday in our church buildings. A time when we will celebrate Jesus’ victory over death and celebrate His great love for each one of us. It will also be a time when we will give thanks to God that, when we ask Him, …He’s always there, prepared to walk with and alongside us through the maze of our lives.

‘Easter Reflections’ is a beautiful poem by Helen Steiner Rice that tells us how God blesses us through the beauty of the spring season and also reflects on the Easter season and what it offers us. For the poet, Easter is the time when earth wakes up from a deep slumber and the beginning of new life in nature. A time to feel the real blessings of God and thank him for his eternal gift that he has given us from that first Easter Day.

Easter Reflection
With OUR EYES we see
The beauty of Easter
as the earth awakens once more…
With OUR EARS we hear
The birds sing sweetly
to tell us Spring again is here…
With OUR HANDS we pick
the golden daffodils
and the fragrant hyacinths…
But only with OUR HEARTS
can we feel the MIRACLE of GOD'S LOVE
which redeems all men…
And only with OUR SOUL
can we make our 'pilgrimage to God'
and inherit His Easter Gift of ETERNAL LIFE.

So in this Easter season I pray that you experience the grace of God as you go through the maze of life.

God Bless,

Cathy