I’ve been struggling lately due to the inability to visit anyone, especially family. I have generally not been able to do this due to living in another state for the last 6 years, away from most of them, but now we are all back together, but still no visits. Stupid virus! Yes, being isolated and this social distancing is difficult for everyone, but my son and his wife, Brigette just had a little baby girl named Abigail Jordan, and no one other than Joel (her designated visitor – as they called him) could visit. I totally understand. The fewer visitors at the hospital, the less risk of passing on the…

Is anyone else like me and sometimes does not want to listen to ‘it will be alright?’ That is often what people say just to cheer you up or are trying to anyway. But you feel it is giving you a false hope. A false hope because they normally have no way to get you out of the situation you are in, to change any of your circumstances or to change anyone or anything. Could you be the one who is trying to encourage another and gets their ear ‘bitten off’ in the process? There is often more than one thing involved in this feeling of hopelessness. Maybe a problem…

The other day I was teaching my grandchildren how to play a card game called patience or solitaire. We have been asked to distance ourselves from people because of the covid19 virus so have to come up with games and activities for the kids to do. Our family unit cannot go to a park or out anywhere, so we are becoming very inventive for stuff at home. Home picnics, home camping, cooking, shuttlecock or badminton, soccer against the brick wall and then inside games or things to do as well. And so, these card games have begun. Solitaire is such an appropriate name when we have to put ourselves into…

“By His Stripes we are healed.” That line struck me while I was singing it in a song, especially in this season of Holy Week. From Isaiah 53:5, “But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed.” Every lashing from the whip that Christ received onto His body … were they stripes? He took every hurt, hatred, slur, disease, virus, isolation, pain, wrong, and sin upon Himself. All of these wrongs from all humanity that had been, was and into the future, were like lashes from a whip. He took…

The voice on the phone line was a bit frazzled. “Could you come and pick us up because the car has broken down.” After asking my daughter where she was, I grabbed my car keys, plugged the address into google maps and drove off. Arriving at the address along a very busy highway the waiting started. Waiting on the phone to find a mechanic. Waiting for a tow truck. Waiting and amusing a 2-year-old while waiting. Waiting amongst the noisy, busy traffic of trucks, cars and motorbikes. Waiting in the car till it got too hot because the car air conditioner could not be turned on due to the car…