In the Bible, there’s this moment in John’s Gospel when Jesus is telling people what he’s all about, his reason for being if you like and he says this… “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may  have life, and have it to the full.”  Jesus is all about life to the full.  An abundance of life, freedom from the ‘thief’, freedom from things that would drag us down.  As we go through life, we all pick up bumps and bruises, it’s what happens.  Many of us pick up more than that, experiencing profound moments and seasons of pain, betrayal, anxiety, the list goes on.  These emotions/experiences are important and should not just be sort of glossed over or belittled.  I wonder if you might take some time in the weeks ahead to consider, is there something in my life that I would like to change?  And if there is in that moment you could pray, ask Jesus simply “help me Lord, I want that ‘life’ you promised”. Gareth Hutchinson April 2021

“Freedom!!!!”  So screamed Mel Gibson in the classic film Braveheart. This is certainly something many of us having been missing in the last year.  It’s been a year of varying restrictions, with times of ‘lockdown’ severely restricting our ability to do what we would like, and other times of less restriction.  But through all of this past year, our experience of freedom has been challenged.  How have you found that? I imagine that before the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown, personal freedom was something that many of us had taken for granted, not really given that much thought to.  Yet once restricted it becomes abundantly apparent that things are not as we would like, they’re somehow worse or less.  For a short time this can be ok, but over a longer period the impact is significant.