蜜芽传媒

Good morning.聽

As our country begins to emerge from lockdown, there are signs, some cautious, some joyous, that the things we have been yearning for are beginning to return. For me this is no better exemplified than the Edinburgh festival, a celebration of music and arts which is taking place in my beloved Edinburgh, a City which is in itself a place of beauty.聽

I fell in love with Edinburgh when I went there to University, and have never quite been unable to escape it鈥檚 pull鈥� my wife calls it the 鈥渙ther woman鈥�. Its Georgian architecture is like a string quartet frozen in time, its streets so often at this time of year buzzing with all peoples and cultures, a sense of joyful expectation and a community of purpose - festival.聽

The notion of festival, of celebration, matters more than ever these days. In the last year it has been very easy to identify what we have been missing, what has been lost. And for the sake of my own mental and spiritual health I have had to develop very good habits in remembering to give thanks for what I still have. The beautiful thing of counting our blessings is that we begin to realise how many of them we are given. Giving thanks, for what we have, and for what we hope for, is the essence of worship, and we trust in a God who is the source of that hope.聽

God of all giving, you provide for us blessings in abundance. When we seek to count our blessings, we find they are numberless. When we go through times of trial, give us still the vision of your abounding love, that we may see what we still have, in the grace of friendships, the joy of hope, the life within our bodies, the compassion within our hearts, the will to carry on, and above all the knowledge of your love. Amen.