I don’t think there are many of us who feel as carefree as my daughter running down this hill in the picture right now!

It’s very easy to become discouraged at the moment with so many normal avenues of release and true relaxation closed off to us.  It’s easy to feel trapped in your circumstances with nowhere to go.

It’s certainly been an education to me how quickly we accept restrictions put on us and think we are managing it, while actually our minds are rapidly closing down too.

 

Generally of a cheerful disposition, I’ve been horrified to see the damage this peculiar kind of isolation can do to our mental and by consequence our physical health too. I realise it’s not considered polite or responsible by some to ‘complain’ or even raise or queries about the extent of the restrictions, so I’m not going to debate that here.

Instead this night, I’m going to offer up prayer of a deep and sincere sort for every single man, woman and child who is suffering at this time and whose plight has been significantly worsened because they can’t leave their homes for any proper length of time and who are languishing in despair and distress.

The list is so vast where do you begin?!

Well tonight I’m asking you to join me in praying for our children. Those who are cared for and especially those who are not. Those who can express their distress and get help and especially for those who can’t. Those who think no one sees their suffering and no one hears their cries.

Pray that they will be delivered from their trouble and distress, that they would be comforted swiftly and they would know ‘the peace that passes all understanding’. The peace that only Christ can give, through His provision of help and support from kind and good people and through knowing Him.

And pray please also for parents that they’ll bear up under the pressure of having to work, often in a full house, while they have to check the educational, physical and mental well being of their families.

 

And absolutely not forgetting all our wonderful teachers who not only have to work from home and/or school, while providing school.

 

Thank you so much to all our teachers. We value highly the energy time and commitment you are putting into this, what must feel like an impossible task. So I’m praying that the Lord God will hear our prayers and show great mercy to us, from the vastness of the entire nation down to every single family, on every single street, in every single town.

Yes I totally understand that the majority of us are not experiencing anything remotely as difficult as our Grandparents in the World Wars; it would be abhorrent to even suggest that. But the situation we find ourselves in at this time is utterly devastating for millions all the same, now and how there will be ramifications of having a collapsed economy and infrastructure in the future.

So please, while I don’t think panicking is the right approach, please think of those who are not so privileged and who have already lost their livelihoods, security and sanity.

 

I’m asking God that where we have sinned as a nation He would forgive us and pour out a flood of blessing, deliverance, joy and recovery.