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From Reverend Sharon Grenham-Thompson, vicar in Milton Keynes:

My son has recently joined a local cricket team, so we went out this week and bought him some gear - gloves, clothes and of course, the all-important bat.

‘Simples’, I thought, ‘sorted.’

Not quite. Because I then discovered the bat couldn’t be used straight away - we had to embark on the mysterious process of oiling and ‘knocking-in.’ The bat’s made of willow, and of course during a match it’s subjected to quite violent forces, so the oiling is to make sure the wood is moisturised and supple enough to take the blows. The knocking-in is part of the same preparation - and it involves sitting there for ages and ages literally knocking the face and edges of the bat with an old cricket ball. And this process has to be repeated over the course of several days. After that my son needs to gently build up the extent to which the bat is used, before it’s truly ‘match-ready’. Phew!

There are plenty of people who’ve taken a few ‘hard knocks’ in life, including myself, and when the knock has been totally unexpected - that’s when the risk of a crack appearing in me has been highest.

So there are things I’ve learned to do which prepare me for the inevitable hard times - learning from previous experience is one, as well as reminding myself that most things pass. But there’s one other, which I suppose is my personal equivalent of the oil keeping me supple and match ready - and that’s praying.

For me, those few moments every day, opening my heart to God and trying to listen as well, are what keep me on track, and able to respond to whatever the day throws at me. Praying may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I believe finding whatever it is that gives us strength and purpose, and returning to it time and time again, will gently prepare us for the rougher bits of life when they appear.

Of course we can’t avoid the knocks - as Bruce Springsteen says in his song ‘Wrecking Ball’: ‘hard times come and hard times go, just to come again’ - but a bit of preparation might help us avoid being ‘caught out.’