麻豆约拍

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Revd Dr Paul Mathole

Good morning.

In the early eighteenth century, Daniel Defoe wrote A Journal of the Plague Year, about the plague of 1665.

There鈥檚 something about the narrative that is strangely familiar to our own pandemic experience.

The narrator begins by talking about how uncertain the early news of the disease was. Of course there wasn鈥檛 the news media that we have now, just bits of information here and there or word-of-mouth rumours.

And it didn鈥檛 seem to be a problem at first. So we鈥檙e told with some foreboding: 鈥淗ence it was that this rumour died off again and people began to forget it as a thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true.鈥�

How wrong that early view would prove to be.

Part of what began to change things was the 鈥渨eekly bills of mortality鈥�. These showed the number of burials taking place. And here it bears an eerie resemblance to our current times, and our regular daily death totals. As they went into the first winter of the disease, the weekly bills began to raise eyebrows. This went from initial concern to growing alarm.

And thus it began. And would continue for many months. People watching the numbers. Looking for signs of hope.

But it鈥檚 a reminder that what we鈥檙e going through is not new. Though things feel overwhelming, ultimately this too will pass. The Bible offers us encouragement, Psalm 90 reads, 鈥渢each us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom鈥�.

Heavenly Father, you are Lord of history. Help us to know you hold all things in your hands. That we can trust our days to you. In Jesus鈥� name.

Amen.

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