麻豆约拍

A reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Craig Gardiner, a tutor at South Wales Baptist College.

Good morning.

Today in 1947 the diary of Anne Frank was published for the first time. The account of her teenage life, hidden in a secret annex, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands was encouraged in part by a radio broadcast calling for the preservation of "ordinary documents鈥攁 diary, letters ... everyday material" to create a national archive of the suffering of civilians during the war.

There is much everyday mundanity in her writing, but there are also moments of sublime spiritual lucidity. One famous entry was written weeks before she and her family were sent to the concentration camp. She says:

It鈥檚 difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

By the time she makes this entry she鈥檚 seen enough evil to know that people can be consumed by it, and yet she holds on to hope.

The biblical story of Adam and Eve records why humanity first fell into these grim realities of evil, but it also affirms the belief, that the image of God is planted more deeply than anything that is wrong, and with that comes our capacity and desire to do good, to be good and to find the good in others.

Whether or not we record such moments in a diary, they are surely worth clinging to throughout the day.

Dear God
As another morning dawns
We know how fragile goodness can seem,
How delicate hopes might appear,
In the face of grim realities
But the story of Jesus allows us
To trust in him in whom
Love has already overcome hate
And life has forever overcome death.
Amen

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