Thoughts from the Rectory March 2025
Thoughts from the Rectory May 2025
Dear Friends,
Change is an inevitable part of life.
If we were to pause for a moment and recall all the times in our lives we have faced a major change, either through choice, or as a result of things completely out of our control I’m sure each one of us would have much to reflect on.
Some of the changes we encounter are full of joy, the birth of a child, a new relationship, or a new job for instance. Other changes are full of sadness, like the loss of someone we love or adapting to changes in health or circumstance. Each of these experiences shapes who we are, how we respond to each other and to the world, and how we see and think about God.
We read in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses 1-8 the wonderful verses which speak of times and seasons full of change – ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.’ They speak of birth and death, mourning and dancing, planting and reaping, seeking and losing. They set the context for the great seasons of creation and life, and all placed completely and lovingly in the hands of the creator God.
By the time you read this at the beginning of May, Mark and I will be embarking on another big change in our lives as we leave our home at the Vicarage in Flintham, and our lives as part of the Fosse Group, and as I leave my post as your Rector and we move into retirement in Rutland.
We leave the comfort and security of a generous and gracious group of church families and villages in which we have lived, worshipped, laughed and loved for a wonderful 5 1/2 years, and where I have had the privilege to serve alongside Revd Chris, the late Michael Clarke and many others; Our time with you has been a joy and a challenge in equal measure. I have received much affirmation here of my call into God’s service in this little corner of rural Nottinghamshire and I feel richly blessed to have been here. I have had the privilege to walk beside many of you through the joys and sadnesses of life as your priest and to get to know many of you as friends. For that I am thankful.
Mark and I go with thanks for so many blessings, and with the sadness of leaving so many friends, but we go confidently with an abundance of good memories, knowing that as one season ends another begins. God is faithful through every change of life and in every season, and we believe we are held in the palm of God’s loving hand, as we believe you are too.
May God bless you in your faithfulness and may you all bear fruit in your season.
With blessings for the future
Revd Ruth