I have stopped watching the news before bed and I am trying not to click into it after I do my Bible reading. It jars. I’m not saying avoid the bad things to protect yourself because, sadly, they can hit you even when you’re trying to side-step around them.

Again, I’m finding myself talking about the ‘even though’ s and the ‘despite’s. You can’t deny it when life goes wrong and your carefully built world starts to crumble. At times like that, you need to gather in your certainties and fool-proof truths. Like a bright shield against the darkness, or a steady umbrella under the pouring rain.

When I watch the world falling apart, I stand behind the protection of that promise, ‘I will be with you until the very end of the age’* or ‘ I will never leave or forsake you’**. Those promises have held fast through centuries of world wars, natural disasters, terrible catastrophes, devastating health diagnoses and much more.

I tried to cast my mind round to other things that can keep us steady when the waves of tragedy break close to us, but all I can think of is that BB hymn that goes,

‘1 Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,
when the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain,
will your anchor drift, or firm remain?
We have an anchor that keeps the soul
steadfast and sure while the billows roll;
fastened to the Rock which cannot move,
grounded firm and deep in the Savior’s love.‘

So that’s what I’m offering you. It’s something to hold onto.

Read the news, listen to the world imploding, but know this: there is something better, tried and tested for you to put your trust in. And it will outlast them all.

*Matthew 28, 20

**Deuteronomy 31, 8