From Rev Teresa

As April approaches it feels like the year is turning, winter is giving way to spring. It seems to me that the year is flying by! There have been scientific studies that prove time flies by faster as we get older as the perception of time is influenced by memory and how much you’ve experienced. For an 8-year-old, a week is a big portion of their life. For an 80-year-old, a week is a much smaller portion of their life, which contributes to the feeling that it went by quickly.

The Rev Jane Willis (Rector of Dorchester Abbey) has been thinking about how we ‘spend time’, she writes:

Time is a finite resource, twenty-four hours each, each day, for the years God gives us. How carefully do we consider how we spend this precious resource? Some of us may have many demands on our lives (I’m in that category!) some of us less – but at the end of the day, the choices about how we spend our time will say something about what is most important to us.

The book of Ecclesiastes can be hard to understand – but many of us will know and love the verses at the beginning of chapter 3: ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…’

If we don’t know this passage from the Bible we may know it from the memorable 1965 song by The Byrds ‘Turn, turn, turn.’ It’s a passage which speaks of all the seasons of life.

I remember when we had three teenage daughters, the constant requests: ‘Mum, Dad, can you give me a lift to [wherever]’ and we would sigh and say ‘Oh, alright.’ Then, through hearing an inspiring talk on parenting teenagers we came to realise giving our girls a lift somewhere was the wonderful gift of time spent together – at a stage in life where communication can be hard but is so important. It completely changed our outlook.

So – what is most important to you in life? And does the way you spend your time reflect that? Or are there some changes you would like to make?

Rev Teresa x