Thinking Day

Today has been a day of me thinking. This has been for two primary reasons.


The first is that I celebrated my birthday. Birthdays do often have that habit of inducing thought and reflection upon one's soul. And as I pondered I thought of the miracle of childbirth, and the greater miracle of what such tiny babies can one day become...to think of all those who were once tiny babies - Einstein, Newton, Churchill, Thatcher, Kant, Picasso - and so many more.


And of course - Jesus. To think that the saviour of the world began life as a helpless, crying baby.


And then I thought of the last years of my life - some of the experiences with which I have been blessed, or indeed cursed. And I pondered whether the positives outweighed the negatives, and, of course, deep down -they do.


The other reason I was in a "pondering" sort of mood was that today was in fact that the 70th anniversary of Britain and France's declaring of war on Germany. This news would have been terrifying and frightening to thousands of children and adults, men and women, soldiers and civilians alike - but at the same time was felt necessary to undertake in order to ensure the freedom of Poland, and indeed later on, many more countries, including our own beloved nation.


As I was watching the ITV1 programme 'Outbreak' - a superb documentary chronologically accounting, hour by hour, this day in 1939, I found myself attempting to imagine what it must have been like - for the soldiers, for the evacuees, for the women losing their children and their partners - and those men, and of course women, who served faithfully not knowing whether they would live to see the next day. I felt, and indeed feel, such admiration.


And so the combination of the anniversary of the outbreak of the war - combined with the comparatively trivial anniversary of my birth! - led me to conclude that, as always, God is very much 'in the picture'. He sees through time and time again the miracle of childbirth, and nurtures his creation. He inspires, motivates and touches the lives of thousands upon thousands, and in a time of war when people seemed devoid of hope, he was present.


I am eternally grateful, too, that I am fortunate enough to (currently) live a life of comparative luxury in relation to the lives of those during WW2. And I therefore thank God that we, at least, can know 'Peace in our time'.