Articles - From the Curate

Alleluia ... a word very familiar to some of us in a Church setting, when we use it in our worship to God and praise Him. Not the word I expected to hear being shouted very loudly on an empty vast Lindisfarne (Holy Island) beach in February. I was on my way off the island before the tide came in, with Archie my dog and we had stopped just off the causeway to give him a run on the most vast beautiful beach … it was sunny and calm and whilst Archie was rolling around, a young puppy came suddenly out of nowhere towards Archie wanting to play. It was great fun watching them both chase each other and bound around on the sand. Eventually a lady appeared in the distance coming towards us and that's when I heard it … Alle, Alle, Alleluia … she was shouting to the dog … because Alleluia was its name! You can imagine the smile that came over my face at that moment … I was on this most beautiful empty Holy Island beach with my dog, already thanking God for His wonderful creation and then to hear the praise words to God being shouted out, was quite surreal. (I was a very happy curate as you can imagine!).

The lady had given her puppy the name of Alleluia (sometimes abbreviated to Alle), because that had been the first word she said when her daughter rang her with the news, that eventually after months of trying and huge disappointment, she had found her mum the puppy she wanted. I thought that was a great story and it was even better when the lady told me how Alleluia had been wanted so much after her husband's death and how much Alleluia brightened up her life and had helped her with her grieving.

I left Alleluia on the beach with her owner and thought later of how we go about life sometimes not being able to see past the bad news, the sadness, the grief, the hard parts of life … which sometimes seem to envelop us … we turn the TV on and it's all about disasters, death, financial cuts, sadness and gloom. But like Alleluia coming out of the blue, we can suddenly be given opportunities to see joy and love amongst it all, which can encourage us, warm us, carry us through … and can stay with us.

God is always with us, but we can spend a lot of time not seeing Him, not acknowledging Him or even thinking He can't possibly be there in our lives or world, because of how much we are hurting…. but God is here in our world, our society, our lives, He is in the centre of everything that is going on …. we have to keep always looking out for Him, holding on to the desire to notice Him, always striving to see Him in our lives, in our society and in our world.

He helps us all in different ways … He helped that lady by bringing her a puppy called Alleluia.

How might God help you see and feel His joy and love in your life this month?

I leave you with the word that made me smile and notice God that day .…

Alleluia … Praise God!

Diane

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