December the 25th is just like every other day of the year, except it isn’t. However you feel, whatever Christmas is to you, May I pray for you, as my gift to you this year. Perhaps you may wish to pray with me for the people you know, and love.

For as much as we would like to think of ourselves as individuals, independent and able to make our own way in the world, we are often surprised by just how overwhelming our own reactions are when we are faced with losing someone close. So, shall we pray together to the God who made us this way, who shares our pain and offers hope to hurting hearts.

Does it sometimes feel that other people simply don’t see you? Maybe they recognise your face and know your name, but few know who you really are. Perhaps you are the one who others overlook…
So shall we pray together, because God sees us, values us, and it gives him great pleasure when we talk with him.

I was speaking with a friend a few days ago and they explained that just at the moment they felt that they were walking around in a thick fog. At other times in life they had known a clearer sense of purpose, they knew the direction they were traveling in. They knew where they were…

I have been praying for the people of this area for over 20 years now. I am always reassured, however, that God desires to bless his people far more than we can ever imagine. Please would you pray with me, for the people who live in and around the Dales. That God would bless, heal, restore and build up the people of this area. And that we might be known as people who bring God’s blessing and light to the communities in which we live.

The truth is that everyone has felt overwhelmed at some time. We have limited resources, more skills and capacities in some areas, and fewer in others. Life is complex, as are people and the many situations we face. But there is one who knows this better, who has been there himself and yet understands how every creature that has ever lived was formed, and will be there with us if we ask him to be. So if this is you, and if it is now, and if you’d like to, shall we pray together?

Death, bereavement, loss – whatever the word we use to describe it, it hurts. For you it may be something recent, raw, a present reality that overwhelms the everyday. Or maybe your loss was some time ago and you have had to live on without them, meeting moments you should have met together, being places where they should have been, and you grieve both the one you have lost and the future you should have had together.