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curveballs, cries and justice..

Life just throws curveballs sometimes. I really could use life slowing down just for a few days- to get to a point of semi closure before some annual leave. But life is not like that. Its certainly not like it for the people I have the privilege of serving.

For those folk life throws curveballs. Tragic death; insane stories of ill health, money issues. Life might even start with some curveballs. Only 17% of children in the primary school here arrive having reached national average development levels.

I'm learning that being in this setting is a huge challenge. I want to fix, to make better.. and yet I often feel so overwhelmed that in my best moments I turn and fall into the arms of a merciful God. More and more I am aware that if I have any priestly representative function here it is, on behalf of the church, to hold this place before God.

Before this God who the gospel tells me hears our cries for justice and acts. This week's readings are about the persistent widow. She cries out for justice for her cause. Oh that we as a community here cry out for justice.

This morning as I contemplate another curveball for this community, my prayer is that God will bring justice for the cause of a family faced with the loss of a child, for the family facing long term illness, for the school being massively clobbered by tragedy and cuts.

And I pray that you might join me in crying for justice.. and that as we cry together for justice that somehow we might live justice wherever we are.

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