From Rev'd Louise

Monthly reflection

December2025 Coming, ready or not

I wonder how early you start ‘getting ready for Christmas’? I know people who prepare all year by buying gifts that N would like throughout the year, when they see them. And sometimes I wish I was that well organised. And many shops seem to start encouraging us to shop for Christmas when it still feels to me like summer. But for me the beginning of December is usually about the time when I realise just how quickly Christmas is approaching, and how little I have done.

Amidst all my inevitable busyness at this time of year, I always make time during Advent to reflect on what we are actually celebrating at Christmas. One of the names Christians use for Jesus is ‘Emmanuel’, which means ‘God with us,’ As part of my preparation each year for Christmas, I reflect on the awesome miracle that God loves the world – loves you and me and all that he has made - so much that he chose to be born as one of us – as ‘God with us.’ That miracle never ceases to amaze me, and many of my most treasured memories connected with Christmas, are about ways in which people bless one another, reflecting something of God’s love.

Before moving back to Derbyshire, I had years when I was able to volunteer as a Street Pastor in Leicester City Centre. One of my greatest blessings in the approach to Christmas was undoubtedly the time we were able to spend with the homeless of Leicester. Each year they would teach me more about the true spirit of Christmas. I remember numerous occasions sitting in doorways with homeless people while they spoke of the pain of being cold and hungry, and the far greater pain of being completely ignored by busy shoppers rushing about buying things they did not need. And of course, I remembered at these times that Jesus was born particularly to show God’s love for the poor and neglected.

I remember too, the incredible generosity the homeless so often showed towards others. On one particularly cold night, when the temperature had fallen to about -12C, we gave a sleeping bag to a young girl shivering in a shop doorway. Her face lit up with pure joy. ‘You’re so wonderful,’ she told us, ‘Now I can give my blanket to X who doesn’t have one.’

So my prayer for us all this month, is that we can all be more touched by the spirit of God, that shone so clearly through that girl who could fit all her possessions into a carrier bag and yet still had enough to give to others. And I pray that we may also share something of the joy that radiated from her.

If you would like to sign up to receive a weekly reflection, or to receive the regular newsletters from churches and Christian groups across Hope Valley, please go to https://mailchi.mp/2c07821b33f6/sign-up-for-ponder-and-pray or https://mailchi.mp/cbb9a512a36e/hope-valley-christians-newsletter or email me on [email protected] and I can sign you up.

November 2025 Acorns and God

Many sources this year, from the Woodland Trust to the BBC, have been commenting on the fact that this year is a ‘mast year’, a year when there is a particular abundance of acorns and other fruits and seeds. In the middle of October, Derby Diocese holds its annual Clergy Conference, and this year I came home from Clergy Conference with two acorns in my pocket. What, you might ask, do acorns have to do with a clergy conference?

Well, the theme of this year’s Clergy Conference was ‘The parable of the sower,’ a parable Jesus told about a sower throwing seeds lavishly over good soils and bad; throwing seed over the path, over rocky ground, and among thorns and weeds, as well as onto good soil; throwing the seed into places where it had very little chance of growing and producing a harvest, as well as into places where it was likely to grow.

As you can imagine, over the last 2000 years there have been many interpretations of this parable. Often commentators picture the ‘seed’ as being the knowledge of God and his love for us, and they explain they how we can be like the various soils, with many things preventing the love of God really ‘taking root’ in our lives, but how when it does we produce a ‘rich harvest’ of good in the world. God is pictured as like the sower, lavishing his love and his care on both those who will respond and those who won’t.

Jesus regularly taught about God, using examples from the natural world, and several speakers at this year’s Clergy Conference focused on how the natural world, God’s creation, reveals God’s character. One speaker spoke about God’s character revealed in the extravagant abundance of nature, telling us how in its life time a healthy oak tree produces about a million acorns – hence the acorns in my pocket - (although only one is needed to replace the tree itself), and how that extravagant abundance of the oak tree sustains other life in countless ways. Another speaker spoke of their ‘church in the wilderness’, meeting in forgotten or waste places, inviting in passers-by, and learning how God relates to us by noticing, and observing closely, how a community of life and growth emerges and flourishes, in places that we may tend not to value.

So this month, my challenge and my prayer for myself is to seek to become better at looking closely at the natural world around me, and letting it teach me about God. And my invitation to all of us is to join me on that adventure.

October 2025 Autumn

I often approach autumn with mixed feelings. Of all our seasons, it is the season that most prompts me to look both backwards and forwards, and for me it is a season that prompts both thankfulness and an awareness that for many autumn is a time of increasing anxiety.

Some of my earliest memories of autumn include picking mushrooms from the fields in the early morning before the overnight mist lifted, before going home to eat them for breakfast. And memories of scuffing through fallen leaves, or picking fruits and berries from woods and hedgerows, together with smells of jam and chutney making. For me, autumn still includes looking back with thankfulness over the summer’s garden harvest (including both what we will eat, and provision of food and shelter for wildlife for the months ahead) and looking forward, sometimes with trepidation, to the list of tasks to try to complete before winter sets in. And as I feel myself beginning to long for the time when daylight hours begin to lengthen rather than shorten, I am aware that for many the approaching darker and colder days bring anxieties about finances or health.

In the church calendar too, autumn is time for looking both backwards and forwards. Harvest encourages us to look back with thankfulness for God’s generous provision, and forwards to how we can honour and cherish the world that sustains us. All Souls’ encourages us to look back in gratitude for all those who are no longer with us but have lit our lives with love, and forwards to the eternal home with him that God offers to all. Remembrance encourages us to look back in sorrow for lives lost in conflict and in the service of others, and forwards in hope to God’s vision of a world where conflict and injustice are no more.

But Christianity teaches us to do more than simply look. Christianity also teaches us to work to become part of the future we long to see. As Christianity teaches us to look forward with hope to a time when God's ways are known on earth, when all conflicts cease and all creation flourishes, so Christianity invites us to look backwards to discern the impact that we, individually and collectively, have on the world around us. And Christianity invites us to commit ourselves to do all that we can to end all that harms, and to promote all that brings about flourishing.

So my prayer for all of us this month is that we would each know, or know afresh, God’s love and goodness towards us, and would each long to share that love and goodness with all.