This month’s letter to the parish is from Rev Steve:
This month sees the 40th anniversary of the fire that re-shaped the life of St Margaret’s. It happened on 21st February 1985. The lessons learnt in times of adversity stay with us throughout our lives. So many of our scriptures are framed through the experience of wilderness and exile in the Old Testament – and of cross and resurrection in the New. So it is for us in St Margaret’s. The re-design of the church, the sense of shared fellowship in surroundings unfamiliar for our worship, the reordering of our priorities… I suspect that when we look for guidance in some crisis today, some aspect of the journey taken between the fire and the re-opening in September 1986 may be there for those of us who experienced it first-hand.
Lessons I learned at the toughest moments of my life are the ones to which I keep returning in my later years. I can sum them up in lines from the Psalms which have special resonance. Most important is Psalm 57.3: “I cry out to the Lord and he fulfils his purpose for me “. The adversity brings me to a greater sense of reliance upon God. This is at the heart of the Beatitudes – Jesus’ sketch of God’s rule at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount – “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the Kingdom of God.”. (Matthew 5.3). Psalm 34.18: “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
To rely on God is to trust God as our refuge – and, from many challenging situations, I have often gained encouragement from praying Psalm 46.1: “God is our refuge and strength: a very present help in trouble.”. This has the punch-line later: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’. (Psalm 46.10).
On this significant anniversary, I wonder what are your go-to watchwords discovered when the going got tough. And I look forward to discovering the ones that have given life to St Margaret’s in the 40 years that have passed.
Wishing you every blessing,
Rev Steve
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 