fidzbit

The end is in sight! Really?! Well, no - not for us any way. From our point of view this crisis is only just beginning. We have no idea how long it will last. Will the virus mutate and return again and again, bringing fresh waves of sickness? Will the social distancing measures stop a second or third ‘peak’ in cases? How long will it take to make an effective vaccine? We cannot answer these questions. The prospect of the next few months is daunting - whether that means tiring shifts in the hospital or the restrictions of staying at home through a lock down. But for God the end  is  already in view. In the book of Job God set a limit for the devil’s evil: “And the Lord said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your hand.  Only against him do not stretch out your hand." That is God’s line in the sky. Later in the book He declares that He has also set limits for the visible world too: “" Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb...

A stream of bright colours which emerges triumphantly out of and over the darkest of clouds: the rainbow makes a brilliant and evocative emblem. 1960's hippies painted it on their VW campers. A recent political equality movement adopted the spectrum of colours to represent their understanding of diversity. Now many children are putting images of rainbows in their windows as a symbol of hope amid the crisis of a global pandemic. This 'new' use of the rainbow is actually very 'old'. In the ancient biblical story of Noah, God saw that the world was getting lost in an ever increasing whirlpool of sin and depravity. He decided to put a stop to this self-imposed cycle of human violence by sending a great flood which would destroy everything except a boat full of people and animals. There was plenty of warning but, tragically, in the end only Noah and his family boarded the rescue ship. To keep them safe, God locked them into this 'ark' for 40 days and 40 nigh...

Fidzbit : Hi Tom. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. Tom :  I am an anaesthetic registrar based in Cardiff. I enjoy lots of variety at work, and split my time between operating theatres, the emergency department, intensive care unit and labour ward. This year I have been doing a research fellowship looking at how how blood clots during childbirth and how we can manage patients who bleed more safely and effectively.  F : What have you been doing during the last ten days to prepare for the coronavirus crisis? T :  Preparation has two main parts. Firstly, preparing the hospital infrastructure to accommodate large numbers of infected patients, which includes identifying and equipping areas of the hospital which can be used either as isolation wards, or as additional intensive care capacity. The second part, which I have been more involved with is the training and education of staff. This includes training to safely use personal protective equ...

Do you remember Sundays before they changed the trading laws? I have a vivid childhood memory of how quiet Sunday mornings were then. The only people up and about were those on their way to church. There was very little man made noise. For just a few hours the city paused. It was restful. We live on a main road linking the edge of town with the city centre. It has lots of shops and regular buses. In normal times it never sleeps! But this morning it is quiet. The last few days it has been quiet. It reminds me of those Sundays. It is peaceful. It rarely happens anymore. The normal bustle of life has become wearisome because it is so relentless. It is why many of us put such value in going somewhere more remote for our holidays. Perhaps, like me, you enjoy going to the mountains or the coast to get away - where the only noise is that of the birds, the wind, or the sea. We struggle to rest without peace.  God knows this. He built this need in to us. He set the example, afte...

Fidzbit : Tell us about yourself and what you do. John : My name is John, I'm married with 3 grown  up sons, 2 granddaughters and I've worked in the NHS for 36 years this year. F : What have you been doing during the last ten days to prepare for the coronavirus crisis? J : There has been much organisation by managers and senior staff etc.   Personally I have been carrying on in my role as a Health Care Support Worker in the Surgical Short Stay Unit. The majority of operations have now been cancelled or moved to another hospital.  I move back to the Intensive Care Unit soon so  I have attended training sessions about things that I will have to do there. F : What is the atmosphere like among your nursing colleagues as you anticipate such a critical situation? What is morale like? J :  It's a difficult question to answer because I have not yet been exposed directly to the current healthcare situation.  Atmosphere and morale seem to...

During the next week or so I plan to post a number of interviews with Christians about how this crisis is impacting their work lives. Most of them are people working in the medical sphere. Today is a bit different. I asked Alun Ebenezer, Head Master of Fulham Boys School, if he could share with us. (Fulham Boy's School was deliberately built with a Christian ethos as one of its three core pillars: Faith. Boys. Enterprise . See: https://www.fulhamboysschool.org/about-us/christian-ethos/ ). Perhaps it is not surprising that he was just too busy to stop and talk right now! Alun is a great guy, always ready for some chat and banter - so this says something about the pressure that he and other teachers are under too. As we remember those working on the medical frontline, let's not forget that teachers are doing a huge amount of work too - doing their best to provide an on going education for our children via on-line resources and keeping schools open and fu...

Real faith is able to face and acknowledge the darkest realities of life and still trust God . Real faith is not burying your head in the sand and turning a blind eye to difficulties, pretending everything is ok and everything is easy. Real faith is often a battle - a struggle to hold on to what we know about God when the whole world seems to be falling apart around us. A number of Psalms and other Scriptures articulate this struggle in a whole range of challenging circumstances. This is a paraphrase I wrote based on Lamentations 3:1-33, where Jeremiah gave full and vivid expression to his great sorrows and sufferings before his faith breaks through to assert an ongoing wholehearted confidence in God. In normal times, it would be unusual to sing a song like this in church! But we are not in normal times and it might help you to voice The cry of your heart to God. It was printed several months ago in the Free Church of Scotland magazine, ‘The Record’ 1 and can be sung to the tune ...