Thought for the week (we 25th August 2013)

Every summer Hay on Wye welcomes visitors from all over the world to its annual celebration of literature and the arts.

It was on a family day out to Hay some years ago that we tramped from shop to shop browsing and even buying some books. The last visit we made was to a converted cinema where even outside there were stacks of books.

My eye caught a rather worn looking children’s story book that looked vaguely familiar. Why I bothered to pick it up I don’t know, but I did and imagine the surprise when I glanced in the front. There in scrawny childish handwriting was my name and my then home address.

I just could not believe it!

All the way home I racked my brains as to how it had ended up in Hay – but nothing came to mind, but well worth the 50p I paid the rather bemused shopkeeper who did not quite understand my excitement!

The book now has pride of place on my bookshelf. I often pick it up and wonder how it had ended up in my hands that day. Friends and family soon got tired of hearing the story, because I was so amazed and still am that this book which I had lost at eleven years of age had returned to my life fifty years later.

All I can do is to put it down to coincidence and an amazing one at that. Coincidences often happen and most of the time we have no explanation or reason why they occur. The Bible often tells of God’s care and compassion which is always there for us and has nothing to do with change or chance.

It‘s no coincidence that God loves us and Jesus’ ministry brought home to those who listening that such love actively seeks a response from us. He told the stories of a shepherd searching for a lost sheep, a woman who swept her house to find a lost jewel, a Father who looks to a distant land to see his wayward son return home.

Nothing of chance or coincidence here, no questions asked or any possibility of rejection because of past failings, just real joy and celebration when that which is lost is found and safely back where it ought to be.