Jayne Edinboro is one of our two Readers at All Saints Whitstable
Jayne has
spent all her working life in the legal profession and ran her own business for
many years, juggling a home, husband, children and work, as well as church life. A keen singer
Jayne has sung in church choirs since a school girl. It was from here that
Jayne came to lay ministry, training as a Reader and subsequently being
admitted to the Ministry in the Rochester Diocese in 2002 and the Ministry of
Evangelist in 2004. A volunteer chaplain at several hospitals in both the acute
sector and mental health sector for many years Jayne is now settling down to
life in Whitstable.
Jayne writes as follows:
REFLECTIONS DURING THE CORONAVIRUS
LOCKDOWN
WHY?
As I sit at
my desk looking out on our garden on a beautiful spring day watching the
Blackbirds peck for worms and our two garden Robins watch me from their perch
on the cherry blossom I find myself reflecting on life – mine particularly. The
lockdown imposed by our Government has been a rare opportunity for me to take
time out from the merry-go-round of life and simply “be”. (I suspect like most
of you, kind enough to read this page). I have no pearls of wisdom – just
reflections and these thoughts are my own.
As I look back down the years I linger at my days
as a volunteer hospital chaplain – it was an interesting and frequently heart
wrenching time, being with people when they were at their most vulnerable. I
discovered a sad truth – people generally only called for the chaplain when
they are at their lowest ebb.
I was
frequently faced with the question “why” – “why has God let this happen to
me/my loved one?” I never found it very easy to answer - even with a number of
years of theological training behind me, I felt my response was too text book,
almost mechanical, not from the heart – but in most cases it seemed to bring
comfort. Fast forward a few years and suddenly I was faced with the unthinkable
– my husband who always seemed so strong and invincible was diagnosed with terminal
cancer– I too cried out from the bottom of my heart at the unfairness of it all
– “why God why?” The text book answers
were of no help, my training did not help – God is with you in your suffering,
God too suffers – we were never promised immunity from pain in this life etc
etc. One helpful person even tried to tell me that God never gives us more than
we can cope with – that went down like a lead balloon - my faith teetered for
what seemed like an eternity. Easy to believe in a loving God when life is
going well. I found the writings of Mother Teresa a great comfort – I was not
alone in my doubts of a caring God.
I think it
is fair to say it was an extremely difficult period for me and my children but
in time – a very long time - I came to
accept that yes God really is with us in our pain and suffering, holds us and
comforts us if we ask him into our lives and eventually, I resumed my ministry with perhaps more
understanding and empathy. I was helped by a friend who not only recommended
specific bible passages to read but gave me a book – Philip Yancy “Where is God
When it Hurts?” I have read it many times over the years and found it really
helpful in putting pain into some kind of perspective and God’s part in helping
us with the pain of life.
Now during
the Coronavirus pandemic, like most people I sit night after night watching the
News, the terrible statistics, the pain of people throughout the world, the
deaths, the sights of priests in Spain and Italy blessing churches full of
coffins, the brain recoils in horror from what it sees and what it hears and
once again I find myself asking the question “why God why?”
I have had
to remind myself of the truth I discovered all those years ago – God does care,
but he is not a puppet master controlling our lives as Adam and Eve discovered.
We have freedom of choice and we exercise those choices for good or bad and we
have to live with the consequences of those choices. Sometimes what happens to
us is of our own making at other times it is just life. The New Testament and the message of Christ
crucified is that of a loving and caring God. A God who sent his son into the
world to be born to a young virgin, illegitimate, a refuge for two years,
brought up in a poor village, an itinerate preacher who knew what it was to lose
a much-loved friend.
In John Chapter 11 verse 35 we find the shortest verse in
the King James version of the Bible “And Jesus Wept”. That short sentence gives
me so much comfort – Jesus not only understands our pain but has experienced it
too. By living among us he experienced life in every sense.
In times of
crisis as in any other times in our lives it seems to me that we can either put
our trust in God or we can turn away – but of one thing I am certain – God
never turns away from us his children – he feels our pain and if we hold out
our hand to him he will take it, enfold us in his love and help us and support
us – however we have to accept it may not always be in the way we want or
expect.
The birds
have now left the garden and dusk has arrived. I wish you all God’s peace and
blessing at this difficult time and leave you with the following bible verses
on which I have been meditating:
“Be still
and know that I am God” – PSALM 46:10
“Casting all
your worries on him, because he cares for you – 1 Peter 5:7
For God so
loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
God Bless
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