Message from Session Clerk Holytown On behalf of Minister: Holytown l/w Wrangholm Parish Churches Thought for the Day – Wednesday 18th November 2020 Hebrews 13 3 Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies. Isaiah 47 7 You will open the eyes of the blind. You will free the captives from prison, releasing those who sit in dark dungeons. Isaiah 61 1The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the broken-hearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. Continuing with the ‘Prisoners week’ theme, our second and third readings comes from the book of Isaiah and are a small part of the many prophecies within this part of the bible that point to the coming of Jesus and give us an indication of what he will be like. Again, sticking with our theme, this book was written by Isaiah while imprisoned in Babylon, many of the Israelites having been placed in captivity after being defeated by the Babylonians led by King Nebuchadnezzar and seeing the temple Solomon had built in Jerusalem destroyed. There are a number of examples of prisoners and imprisonment throughout the old testament that we should be familiar with. The imprisonment of Gods’ people by the Egyptians, Joseph, Samson, Jeremiah and Daniel spring to mind. Many of us will be feeling a bit low with yesterday’s announcement that our area along with others have been placed in ‘lock down’ due to this terrible pandemic. It places limits on our freedom and prevents us doing certain things that we are used to and like doing (going to church, shopping, restaurants, hospital visits, cinema, visiting friends and family, hairdressers, exercise classes, football matches etc.). We hope and pray that sometime in the early part of next year that we will be that bit closer in returning to some kind of normality, perhaps with the aid of a vaccine and be able to put this terrible COVID situation firmly behind us. It’s perfectly understandable for us to feel low and we hear on the news that there has been a significant increase in the number of people getting treatment for mental health issues related to the current crisis. This made me think that if all this frustration is due to the variable restrictions on our freedom for the previous ten month period, what would it be like to have all things that constitute normality taken away even for a short period of time? In the past ten months, I have been fortunate to have three ‘staycation’ type of holidays, visited friends regularly, went shopping and lots of other things while still sticking to the rules when I had to. I just couldn’t imagine what the last ten months would have been like if I hadn’t been able to do these things for at least part of the time. This is the situation that prisoners face and I do not envy them one bit. Imagine what each day would be like minus the daily freedoms we likely take for granted. It is normal for most of us to look down on prisoners but God continually has them in his thoughts as shown by the extracts from scripture. As with the prisoner, we are all sinners and it brought a verse from a well-loved hymn to mind: ‘God who made the earth, the air, the sky, the sea, who gave the light its birth, careth for me.’ Prayer (from Church of Scotland) Today we pray for those held in prison We pray for changed hearts For those who need to give up hate and hurt We pray for justice for those Held for their opposition to wrongful abuse of power We pray for new love Where guilt and anger has soured relationships Amen