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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Chine McDonald

Good morning.

I鈥檓 a big fan of musicals. I can鈥檛 wait till the day when the West End opens its doors again and I can join others as we watch wide-eyed, the epic productions and rousing musical scores brought to life on stage.

One of my favourites is Les Miserables 鈥� the musical adaptation of the French historical novel by Victor Hugo, who was born on this day in Besancon, France, in 1802. The story of Les Mis is onrone of love, justice, mercy, redemption and ultimately hope. There鈥檚 a line from it, which I believe can give hope to us today as we face yet another day in lockdown in a global pandemic. 鈥淓ven the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.鈥� In our darkest nights, it can feel like the sun may never come out again. We can鈥檛 see our way through the pain and the worry and the fear and the uncertainty. As we head towards the first anniversary of Covid-19 cases rapidly rising in the UK and the ensuing lockdown, it may feel like this is a dark night has gone on and on and on.

But I鈥檓 reminding myself today that the sun will rise again. This is what hope feels like. The Christian hope looks forward to a day when all pain will end, death will cease and things will be put right again 鈥� all of this made possible by Jesus, whose death and resurrection we will be celebrating in a few weeks on Easter Day. The Christian hope does not pretend that the dark nights will be easy, nor does it pretend that dark nights will never come. Instead, my faith tells me that during that dark night, God will be present with me, holding my hand through it all. And that one day 鈥� all shall be made well. Lord, help us to be people full of hope, give us strength to keep on going.

Amen.