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Good morning
In my life timelifetime I have lived through some many momentous political changes at home and abroad. On this day in 1992, twenty nine years ago my generation saw what many of usmost had imagined thought was one of the most intractable problems in the world, being settled at the ballot box, rather than, as many feared, in by a bloodbath. 
Around the world for decades many had protested Protests against the apartheid regime in South Africa had taken place around the world for decades: , joining in marches,  and boycotts and other campaigns. But on this daytoday in 1992 White South Africans gave an overwhelming mandate for radical political reforms to endending apartheid and create creating a power-sharing multi-racial government. This paved the way for Nelson Mandela, who had only been released from prison 2 years before, to ultimately become President, setting the tone for a new era of hope and reconciliation. Not all of those hopes have been realised sadly, and indeed the political situation in the that country has deteriorated recently, but thankfully few of the immediate fears of preceding years have borne fruit… neither those who that said that thepredicted bloody resistance by the Afrikaners would only give up power by force of arms, nor those who said that there would be wholesale reprisals against the white community by the black majority. 
That has also been true of some of the other changes of recent decades… be it the peace process of my home in Northern Ireland, the collapse of the communist blockbloc, the Presidency of the first black President of the USA… in none have all the hopes come true, but neither have all the fears… And that will may probably possibly be true of the current upheavals we are living through too, though for the sick , dying, and bereaved - and so many intensive care medicsmany, many in  this a fearfully difficult time that may seem a forlorn hope. for millions.
God of eternity, God of hope, help us in all things to aspire for the best, whilst taking account of the fears of ourselves and others, so that together we might build a better world for everyone. AMEN