January: we turn over the page of our life story to a new chapter. What was 2019’s story for you? Who entered your story for the first time – new friends? a family baby? a close relationship? What were the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows, the moments you’ll treasure – and those you’d rather forget? And so to 2020…
A short while ago I penned twelve creative stories about people’s lives. They’re written from the perspective of characters 
in the Old Testament: What was Noah’s experience of the flood like, when he lost his community, his country and everything else he knew except immediate family, to wash up on a foreign shore? What was it like for a young woman starting out on life to cross the Red Sea? What did Jonah and his ship’s captain talk about? How did the wife of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar cope with his mental illness? And so on. We can’t answer these questions but we can imagine.
Unique people with unique stories. Yet also not so different from us: the Bible and its characters can be closer to us than we think.
Each month in 2020 I plan to circulate one of these stories, to those on the email list I use for my occasional “Vicar’s circulars” and to anyone else interested. I’ll post them on Facebook too. I’ve sought to retell the ancient stories through contemporary eyes; this includes sketching natural events (such as floods) without such a stretch on scientific credulity. Most of the stories have yet to see the light of day; time will tell if it were better they’d stayed that way!
A theme of all the stories is hope. Our churches’ strapline is ‘Growing in Love, Hope and Faith’, and of these three, hope feels the least tangible. It cannot be manufactured, and comes as a gift. I suspect that hope will be a particularly valued commodity this year.
So, some stories offered to run alongside ours in 2020. But more important are our own stories: what high and low points await us? who will enter them, who will depart? In whatever way your story unfolds this year, my prayer is that love, hope and faith blossom in new ways for us all.
