God knows all your struggles but He still wants you to finish well Retirement is often seen as the reward for years of hard work, but for many it brings unexpected challenges; loss of identity, routine, purpose and connection. Yet it can also be a season of rediscovery, where fulfilment is found not in career […]
All journeys worth making require clarity of purpose, commitment and diligence. As you consider your life, can you think of areas where you are diligent and others where you give up? What do you think makes the difference?
Every locality has its landmarks and we all use them for navigating around our landscapes. A few like the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty are notable beyond their locality, but most only mean something to locals. When a familiar old tree is taken down or a favourite shop closes, there is a sense of loss and some disorientation. The pictured monument is probably known only to a very few readers – it is placed in heathland to mark the proximity of habitat for Wild Cranberries, the Woodlark and Nightjar. Some have creatively also used it for geocaching so if it was moved it would be confusing for dog walkers and for those searching for their next geocache answer. You will have some landmarks that mean a lot to you but little to others. Come to that, in the landscape of life, you will have people or events that are significant landmarks particularly to you. Perhaps you are a landmark for others like a cairn on a mountain walk to help them on their way.
There is a famous saying about Marmite spread – ‘you either love it or hate it’! The same could be said of golf – just speak to a ‘golfing widow’ or to someone who has just played the perfect shot … swish, click, a bounce on the green and you have a happy golfer. Where it began is debatable – France, the Netherlands, China, Persia and England are all possibilities but the earliest claim is back to the Romans in the first century BC. The game was called ‘Paganica’ and involved players using a bent stick to hit a stuffed leather ball. However, the modern game of golf originated in 15th-century Scotland where the first written record of golf is James II’s banning of the game in 1457 as an unwelcome distraction to learning archery. James IV lifted the ban in 1502 when he became a golfer himself. The aim of golf is to be able to hit a ball straight and true but, like life itself, it takes lots of practice.
