Richard Allinson sits in

Pause for Thought

From Canon Ann Easter, Chief Executive of a Charity and Chaplain to the Queen

Like most families, we have a number of Christmas time traditions that we’ve built up over the years and one of ours is to measure the children to see how they’ve grown – just as well we don’t measure the adults……having eaten my body weight in luxury chocolate over the past few days, better not to know, I think.

So, Milo’s 8, Arabella’s nearly 5, Violet is 2 and it was Genevieve’s first go as she’s just one and they each had to stand up very straight so that granddad could make the official mark with their name alongside it on an alcove in the dining room where heights are recorded for posterity, just like my Dad used to do when my children were young.

It’s fascinating and lovely to see how our grandchildren are growing up and, as we go into another year, some of us rather more organised with plans and resolutions than others, we can see how much we’ve grown, too.

As a country, I reckon we did ourselves proud with the Jubilee and the Olympic and Paralympic games – now how can we keep developing those feelings of community in our neighbourhoods? And maybe we learned a new skill or craft – can we do it better and perhaps even offer to share it with other people, whether it’s Zumba or quilting?

We might’ve reached our full heights, as adults, but there’s still plenty of growing and development to get on with in other directions so that we become more fully ourselves. I’ve had to accept that I’ll never be any good at athletics so I won’t take that any further but I’ll need to keep on practising the listening and the encouraging, the being grateful for all that I have instead of wishing for someone else’s Christmas stocking.

And I’m convinced that that’s what God wants us to do with the gift of this new year, to grow more in to ourselves, the one God made us to be – and the angels cheer every time we get a bit nearer the mark.