The Blasts

Thursday was such a strange day. I was in a meeting when I first heard about the bombings in London and to be honest, I didn't grasp the magnitude of what had happened until a couple of hours later. It was so weird to be living on the edge of London and in one respect to feel so close to such tragedies but also to feel very far away from all that was happening.

I also wanted to do something helpful and productive but realised that there was very little I could do - I vaguely thought about trying to see if we could open up the church so people could sleep there for the night but I knew that if people could get to Enfield, they could probably get all the way home. I then figured that the only thing that I could do - and ironically the best thing for me to do - was to pray, which I did! Wish I didn't have this need to be helpful all the time...

It was a privilege and a responsibility to run a youth group meeting Thursday night as some of the young people I know met together to think and pray about what had happened. I was struck again by the intense feelings and thoughts that many young people have. It was a real honour to be able to chat through some of the things that were going through their heads, including thinking about the number of people killed by war and poverty every day that don't seem so real to us as they are much further away.

I don't know anyone who was hurt in the bombings, although a lot of near miss stories are surfacing. I will continue to pray for the people involved, although sometimes words are hard to come by.