8th August 2025

Those around me seem to be doing a lot of waiting right now – for driving tests, exam results, holidays, medical tests, job opportunities, and so on. In a world with same day deliveries and TV on demand, waiting can begin to feel countercultural.

Jayne Manfredi has written about the time in between Jesus’ death on the cross on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday. That in between time is a place of waiting. “Bearing witness to Holy Saturday is part of our task as Christian disciples. This is how we tell the truth about the faith we proclaim; that there is no joy without sorrow. No light without dark… We pay attention to the middle places, where dappled light mingles with shade”. This perhaps helps allow us to stay alongside those for whom there is loss in the past, and who wait for what is yet to be.

Manfredi acknowledges that sometimes Christians can worry about sharing the superficially less attractive elements of our faith. We don’t want to put people off. However, relentless jolliness can be pretty hard to stomach if you’re not having a great time yourself! Our Renew Wellbeing café at Tyndale seeks to provide a space where “it’s OK not to be OK”. Manfredi’s quote intrigues me: “If sorrow and joy share a border, together they make a place called contentment”.

Perhaps we can allow ourselves and each other “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). May we all know resurrection hope, even in the midst of struggle.

Ruth Allen