There's a big hole at the bottom of Fore Street! It’s not easy to miss, especially if you get stuck at the temporary traffic lights. It’s causing a lot of conversation, irritation and consternation! What looked like a straightforward repair job has turned into a far greater civil engineering project.

A hole full of challenges, much more complicated than anyone first thought or planned for. This large hole is likely to be with us for some weeks to come, until the culvert underneath the road has been diverted, re-built and then restored.

Then all the utility pipes and cables will have to be protected and re-laid, only then will this aspect of our lives be returned to normal. It seemed to me that the ‘big hole’ is a sort of metaphor. We can’t escape life’s ‘big holes’ Anxieties over health, family, money, even our purpose in life.

These things can all make us feel we are trapped in a big hole OR trudging through a dark valley. In some of my dark valleys or big holes I have found my Christian faith has been of extraordinary help and blessing. It’s sustained me until I was able ‘to walk out of the valley and onto the mountain’.

How did it sustain me? By reading the ‘handbook’, the Bible, where I found remarkable advice and support. Also, by talking to God about all my woes and worries. I really felt a sense of Jesus walking or even sitting with me.

When something is made that clear to us, it’s impossible to refute. So, the hole in Fore Street WILL, without doubt, be filled in at some point… and even though it might feel like an eternity, THAT ‘place’ is reserved for us to be with God – if we choose to follow Him.