SCRIPTURE UNION aims to make God''s good news known to children, adults, young people and families, and to encourage people of all ages to meet with God daily through Bible reading and prayer. They publish a wide range of literature - including ''It''s Your Move'' for children moving up to secondary school - and offer training, support, and a variety of holiday events for whole families. Bible Reading Notes, in various formats and for all ages, are available from Audrey Howe.

THE AUTUMN term is in full swing. The children have settled back into school life and I’m quite enjoying the peace and quiet! Apart, that is, from feeling like a taxi service! It seems that almost every night one or other of the children has a club to go to: table €“tennis, football, swimming, cubs & Beavers. Fridays is our only night €˜off’ and that is when we take the dog for an extra walk, so that he is worn out before homegroup starts! (You see, when Pippin hasn’t had enough exercise he starts zipping around the room chasing his tail or chewing up the recycling!) Even on Saturdays we go to watch Benjamin play football and on Sundays, when we don’t have a €˜Beavers’ or €˜cubs’ event on or we are not visiting family, we go to St John’s Church.

Just recently, a lot of things have got in the way of going to church. I realised after reading that e-mail from Uncle Wormwood in the September Issue of the Parish News that the sense of joy and excitement was a little bit missing too. When I thought about it I realised that I’d let the humdrum chores get in the way of my relationship with God. God had become a distant figure rather than my best friend, who I wanted to talk to every day. I’d shut him out - not on purpose, because I was cross or upset, but just because I was too busy being busy.

I guess that most families have a similar sort of diary - if it is not football it might be ballet, netball or tennis. You feel like you are on a roundabout and you can’t get off. When the roundabout finally stops you flop, exhausted in a heap on the sofa in front of the TV! Work has to fit around children’s activities and God gets pushed out for other worthycauses or left behind due to exhaustion. So how dowe fit God into our modern daily lives?

Well, this is what I do now: I have a chat with Him as I take the dog for a walk, as I do the housework & when I’m driving to school. As I often seem to forget where I’ve last put my Bible, I’ve begun to read Wordliveon the computer after I return from the walk. That’s a daily online Bible reading from Scripture Union (see below). It’s as if I’d been sitting in the dark quite happily until somebody switched the light on! And once a month we go to Raise the Roof - which, far from being a bind, feels like being refreshed! I love the atmosphere created by Jake on the drums and Rowan loves taking part in the drama - of course I love watching him, too!

Lindsey Saunders

See www.scriptureunion.org.uk for daily Bible readings