I wonder if you have ever suffered from the “impostor syndrome” – the sense that, although you occupy a role within a community of some kind, you’re not the real deal and you don’t really belong. Others are genuine and others fit in. But you’re just faking it – and soon enough everyone will find out. The feeling is common enough.

Isn’t it amazing how fast children grow up? How exciting it is for parents to see their children develop along the way, to transition from crawling to walking or from babbling to speaking. The writer of Hebrews references one such transition: that of moving from drinking milk to eating solid food.

Life can indeed be a perilous journey. John Newton’s famous hymn, “Amazing Grace”, speaks of "dangers, toils and snares" that he experienced firsthand. On one occasion, he was thrown from a horse, narrowly missing impalement on a row of sharp stakes.

Approximately 360,000 babies are born each day around the world. The birth of a child is always a joyful thing. But the arrival of most babies won’t become headline news. Sometimes an enthusiastic parent will publish a birth announcement in the local newspaper.

We live today in a world short on hope and amply supplied with despair. For most, this has been a rather bleak year. We are all looking for hope in the midst of the pandemic – hope for Covid numbers to improve, hope for life to go back to normal.