War Cry 6 April 2024

Wrong number leads to new calling

Meet the vicar who volunteers with the RNLI

Home truths are still being avoided in BBC comedy

The Salvation Army is a Christian church and registered charity seeking to share the good news of Jesus and nurture committed followers of him. We also serve people without discrimination, care for creation and seek justice and reconciliation. We offer practical support and services in more than 700 centres throughout the UK. Go to salvationarmy.org.uk/find-a-church to find your nearest centre.

What is the War Cry?

The Salvation Army first published a newspaper called the War Cry in London in December 1879, and we have continued to appear every week since then. Our name refers to our battle for people’s hearts and souls as we promote the positive impact of the Christian faith and The Salvation Army’s fight for greater social justice.

Your local Salvation Army centre

FOR many people living in coastal communities, the sight of the lifeboat and its crew speeding out to sea is a familiar one. The crews are made up of volunteers and, in this week’s War Cry, we discover that one of those volunteers is the Rev Mark Broadway, who explains that some of his colleagues initially had concerns about a member of the clergy joining the crew.

‘They had no conception of what I might be like. Would I be dour and strict and no fun? It has been a good opportunity to demonstrate that Christians are real people too,’ he says. ‘I’m not there to be a chaplain, but people informally have lots of questions that they want to ask me about life and faith.’

While his crew-mates may be learning new things about God, Mark points out that his work on the lifeboats is teaching him a lot about himself.

‘When we do something that’s challenging, we learn more about ourselves, and what our priorities and our capabilities are,’ he tells us.

Sometimes, though, when we face challenges that we haven’t chosen for ourselves, it can be hard to establish our priorities and acknowledge our capabilities. Life can seem so difficult that it’s a struggle to carry on.

That was the situation in which Tony Fielding found himself. As he tells us in an interview this week, he reached a point when he felt that there was no purpose to his life.

‘I had nothing,’ he says. ‘No goals. No aims.’

Tony started to send farewell messages to contacts in his mobile phone. As he was doing so, he accidentally called a Salvation Army church minister. The minister picked up the call, and the conversation that followed helped Tony to discover meaning in his life as a follower of Jesus.

Now Tony has found purpose and confidence through his Christian faith. This story shows us that – whatever we have to face in our lives – there is always hope if we decide to follow Jesus.

INFO INFO

RIPLEY: BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Conman stumbles across his biggest opportunity yet in drama series

DRAGGING a dead body down the stairs in 1960s Rome, the mysterious man at the centre of Netflix drama series Ripley – streaming now – seeks to conceal his crime.

Six months earlier, this man,Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), was a petty fraudster living in a dilapidated one-room flat in New York City.

Then, out of the blue, he was approached by a private detective working for wealthy self-made businessman Herbert Greenleaf (Kenneth Lonergan), who cryptically suggested that his boss wanted to discuss a venture involving money.

Tom met Herbert to find out more, hoping for his big break. The businessman explained to him that his son, Dickie (Johnny Flynn), had shirked his responsibilities for years while travelling round Europe thanks to his trust fund –and now he was living near Naples.

Mistakenly believing that Tom was a friend of Dickie’s, Herbert asked him to convince his son to come home, promising him a salary and an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy. The con artist played along – the

opportunity was too good to pass up.

When he arrived in Italy, Tom tracked down Dickie and his girlfriend, Marge (Dakota Fanning). Pretending to have met at a friend’s place years previously, he wormed his way into Dickie’s villa and lifestyle.

Marge was suspicious of this mysterious interloper. But the conman was enjoying his life of luxury and remained determined to do whatever it took to maintain the lie.

stop ourselves from going wrong again. Many people around the world find that their Christian faith gives insights into human nature and offers a way to live better.

We are all capable of doing bad things

One Bible writer said: ‘I have discovered this principle of life – that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.’ He wondered: ‘Who will free me from this …? Thank God!

The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 7:21, 24 and 25 New Living Translation).

Andrew Scott, who plays Tom, explains that Ripley is an exploration of human nature.

‘It’s about how any human being has both ends: You can do terrible things and want to do good things. I think that’s why Tom Ripley is so fascinating.’

While we may never go to Tom’s lengths of deception, we are all capable of doing bad things – perhaps even when we don’t want to. We may have lashed out in anger, lied or taken ethical shortcuts. In such times, we may wonder how we can

Christians have found those words to be true for themselves. They believe Jesus is the Son of God, who not only leads people down the right path, but also takes the blame for all our wrongdoings, restoring our relationship with a loving God.

Jesus is still active and alive in our world and can keep us on the straight and narrow if we ask for his help. No matter how many wrong turns we take, there’s always a way back with him – which is a truth worth knowing.

Marge, Dickie and Tom get better acquainted

TV feature by Emily Bright

j TEA M TALK

Who wants to live for ever?

Claire Brine gives her take on a story that has caught the attention of War Cry reporters

‘THE will to live longer is deeply ingrained in each of us,’ said molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan in The Sunday Times Magazine. ‘I don’t think there’s any scientific law against breaking our natural barrier of 120 years or so. But I would put it in the same category as being able to colonise Mars... It’s very difficult.’

Speaking to the magazine, the Nobel prize winner addressed deep and meaningful questions about life.

‘The knowledge of death is so terrifying that we live most of our lives in denial of it,’ he said, before commenting on the world’s increasing interest in ‘immortality merchants’.

Ramakishran referred to the people who are chasing the ability to live for ever as crackpots, missionaries or rationalists.

One day, we will all die

The crackpots have ‘really weird ideas that have no real basis in today’s science’, he said. The missionaries ‘understand some biology and want to use it to do serious life extension’. And the rationalists – among which Ramakrishnan included himself – focus their efforts on tackling disease as a way of extending people’s lifespan. Immortality isn’t the goal. Instead it’s about helping people enjoy better health at the end of life, he said.

Though death can be a difficult subject to talk about, most of us would agree that there’s no escaping it. One day, we will all die. I doubt I will even live to be 120.

But, while I accept death in my future, I also believe in the beyond. I believe that eternal life is possible – and not because I think scientists will find a way to make us all immortal. It’s because I believe in Jesus, God’s Son, who promised a life in eternity to those who followed him.

In the Bible, Jesus said: ‘God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die’ (John 3:16 Contemporary English Version).

Facing up to death can be frightening, but whatever happens next doesn’t have to be. Life with God can be ours, both now and for ever, if we dare to have faith.

WAR talk talk Team talk Team talk ‘ ’

Trafficked woman survives ‘hell’

THE BBC website reported on The Salvation Army’s work in supporting thousands of victims of modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK each year.

A young woman named Rose told reporters her story from the living room of a Salvation Army safe house in Cambridgeshire. She explained how she took an opportunity to leave Nigeria and work for a wealthy couple in the UK. She was led to believe that she would be working as a nanny and that the couple would sponsor her studies. But she ended up working 12-hour days, 6 days a week at a restaurant for no pay and no opportunity to study. Rose was also subjected to sexual, emotional and physical abuse.

‘My life was hell,’ she said. Eventually she was persuaded by a friend at the restaurant to go to the police, and her four-year ordeal came to an end.

Rose is among some 22,000 survivors across England and Wales who have been rescued and supported by the church and charity, but Major Kathy Betteridge, The Salvation Army’s director for anti-trafficking, said that there are still too many people who fall through the net.

The signs to look out for and report include people who are fearful or withdrawn, who have marks on their bodies or who appear to be controlled by someone talking on their behalf.

Do you have a story to share?

WAR CRYWnRLD

Divine revelations for Tom on pilgrimage

ACTOR Tom Rosenthal, who described himself as areligious when he joined a group of celebrities to take part in BBC2’s Pilgrimage, told Radio Times that walking the North Wales Pilgrim’s Way was an ‘incredible gift’. Reflecting on the three-part series – now available on iPlayer – the Friday Night Dinner actor said: ‘I had two, maybe three religious experiences on this pilgrimage I did not anticipate, moments where I feel the divine revealed itself to me.’

The article also explored how other celebrities were changed by the trek, which, over the course of two weeks, invited the pilgrims to explore their relationship with faith as they travelled between churches from Greenfield Valley to Bardsey Island.

Dyslexia-friendly Bible complete

ALL the books of the Bible have now been translated into a dyslexiafriendly format.

Christian charity Bible Society began its project to help dyslexic people engage with the Scriptures back in 2015, with the Book of Psalms and the Gospel of Mark. It has now published the final books of its series – Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua.

About 1 in 10 people in the UK is dyslexic, and reading Bibles can prove tricky because of their densely printed type and thin paper.

The books in the dyslexia-friendly series are formatted like novels rather than in traditional columns, use shorter paragraphs, create more space between the lines and use a larger typeface. Bible Society has also used thick paper so that words from a different page don’t show through, and a matt finish to reduce light reflection.

Additionally, publishing the biblical books in shorter volumes makes reading Scriptures easier for people with dyslexia.

nA JESUS-themed nightclub in the United States is growing in popularity, the MailOnline reports.

The Cove – a nightclub in Nashville, Tennessee for over-18s –bans drinking alcohol and smoking and has a playlist devoted entirely to Christian music. It also offers an opportunity to pray after a night of dancing.

Instead of alcohol, clubbers can buy sports drinks, bottled water and fizzy drinks. They can also purchase food from trucks parked outside the venue.

The Cove attracted more than 10,000 social media followers before its first event in November last year. In February, more than 200 young clubbers attended its fourth event.

One of its founders, 22-year-old Jordan Diggs, said: ‘We want to show that Christians can be normal, can be cool. And can have fun.’

BBC/CTVC

A sea of suppor t

This

year marks 200 years of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Crew volunteer and vicar the Rev MARK BROADWAY talks about what it takes to help people at sea

Interview by Sarah Olowofoyeku

THE Rev Mark Broadway is on call all the time. Not just to help his parishioners, but as a trained crew member of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which this year celebrates its 200th anniversary.

The institution was founded in 1824, in response to a growing feeling within maritime locations that shipwrecks should no longer be accepted as a way of life at sea. Over two centuries, the organisation has saved more than 144,000 lives.

Mark became a part of the RNLI a few years ago, when he began a ministry position in Porthcawl during the Covid pandemic. Mark wanted to find a way to get to know his community and be outdoors. The lifeboat crew called out to him. But first he had to do some training.

‘The training is staggered,’ says Mark, who had no nautical background before joining the RNLI. ‘You have to demonstrate safety to be at the station, to go afloat, then to go on a service call. There’s an exciting sea survival course where you’re in the water for an extended period of time. You have to learn how to right the boats if they capsize, how to get out of the water and back into the boat, and what to do in the event of a fire.

‘It’s an intensive few days just going over the drills again and again until you’re proficient. There’s also casualty care training so that if you get to people who need to be rescued and they have an injury, you have the basic skills to deal with it.’

Once the initial training has been completed, members of the lifeboat crew must still attend regular training sessions each week.

‘I volunteer as part of a team of about 30 active crew members,’ Mark says. ‘We are selected from a range of backgrounds

The Rev Mark Broadway volunteers with the RNLI

and trained by the RNLI to be rapid respondsers. Everyone on the crew is a volunteer, and the purpose of the RNLI is to be the charity that saves lives at sea, so we respond to “tasking requests” or “shouts” as they’re called. We’re aware that anyone can drown, but we think that nobody should have to.

‘We do a lot of rescues of people in water sports incidents and of people who have been cut off by the tide. Sometimes we are involved in the rescue and recovery of vessels.

be like. Would I be dour and strict and no fun? It has been a good opportunity to demonstrate that Christians are real people too. We can have a laugh and we want to enjoy life as much as anybody else.

‘I’m not there to be a chaplain, but people informally have lots of questions that they want to ask me about life and faith. It’s interesting to have those sorts of conversations.’

We’re on call all the time

‘We’re on call all the time, unless there’s a reason we can’t be. For particular occasions, we might mark ourselves unavailable. Being a vicar, though, I’ve got quite good availability through the week. My work is quite flexible other than on a Sunday.’

Mark says that his fellow lifeboat crew members were at first nervous about welcoming a vicar on board.

‘They had no conception of what I might

Those conversations, however, have to be put on hold when the crew are called into action to help someone in difficulty. When tasking requests come, Mark responds as another member of the crew, whose focus is to work together to get the job done.

‘I’ve been on the boat for a rescue a small number of times, but I’ve attended dozens of tasking requests. Even if you’re not going afloat, you’re responsible for making sure that the boat launches, so there’s still a lot of work to do prepping the boat and making sure the crew have

everything that they need. It’s about getting the job done, not about being the important person.’

There are also other lessons Mark has learnt from being in the lifeboat crew.

‘When we do something that’s challenging, we learn more about ourselves, and what our priorities and our capabilities are,’ he says. ‘I’d never done anything like this before, so going into it I was anxious that maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it. You push yourself and surprise yourself. I’ve also learnt a lot about teamwork and communication that has affected and influenced what I do in my parish life.’

Parish life called out to Mark some 10 years ago, after he had been working as a solicitor. A decade earlier he had made the commitment to follow Jesus, and says he has no regrets.

‘There have been ups and downs, times of more faith, less faith, more doubt, less doubt, but I haven’t looked back. It has been great. It is a life that I would recommend to anyone.’

Lifeboat crew members undergo rough water training

‘Alcohol was my god – but everything changed when I found faith’

TONY FIELDING explains how an answered phone call saved his life and pointed him towards God

Interview by Claire Brine

DRINKING up to 100 units of alcohol a day, Tony Fielding from Preston knew he had reached rock bottom. He was jobless, bankrupt and had faced homelessness. Seeing no hope for the future, he decided that it was time to end his life.

‘I couldn’t be bothered any more,’ Tony says, speaking to me over the phone from Preston Salvation Army, where he has dropped in for a coffee morning. ‘There was no purpose in my life – I had nothing. No goals. No aims. No one to care for and nobody to care for me. All I lived for was my next drink.

‘I knew I couldn’t carry on like that, so I made a plan to do myself in. I was going to go to the supermarket to steal some alcohol, get some drugs from an old school friend, then walk along the canal to the cemetery in Blackburn – where my parents’ ashes are scattered – and end it

all. Sitting by the canal, I started sending goodbye messages on my phone. But then I pressed the wrong button and ended up calling a Salvation Army officer.’ Major Ian Emery, who led the Salvation Army church in Blackburn, knew Tony from his attendance at the worship services on Sundays. He picked up the 5.20am phone call, drove out to meet Tony and took him to hospital. After being assessed by doctors, Tony was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

‘I spent a few days in hospital, then moved to a respite care facility,’ he remembers. ‘I knew that I needed serious help to overcome my alcohol addiction, so I applied for a place in rehab. I’d been to rehab before, but this time I was determined not to mess it up. When I was accepted on a programme in Lytham St Annes, I knew this was my second chance. I entered rehab on 12 February

2018, and I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since.’

After six months in the rehabilitation centre, Tony relocated to Preston. Today, he lives in a privately rented flat, works part-time in a Morrisons supermarket and is a regular attender at Preston Salvation Army, surrounded by friends he refers to as his family. Life without alcohol, he says, is beyond his wildest dreams.

‘My faith used to be in a god called alcohol,’ he says. ‘I thought it would never let me down. But when Ian picked up the phone that night, I knew that it wasn’t a coincidence. God was real. I believe he was always there, but waiting for the point where I was willing to accept him. After that moment, I knew that I needed to live my life for God.’

At the time of our interview, Tony tells me proudly that he is six years and ten days sober. He continues to draw support

from Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and serves as a sponsor for a number of recovering addicts. In his supermarket job, he replenishes stock in the beers, wines and spirits aisle without fear of relapsing.

For someone who used to drift through life ‘in blackout’, the transformation in Tony has been huge. I ask him to take me back to the beginning of his story, when he feels his addiction began.

‘I came from an alcoholic family,’ he explains. ‘My parents drank and my brother, who was much older than me, is in recovery today. So drink played a big part in my life from day one.

‘When I was about six years old, I suffered a traumatic event which led to me having nightmares, so I started having a cheeky drink of my dad’s home brew to help me sleep. My parents didn’t know about it. But drinking helped me to numb the pain I was feeling.

‘When I got to about 11, my mum died. She had cancer, but didn’t tell anyone about it. As a family, we went on holiday for a fortnight, then when we got home, she went into hospital and died less than two weeks later. It was then that my drinking increased.’

Struggling to cope with their grief, Tony’s dad and brother also turned to alcohol. Later, when Tony’s brother admitted that he had a problem and started attending AA meetings, Tony vowed that he would never follow in his footsteps.

‘I thought he was weak, and I didn’t want to be like that,’ says Tony. ‘So when I reached 15, my dad thought he’d help me to manage alcohol by teaching me to be a “normal drinker”. He didn’t know that I’d been drinking for years.

‘Looking back now, I can see that I was drinking because I was grieving for my

mum. But I wasn’t aware of it at the time. Alcohol numbed all my pain – the pain of losing my mum, the pain of the trauma I had endured as a six-year-old, the pain of feeling like I’d done something wrong, that I wasn’t good enough, that I was being punished.’

After leaving school, Tony landed a job in a working men’s club in Blackburn. He enjoyed it – because he had easy access to alcohol.

‘My drinking increased, but so did my tolerance,’ he says. ‘So I would go to work drunk, but I didn’t look it. I became excellent at hiding it. I didn’t stagger around, which is what people tend to think drunk people do.

‘Before long, I was drinking seven nights a week. Alcohol was what I turned

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to – whatever the situation. When my relationship with my girlfriend broke down in my 20s, we were on holiday, so I locked her out of the hotel room and proceeded to drink for three days. My idea of a “good drink” was all about sitting alone in a corner with a big bottle. I wasn’t interested in drinking socially.’

As the years went by, Tony’s drinking continued to spiral out of control. He knew he had a problem – but didn’t want to admit that he was facing an addiction like his brother.

‘Then my dad died,’ he says. ‘And it felt like everything was gone. I had no mum and no dad, and my brother was in recovery, so I didn’t really see him or his family. I wasn’t in a relationship. Feeling alone, I thought the only thing to do was drink.

‘For the next few years, I was drifting through life as a functioning alcoholic. I held down my job, but I was living in total blackout. My life revolved around getting money to buy drink. I couldn’t be bothered with anything.’

Tony’s increased drinking began to lead to other problems. He was in and out of AA but when he left a job in telesales, he had no money and eventually filed for bankruptcy. When he failed to pay rent on the home he had shared with his dad, he was evicted by the council. With nowhere to go, Tony lived on the streets.

‘It was awful,’ he says. ‘I had a lot of fear about where I could sleep and how I would eat. I stole food when I had to. But I was always looking for my next drink. My head was such a mess.’

One day, after a fellow AA member saw Tony having a wash in some supermarket toilets, he contacted The Salvation Army in Blackburn and asked if they could help.

The next day, Tony was allocated a room in Bramwell House Lifehouse, an accommodation unit for people experiencing homelessness.

‘It was great,’ Tony says. ‘The staff at the Lifehouse believed in me, even though I didn’t believe in myself. Because of their encouragement, I stopped drinking. I also started going to Sunday services at the Salvation Army church in Blackburn and made some good friends.

‘About 18 months later, it was time to move on. I went to live with an old friend – but then I started drinking again and taking drugs with him. Eventually we had a bit of a falling out, so I went back to Bramwell House for my second stay.

‘I got clean again and even started volunteering there, working on reception and doing jobs like

Tony sought help for his addiction at Bramwell House Lifehouse, run by The Salvation Army

making up the starter packs for new residents. All the while, I kept going to the church on Sundays. Members of the congregation had always said to me: “Even if you’re drinking, we still want to see you, because we would rather know that you were here and safe than alone out on the street.”’

For the second time, Tony left Bramwell House, feeling hopeful that his days of alcohol abuse were long behind him. But, despite his good intentions, he found it impossible to stick to a life of sobriety.

Salvation Army minister who answered his crisis phone call, Tony found the strength to give rehab one last go.

I wanted to end it all

‘Talking to Ian was my turning point,’ he says. ‘From then on, I was desperate to do rehab. I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I wanted to do anything and everything to stop myself drinking.

flat, engaged with The Salvation Army’s Employment Plus programme and finally secured a job. Life – which for a long time felt empty – was beginning to feel full of purpose.

‘Once again, I started drinking,’ he says. ‘Over the next few months, I tried to stop and went to stay in a number of recovery homes. But then I reached rock bottom. Nothing had worked. I wanted to end it all.’

Tony made preparations to end his life. But after finding support through Ian, the

‘So, I got into rehab, got clean and then moved into a recovery home based in Preston, along with three other recovering addicts. It was then that I started attending Preston Salvation Army on a Sunday. I knew that I needed a local church, and pretty quickly the people there became my family.’

In November 2019, Tony became a uniform-wearing Salvationist at the church, marking his commitment to his Christian faith. With the congregation backing him, he moved into his own

‘For so many years, alcohol was my god,’ Tony says. ‘But now I have something far better. God loves me – and that’s unconditional. He’s always there for me. I want people to know that when life is hard, there is always a way out – and that’s God.

‘When the Bible talks about God showing us life beyond our wildest dreams, that’s what I’m living today. I haven’t had a drink for more than six years. I don’t want one. And that’s fantastic.

‘At AA, we talk about exchanging the bottle for the keys to the kingdom – and that’s exactly what God is giving me. My story proves that when you have God on your side, you can do anything.’

Tony attends Preston Salvation Army church

THE War Cry invites readers to send in requests for prayer, including the first names of individuals and details of their circumstances, for publication. Send your Prayerlink requests to warcry@salvationarmy.org.uk or to War Cry, 1 Champion Park, London SE5 8FJ. Mark your correspondence ‘Confidential’.

jThere is no set formula to becoming a Christian, but many people have found saying this prayer to be a helpful first step to a relationship with God Becoming a Christian

Lord Jesus Christ, I am truly sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. Please forgive me. I now turn from everything that I know is wrong.

Thank you that you died on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free.

Thank you that you offer me forgiveness and the gift of your Holy Spirit.

Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit to be with me for ever.

Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen

a thouNow, ther NO W, THERE’S A THOUGHT!

by Jim Burns

Just a minute

ONE of the bestselling business books of the 1980s was The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. It was intended to remind managers and supervisors to take a minute out of their day to meet the people they manage.

The book shares three primary one-minute techniques of an effective manager: one-minute goals, one-minute praisings, and one-minute reprimands (changed to one-minute redirects in the book’s new edition).

We could have one-minute praisings

And that got me thinking: could there be such a person as a one-minute Christian?

I guess it depends on what is meant by that, for surely we can be a non-Christian one minute and then a believer one minute later? It may take us 10, 20 or more years to get to the point when we decide to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for our sins and was raised to life on Easter Day. But the change can certainly happen in a minute.

After that, we will spend the rest of our lives living as Christians, doing our best to follow Jesus’ example. But perhaps we could set ourselves one-minute goals for how we plan to do so. The goals could help us to discover what God wants us to do or figure out how best to use the gifts we’ve been given to help others. We could have one-minute praisings when we thank God for his love for us. Or one-minute redirects to help us get back on track if we have gone our own way.

It can be daunting to make a big life-changing decision to become a Christian, and we may feel that we’re not ready or good enough. But what if we decided to approach the journey one minute at a time? The Bible says: ‘God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-towork, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering’ (Romans 12:1 and 2 The Message).

It may only take a minute to decide to change the way that we are going to live our lives. But if we make that decision – and stick with it – the difference will last for ever.

QUICK QUIZ

Who wrote the bestselling novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow?

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Bet ter together?

Jonathan wants to get back with his ex in the second series of BBC comedy

TV feature by Sarah Olowofoyeku

ONE year after the break-up, Jonathan (Romesh Ranganathan) is dreaming of getting back together with his ex – literally. In the new series of the BBC1 comedy Avoidance, which started on Friday (5 April), Jonathan is only able to confess his feelings to the love of his life in a dream. In reality, he still can’t seem to face the situation head-on.

He has been trying to improve his life, though, through morning affirmations and Lycra-based hobbies. But the real improvement, he thinks, would be getting back together with his ex, Claire (Jessica Knappett).

Jonathan’s sister Dan (Mandeep Dhillon) and her wife Courtney (Lisa McGrillis), who are now expecting a baby, are frustrated with Jonathan. They encourage him to make a grand romantic gesture to win Claire back, but have little hope that he’ll actually see it through.

Either way, while Claire and Jonathan are still cordially co-parenting, Claire’s love life has moved on. She’s now doing some avoiding of her own, as she struggles to tell Jonathan the truth.

The scenes on screen might be relatable

For viewers who are willing the couple to spit things out, it may be painful to watch them avoid important conversations. But the scenes on screen might also be painfully relatable.

Whether it’s having a hard conversation, working on a negative part of our character or dealing with a certain problem, it can feel easier to just keep putting things off for another time or avoiding them all together. But we can’t keep running away from our difficulties for ever.

Many people have found that living life with God has helped them to navigate tricky situations. They have the assurance that God is with them and will guide them. One man, whose life is documented in the Bible – David – had relationship problems, work-related stress and more. But he always called on God for help.

Looking at his life tells us that we can receive such support too. When he was in trouble, David wrote: ‘You will help me, Lord God’ (Psalm 54:4 Contemporary English Version).

If we ask, God will help us in our times of need. To make that a reality, we just need to put our trust in him.

Jonathan struggles to tell his ex what he really wants

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N C W Y S Y F E S P U O Q G V B L T

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H L F T N A M O W Y R E V E M I H F U O Y E V O L S Y A W L A L L I W I

P S G P A U Y A Z Q K W I Y Z W Z I ONE MOMENT IN TIME

Tomato and tuna pasta

INGREDIENTS

METHOD

150g dried wholemeal pasta

1tsp rapeseed oil

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1tsp chilli flakes (optional)

400g can plum tomatoes

185g can tuna in water, drained and flaked

10g Parmesan cheese, grated Basil leaves, to serve

Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a medium frying pan and fry the onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes, until the onion begins to soften.

If using, add the chilli. Tip the tomatoes into the pan and gently squash them with a spoon. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes.

Drain the pasta, then add it to the pan with the tuna and stir through the sauce. Top with Parmesan cheese and basil leaves, to serve.

Asparagus frittata

INGREDIENTS

3 medium eggs

Ground black pepper

Oil spray

60g spring onion, finely chopped

250g fresh asparagus, trimmed and chopped

150g fresh spinach leaves

METHOD

Beat the eggs in a bowl, then season with pepper, to taste, and set aside.

Coat a small frying pan with 7 sprays of oil and heat over a medium heat. Fry the spring onion and asparagus for a few minutes, until they start to soften.

Add the spinach and cook for a further few minutes, until it has wilted.

Pour the beaten eggs into the pan and spread the asparagus evenly through the mixture. Cook for 5 minutes, until the edges are starting to brown.

Remove the pan from the hob. Place under

Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers them in times of trouble

WAR CRY

Psalm 41:1 (New International Version)