Mothers' Union column by Julia Tum: 'There are no gates or blocked footways to Heaven'

You either think the extensive regeneration of Brighouse town centre is a waste of money and will present many problems for Brighouse, the community and for the shop keepers; or you think it will rejuvenate Brighouse town centre - providing safe and attractive walkways and a much calmer atmosphere, with less traffic coming along Commercial Street and stopping the town centre being used as a rat-run for through traffic.

No matter what your views are, it will be different. But at the moment it looks chaotic.

Have you noticed how in the centre of the roadworks in Brighouse, there are not only barriers preventing our walking across the road to a particular shop but they change on a daily basis preventing our using a way through only to find that it is now blocked off?

Are you aware that just outside Aldi there are two gates enabling the heavy digging machinery to move from one section of the works to another? These gates, and there is a similar one close to Wetherspoons, are controlled by a “gateman”. He has the final say in letting machinery through, or not, in the interests of pedestrian and workmen’s safety. At the end of every day the site is swept and the roads and footpaths are left as clean and tidy as possible.

It’s like life really, isn’t it? Except that there are no gates or blocked footways to Heaven. We can keep sweeping up after ourselves each day, praying that the following day will be less full of temptations and issues. God sweeps us clean and then we go and muck it up again. The barriers we face are all made by mortals.

The Mothers’ Union provides life line help and assistance to many different and varied people and communities, in the UK and much further afield.

Through fundraising we send money and gifts of love to those who are in greater need, whose lives are chaotic. Items of clothing go to the many orphanages, which now exist, in Ukraine. Money is raised to fund support sessions for women in Burundi who are not numerate or literate…. these sessions are a wonderful way to enable the women to start to run their own small businesses and to enable them to check their change when haggling on the markets. …less chaotic and more managed.

Here in Yorkshire many MU ladies volunteer for work in the prison at Mirfield hoping to add a little normality into the women’s lives with cookery sessions, providing welcome drinks to their visitors and being alongside the women who have babies with them. The MU raises awareness of Modern Day Slavery and supports with gifts of love to those who had fled their homes where there is domestic abuse.

Christians across the world have been celebrating Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His supreme sacrifice for us all has cleared away the gates and barriers, and each day we can sweep clean, enabling us to be closer to God. The stone got rolled away from the mouth of the tomb. I wonder what are the stones and barriers which block our way forward?

To know more about the Mothers Union contact me at: [email protected]