Bridge Over Dyke Water

As I walked from the Lincolnshire village of Helpringham to Great Hale and Heckington, I crossed North Beck. Becks in this county are not like the gurgling streams of Lancashire. They are deep dykes, running between the steep banks of drainage ditches, which any honest man would struggle to climb. How glad was I to see a footbridge across that beck. Now I like bridges, and have written about a number of them on this site, from mighty Humber to the old monks’ bridge of Rimington. The one over which I passed here is quite possibly the ugliest I have ever seen: worn, brown concrete with rusting metal poles serving as a balustrade. Yet it did the job. I passed from one side to the other with neither bruised shins nor wet feet. It did just as I wanted. My destinations- Heckington and Hale- were where the beauty lay, not the fenland bridge to get me there.

This present life will continue to be characterised by pain, hardship, difficulty and, quite often, the mundane. It is in the life to come in which God promises peace and plenty. Look at where you are heading and not where you are.