YOU may have heard of the movie A Quiet Place. The movie is set in a small town in North America and the nation, and possibly the world, has been overrun by marauding monsters who find people with their super-super-sensitive hearing. So, everybody has to be super-super-quiet to stay alive, hence the name of the movie A Quiet Place. But the family at the centre of the movie have a distinct advantage over other families as their eldest daughter is deaf, and so they are very used to signing. However, at the beginning of the movie, because of a mistake by the deaf daughter, the youngest son is killed. And so, we see very strained

relations between the daughter and her father. She thinks he blames her and therefore, no longer cares for her. And this is how we often view our Father God. He must be angry with that thing we have done in the past - how could he possibly still love us?

However, at the pivotal moment of the movie, where the father saves his children, before doing so he signs to his deaf daughter. He signs the words "I love you" but crucially for his daughter he goes on to sign "I have always loved you" even when her younger brother died. And this is what God, as Jesus nailed to the Cross, signs every day to you, "I love you". But, whatever you have done, he goes on to say, "I have always loved you".

The Rev Brian Streeter, St Mary's Penny Bridge, Ben of Egton cum Newland, Lowick with Blawith and Colton