I had the privilege this week of visiting a lady whose name, together with a note of her circumstances, I had been given by a colleague from Dundee. He had asked me if I would visit the lady in question to offer her such support as we, as a congregation, might be able to offer her. Upon meeting her, it took no time at all to ‘diagnose’ the problem. Here was a lady who was, essentially, very lonely.

Tracey Chapman’s old song, ‘Why?’ asks the question; ‘Why when there’s so many of us are so many still alone?’ You would think that with nearly seven billion people on earth, the one thing we wouldn’t be short of would be company! And yet, possibly now more than ever before, given the much-changed living patterns that most of us are subject to, we find that many people are not connected, at least not in meaningful ways.

The good news is that this particular lady now has a friend from the church who will visit her regularly and who will bring her to the Friend’s Club, where she will have instant access to sixty or so folks similar to herself.

We can’t always meet someone’s needs but it’s great when we can!