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Viewpoint from Father John Bloomfield 15/01/2021
 Father John Bloomfield
Priest in charge of the Flegg Coastal Benefice
Hemsby, Horsey, Somerton, and Winterton
Have you made any New Year resolutions? In the marking off of time, we give ourselves opportunities to create starting points. We all make plans for the future in some ways, if it’s nothing more than planning a holiday. As a priest I plan a day’s work but knowing that I’ll probably be interrupted and the plan will go out of the window. Who could have said this time last year that all our plans would have to be abandoned? But what about long term plans, they not only have to be modified but sometimes cope with major disruption
Twenty five years ago, I began seriously to think about my retirement; where I would live, and some financial provision. So I set up a savings scheme and a pension scheme. Both with the same provider and with a financial adviser who would keep check on how things were going. I saw three individuals as the financial advisers moved from company to company. Each said the original adviser had set me up well. All well and good, I thought
 However the company with whom I set up my schemes sold off that side of the business. The new company did not provide a financial adviser. Then after a few years, that company sold on their savings and pension schemes to another business. Last year I needed some finance for the house I am buying for my retirement, I could have cashed in my pension scheme the previous year but with interest rates and the economics of the country affected by the covid virus it had lost a third of its value
In long term planning we have to acknowledge that we cannot control events, and that what seems a good idea at the time doesn’t always work out in the way we hoped. Other people and events in life will have an effect on it. But with the assurance of God, I put my trust in him that he can cope with the future that I am unable to see for myself. That is faith. Not just that God is there, but trusting that whatever unforeseen things happen he is always with us
The passing of time seems to speed up the older we get. So what about the real long term future – how much do we think about that subject?
also published in the Great Yarmouth Mercury
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