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From Dave Tomlinson,Ìýwriter and vicar at large:

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I managed to get half way through last Monday before I heard that it was ‘blue Monday’ – officially the most depressing day of the year!

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Well…marvellous…just when I was having a pretty good one!

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That might seem a strange thing to say as, in fact that day I took two funerals. Yet sad as that was, in their different ways both Sarah and John lived extraordinary lives, both of which left me inspired and energised.

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Sarah had a heart as big as a house: a kind, generous, magnificent woman who not only cared for her loved ones but tried to make a difference for much of the world besides.

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John, on the other hand, wrote and illustrated award-winning children’s books. Apart from his beautiful images, most of all I love that John assumed children have the courage to face the difficult and challenging subjects he sometimes put before them. His book about a little girl’s relationship with her grandpa, for example, simply ends with grandpa’s empty chair.

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I think it’s a mistake to try to shield children from issues of death and loss and pain because life isn’t all sunny days and ‘happy ever afters’. There are blue Mondays…and blue Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays., And they are all there to be lived, not just got through.

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It took me a few years to understand this. My naturally sunny temperament meant I constantly avoided life’s darker shades. If something challenging or sad came along I’d try to blank it out or distract myself with more pleasant thoughts or activities. But then I realised there were whole chunks of my life that I merely scaled the surface of but didn’t really experience.

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January may not be my favourite month. I may find the daily grind tedious and demotivating. I certainly dislike disappointment and pain. Yet I long ago decided not to sleep-walk through great lumps of my life.

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I want to seize every minute…look at it and really see it…live it…and never, ever give back a single moment.

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