TODAY is officially the first day of summer. But what about the weather?

How often we talk about the weather! The weather can also express what we feel or experience - for example, we talk about being 'under the weather' when we're feeling unwell, or of making 'heavy weather' of something when it is hard going.

Then, of course, for sports fans like myself, the weather makes a big difference to so many sporting events we watch or take part in. Rain and Wimbledon certainly won't go well together!

Perhaps the start of the summer season, and our unpredictable weather, is a reminder that some important things lie beyond our control. Yet there is one whose care for this changing world is constant, and whose love is for all. As Jesus says, 'God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.'

REVEREND JOHN BARR, Vicar Great Malvern Priory and Rural Dean of Malvern.