God

The Nets Were Breaking

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Have you ever felt like you might be crushed under the sheer weight of the world, of your own failings and disappointments? It’s a rare person who has not. We have all been in situations where it feels as though, no matter how hard we try, no matter how justified our actions, our efforts are doomed not to bear fruit.

If we are Christians, that sense of inadequacy comes with a side-order of guilt, because we are well aware that our failing is often a result of cutting God out of the picture. And yet – if you are anything like me – in situations like that, we still persist in doing it our own way.

We know, but we somehow don’t believe, that God will do it better.

When we trust in him, though, he does amazing things. I can’t count the number of times I have put myself through agonies – what should I do, should I speak up about this, is it up to me to act, have I been wrong, is my anger justified – and why? All because I do not carry everything to God in prayer. And finally, when I am broken by my own complete inadequacy, and I go to him, arms out like a hurt child, what happens?

He astonishes me all over again.  

If only I would remember that, then, and not repeat the mistake of thinking I’m doing this alone. Luke 5 spoke to me so boldly this morning about the difference between my puny efforts, compared to those that are done in the strength and wisdom of my Saviour. 

We have to ask ourselves, when the going is tough, is the Lord withholding his blessings from us, or are we keeping ourselves aloof from him? Is our profession of faith truly bound to the way we live? Are we saying we trust in Jesus, but keeping our own hands on the steering wheel?

I know I am very guilty of this. Here, though, in Luke 5, is the reminder I need.

By myself, I am fishing with no bait; leaning on Jesus, the nets are straining to hold all that he bestows.

An Opportune Time

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The devil never quite goes away, does he?  I know that I’m not alone in feeling that he seems to be, if not a resident, then definitely a very frequent visitor to my home. He is an expert in my badness, and my weakness. This knowledge is then used to tempt me away from God, to make me act rashly, to speak unkindly, to doubt my salvation, to steal my peace.

Whenever I find myself in a situation where there is strife and difficulty, I will invariably start to doubt whether I really am saved. ‘No Christian should . . .’ says that insidious inner voice.

But in this, as in all things, I can look to Christ. We often hear quoted that he was ‘tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin’. The second clause could easily discourage you because such perfection is beyond any human being. Concentrate on the first, though, and see what it’s saying: your Saviour understands what you are suffering; he has been here first.

It would be easy to see the temptation in the wilderness as an isolated incident. The devil comes to Jesus, not when he is low, but at a spiritual high point, after his baptism. Jesus relies on the truth of scripture and defeats his foe, going off in the power of the Spirit to begin his public ministry.

So, that’s that. Jesus in his perfection has kicked the devil into touch and commences his work in peace. End of Jesus’ experience of temptation.

Hardly. 

Note what Luke 4:13 says about the devil’s departure ‘until an opportune time’. I take comfort in that because it is the pattern of my own life: spiritual highs followed immediately by spiritual attack; the sense of the devil being defeated, only for him to return and redouble his efforts when I least expect.

But that is when I need to forget my own strength, or my own guile and cleave to the Lord. Satan did not tempt him once and give up, anymore than he does with me or you: he merely waited until an opportune time.

The loneliness of Jesus at the end of his life made that just such a time, and the devil doesn’t waste chances. Our Lord dealt perfectly with him, though, surrendering his own will to the Father and relying upon that strength against the tempter’s power.

With me, with you, he is just the same. His retreats are temporary, always until an opportune time. But our protection is the same as that which surrounded Christ in the desert and at Calvary.

Immanuel

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In the second year of Harold Wilson’s second government, the twenty third year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the first year of Comhairle nan Eilean, Catrìona was born. ‘Abair naidheachd’, I hear you say. Nighean Mhurdanaidh Catrìona Dhòmhnaill Iain Ruaidh. ‘So what?’ you add carelessly.

Well, so what indeed. We were all born sometime and we all had parents of some description. It’s part of being human. We take all that for granted.

Why, then, does Luke place a fairly lengthy genealogy of Jesus in the middle of chapter three? Surely, when you are poised for the awe and wonder of the Son of God walking this Earth, such a mundane interlude is simply so much extraneous information. 

Look, though, where it is placed. 

Jesus is baptised, and the Holy Spirit alights upon him. It is then that God’s voice from heaven declares, ‘this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased’.

Extraordinary. Everything about the scene tells us that this is indeed the Son of God, the promised Messiah. This is how we would have him be: exceptional.

No sooner are we growing used to this, however, than Luke intervenes. The genealogy places Jesus firmly where he was of his own free will. It reminds us not only who he was, but what he had come to accomplish.

And, for me this third of December, that is the really outstanding thing about the chapter. We know that Jesus is the Son of God, and it is no surprise to hear the Father praising his perfection. 

What causes wonder every time, though, is the other part of the story: that Jesus set his glory aside to be born into an ordinary human lineage. Then you see his remarkable baptism in a different light too. 

He was not an ordinary man, extraordinarily blessed; he was God with us. The alighting of the Spirit, and the blessing of the Father represent the total alignment of the trinity in a common purpose.

Most awe-inspiring of all is what that purpose was. 

My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation

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In Alexander Mackenzie’s famous book, ‘The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer’, his prognostications are divided into various categories, including those which have been partly fulfilled, and still others, the fulfilment of which is doubted. There is something about this classification which tends to make the already shadowy figure of Coinneach Odhar even more indistinct. We suspect both he and his gift to be less than genuine, and the visions which have not borne fruit do nothing to restore them in our eyes.

Unfulfilled prophecy in the Bible, however, does not represent failure. Because of its source, we can trust that it will come to pass. At least, we ought to, if we are in a right relationship with the Lord.

Simeon, in chapter two of Luke’s Gospel, is always a challenge to me for the simple reason that he did not give up on the promise that he would see the Saviour. It is difficult to imagine a faith so steadfast. He is rewarded in full measure, though, when he holds the infant Jesus in his arms. For me, this echoes Moses seeing the Promised Land,upon which his living foot was not destined to tread. The old man in the temple is presented with a child. All his life, he has waited for this Messiah, and when the moment of fulfilment arrives . . . there is only a tiny, little boy.

I wonder what I would have thought in Simeon’s place. Would I have been inclined to disappointment? All that waiting – and then a mere baby. Really, was this not just another promise to replace the earlier one? This child could not deliver his people from their bondage. Might I not have felt cheated that this was all God would reveal to me? Isn’t it possible that I would see only salvation postponed?

Probably, for I lack the faith – or the faithfulness – of Simeon.

But he gave thanks to God. It’s interesting that he did not say ‘for my eyes have seen the instrument of your salvation’. No, ‘my eyes have seen your salvation’. Jesus is not a means to an end; he is, himself, our salvation. Simeon in his wisdom saw that. He did not have to witness the resurrection, or even the crucifixion, to believe that here was the fulfilment of God’s promise.

Today, taking Jesus into my heart anew, I echo Simeon and give thanks to God. Not only have my eyes seen his salvation, but my soul has felt its redeeming power. An infant in the arms of a faithful old man, and the risen Christ indwelling the souls of his people are one and the same astonishing, beautiful Messiah.

Benedictus

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I hope to blog my way through the Gospel of Luke, which is the ideal reading material for advent. In studying one chapter each day of December, I will have read a complete account of Jesus’ life by Christmas Eve. Therefore I expect to be more fully focused on him, the true meaning of the season by the time it is finished.

And expectation seems the right mood in which to embark on this endeavour. Chapter One is all about the anticipation of two births: John the Baptist’s, as well as that of Jesus Christ. By the end of the chapter, however, John has been born and his hitherto mute father, Zechariah, opens his mouth to prophesy.

When any child is born, into whatever circumstances, people will try to anticipate the blessings that life may hold for him. The people in the vicinity of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s home were no different, asking, ‘What, then, will this child be?’ There is a sense of awe and wonder and of infinite possibility. John’s is a life consecrated to his Lord from before birth, and the curious events surrounding him have caused all who hear of them to expect wonders.

The prophecy of his father, therefore – the Benedictus – is filled with that eager anticipation of John’s great purpose in life. Few parents, at the birth of a child, can have hoped for such a life of service, of self-denial and of subordination to another. But Zechariah places his son’s personal destiny in the context of God’s mercy to Israel. What higher purpose was there, than to be the prophet of the Saviour, proclaiming him and preparing the way of the Lord?

The beginning of Advent permits all Christians to become that child in faith again. As I begin at the beginning once more, I feel a new hope and expectation. For us now, it is not the birth of a child we look forward to, but the second coming of our victorious Messiah, by whose stripes we have been healed.

And he is refreshing me through his word, reminding me through this chapter of two things:

  • the infinite possibilities that the Christian life holds, not just at the beginning but through its repeated renewal;
  • the meaning that service to Jesus will give to the humblest of lives.

Do I feel as Zechariah did on his son’s behalf? Am I re-embarking on this journey at the start of Advent, knowing that my role is to serve, and rejoicing in that?

And am I full of that joyful expectation that grants meaning to the waiting – the waiting of Advent, and the waiting that is part and parcel of a life fully entrusted to Christ?

A Home For All Seasons

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I am writing this blog as a howling gale rages outside. Myself and the dog are tucked up by the woodburner, enjoying the warmth and safety of home. And it occurs to me, as I pour another cup of Dark Grey no.4 (tea, incidentally, not malt whisky), that it could all serve as a metaphor for the life that I live.

The house was built many years ago by the father in-law that I never met, as a home for his growing family, of which my husband was the baby. In time, it became his, and I moved here with him as a bride in 2003.

Over the years, we carried out work that made it more our home, including the installation of the Morso Squirrel woodburner upon which I am currently toasting my cable-knit slippers. And Donnie became a tree and shrub aficionado, growing obsessed with screening the house off from the world. I remember saying to him, as we made yet another pilgrimage to Maybury Gardens, to please not mention the word ‘privacy’ again. ‘David Iain is going to think we’ve got something to hide’, I said, as we both laughed at the thought.

It is on a feu, and it is not mortgaged. So, when my beloved Donnie passed away in 2015, I had the comfort of knowing it was completely mine. No one could take it from me. He had, in the last few months of his life, been single-minded in ensuring that I would be secure in every way that he could make certain of. That was always his instinct. 

I remember one evening, a few years before the shadow of death crossed our path. He had filled up the log basket and gone out to close the gates. ‘That always feels good’, he said, shooting the bolt home, ‘everything secured for the weekend, and both of us safe inside’. It was why the trees were so important too: he was putting a circle of protection around what meant the most to him. This house was everything: it symbolised his parents and siblings, and his marriage to me. It was everything warm, safe and positive in a life kindly and gently lived.

So, when that legacy passed into my keeping, I felt very keenly that it was like having his protection still. He cannot put his arms around me now, and I cannot go to him with my troubles – but I have our home, with all its happy memories and warm associations.

Every metaphorical storm – and every literal one too – that has blown since I lost him, sent me to the solace of this place. Here, I feel close to him, and safe. 

But there is an additional reason for this. No, not additional – it is, in fact, the foundation that was there all along. It was what motivated Donnie, it was what sustained us both as we walked through the valley of the shadow, as much as in the sunlit uplands of happiness.

Love. Real love, that is. Not the Mills and Boon sort, nor the kind that breaks under pressure. The original, the best, patented by the Creator.

Over my sitting room door hangs a sign that says ‘The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’, the first verse of psalm 27. It speaks volumes to me of what home is, of what it always has been. I understand God’s protection because I have always been blessed to have the shelter of a loving home.

Now is no different. I have a home that was built with love, and – as my husband wrote in the last of his diary entries – was always a place of happiness. That sort of legacy is not meaningless, and I don’t hold it lightly.

Not long ago, a friend of mine was talking about a widow who had some slight bother with her neighbours, and kept saying, ‘this wouldn’t happen if Murdo was alive’. I suppose he thought she was full of self-pity and being melodramatic. But I believe that she probably had a point, because people do treat you differently. Kind people treat you more kindly, and those who are only out for themselves seek to exploit your solitude. 

God has a heart for the fatherless and for the widows, though. I don’t just believe that; I know it. He has given me to have a safe place in storms of all kinds. Sometimes, he causes them to be calm, and sometimes he lets them rage and fume and blow themselves out.

But always, I am here, in the warmth and safety of my home. When the forces outside batter and buffet me, I look up and I read once more:

‘The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?’

The answer is this: no one. I am safe in the shelter of one who can silence the storm with a word. 

A humbling thought if you have ever glibly said of yourself, ‘I am the storm’. 

Repentance is for Life

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‘You won’t be allowed to visit’, my mother told me on Tuesday evening, with what I thought was unseemly glee. She hid her despair well when I reminded her that I am a lone householder and entitled to socialise with the rest of my bubble. Remembering that this meant herself and my brother, the telephone line was quiet for a moment. Still, she rallied her spirits tolerably well when I mentioned that Mr Roy was also part of the package.

Every cloud, you see.

It appears to have hit people harder this time. There is lockdown fatigue. We have no summer on the horizon to cheer us. And there seems to be a determination abroad in our land that we will not fall into the same trap as our wartime ancestors, proclaiming that it will ‘all be over by Christmas’. Instead, a gloom has settled, to the effect that nothing will ever be the same again.

Nor will it.

But that need not cause us any despair. I am familiar with the concept of things never being the same again, when unwanted life-altering 

events come and cut a swathe through your settled contentment. You do not ask for it; you do not want it – and yet, by God’s grace, you profit from it.

By God’s grace. In his providence. Not, as we seem to think, by our willing it. This is were we have to ignore all the cheerleading from politicians and community groups, who tell us that we will ‘get through this together’, and that we need to ‘be strong’.

No, no, no: everything in my experience of God screams in frustration at these well-meaning proclamations. In fact, friends, we need to be the very opposite of all the things that populism tells you is required. We need to be humbled by this providence, we need to be weakened by it, we need to be contrite. It is now we must turn to God with outstretched, empty hands and beg his forgiveness.

And the crucial word there is ‘we’. There are no exceptions, for there is none righteous among us; no, not one.

Christians like myself have wasted our God-given time, thinking we are witnessing, when all we are doing, really, is judging. There is no Christ in our condemnation of the broken people among us. I was at a meeting on Tuesday evening, where someone spoke movingly of how believers should witness to unbelievers. He said that we must go to them humbly, as saved sinners, and as broken people ourselves. So we must. Otherwise, how are we showing them Christ? Speak to unbelievers first of their sin and we make Pharisees of ourselves; speak to them first of Christ and we enact our true knowledge of his sufficiency.

As ever, I am speaking primarily to myself. I do not believe that Sunday opening, or Sunday golf will be the things that exclude people from, or admit people to, God’s eternal presence. Sometimes, in my love for the Saviour and his day, perhaps I have given that impression. Nor am I saying that I believe these conversations to be unimportant – just that we cannot approach witnessing by asking first for outward conformity.

That way, we create for ourselves a hollowed-out church, with no Christ at the centre.

The danger there, of course, is that a hollow church offers hollow worship and empty witness. Its words are ashes in the mouths of those who thirst; its succour colder than midwinter charity. Christ would never allow his church – his portion in the world – to become a dead thing walking. No, the Lord chastises those whom he loves.

What we are seeing now is chastisement. It is humbling, if we would only receive it as such. We ask over and over again for revival and receive, instead, plague. Our prayers are for exaltation: not of God, but of ourselves. Send us the numbers, we demand, so that the world of scorners will be silenced. So that we can be proved right, and placed on a pedestal.

Not so that God can be glorified.

Give us back our comfort, our routine. Let us smile and shake hands and return to our pews. Let us have normality.

And when I get my normality back – my warm winter coat and my expensive shoes, my nearly-new car in which to step out to Sunday worship – what of those others? Does everyone get their normality back? Me in my comfortable home or my centrally-heated church, and the homeless beggar on the street. Unbelievers back to opposing the need in their souls for salvation, and us answering it with harsh words and judgement.  

If our nation had not been permitted to move so far from God, they would know that the guilt of their suffering belongs in part to an unrepentant church. That they do not know, and that they believe human endeavour is the cure, shames me to my very core. Because of our negligence as a church, the people have forgotten God’s sovereignty.

Righteousness exalts a nation. Tell me, do you think we deserve to be exalted? Have we earned a return to what we had before? Or should we not, perhaps, give thanks to God that he has removed us from comfortable familiarity to a wilderness where we might draw near to himself, and turn our people back to a place of safety. 

The Loneliness of the Socially-distanced Worshipper

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We are now in that post-lockdown wilderness I dreaded, where no one seems very sure of what is safe, or what is lawful, to do. As so often happens with we humans, it has caused discussion of our plight to degenerate to levels rarely witnessed outside of the playground: ‘but they’re doing it, why can’t we?’ or ‘it’s not fair’, and, of course, ‘because I want to’.

Pubs, shops, hairdressing salons, and even restaurants are beginning to open up – just not places of worship. Children are scheduled to return to the classroom here in mid-August, but there will be no Stornoway communion at the month’s end. You may visit the zoo to stare at rare breeds, but the Leòdhasach èildear cannot be seen in his natural habitat (the suidheachan mòr) until late phase four, whenever that will be.

And, you know, I’m fine with that.

I will undoubtedly be called ‘selfish’ for saying so, but this is a personal blog, so it’s only to be expected that what you get is MY opinion. Here’s  my thinking.

The government did not wait until the virus had been eradicated, nor till effective treatment or vaccine was found; they opened up shops and businesses because this country, this world, is driven by money. It isn’t a Tory thing, or an SNP thing: it’s a people thing. Sadly, it’s all we know. Money is our security blanket. Without it, we are at the mercy of charity, and the mercy of our fellow men. Ask the 29,000 Scottish homeless how that’s working out for them, and you can begin to understand why we were all afraid for ‘the economy’.

So afraid were we that, suddenly, it was safe for businesses to reopen. And then it became okay for folk to stand one metre apart instead of two. Ask yourself why it is now we’re being told we must wear masks while shopping – could it possibly be that the government knows it has done something unsafe in permitting us to mix in such numbers?

So, yes, it’s the economy, stupid. That’s why pubs are open, but not places of worship. It’s why kids are going back to school in August, but I’ll probably be teaching my classes from home. The students I teach don’t need their mammies to stay at home with them, like the school kids would.

Churches are not businesses. Furthermore, they can do their thing perfectly well at a distance. We have been able to be out both ends on a Sunday whilst staying in, we have had our midweek prayer meetings and – I believe, ged nach e mo ghnòthach e – the Session meetings have also carried on. There has been Sunday school and youth groups. I don’t know about others, but my elder has conducted virtual visits, ensuring that his charges receive the usual high standard of pastoral care.

Besides all that, or, indeed, above all that, we have been open in ways that we have never been before. People are coming under the word who previously felt unable to attend church. That has to be a challenge for us, and the uncomfortable part surely is to ask ourselves why. What does online church have that physical church lacks? Or is it the other way around? Maybe it’s us, the visible church, that puts people off. And perhaps God is keeping us in this holding-pattern for that reason. Amidst all the cries of ‘I miss church’ and ‘I just want to get back’, could it be that God is reminding us that it isn’t all about the comfort of the saved. Is it just possible that he wants us in the wilderness, drawing others to him, instead of back in our time-honoured malaise of Sunday best and ‘fellowship’?

Besides, what would the benefits be to opening up? People like to cite the importance of gathering together. We are doing that. Online church is a gathering together in the spirit. It is possible to see and hear one another, using certain platforms. No, we cannot hug, kiss, or shake hands, but we won’t be allowed to do that anyway. And, I have a massive, personal objection to returning now. This, I guarantee you, will be a reservation shared by many.

Social distancing dictates that family groups and couples may sit together. Individuals – single, divorced, widowed – will have to sit alone in church. It can be a lonely enough experience going to church by yourself, but to have your singleness, your aloneness underlined in this way strikes me not only as uncomfortable, but unnecessarily cruel. I won’t be subjecting myself to it because it will not add a single thing to my relationship with the Lord. He is with me, here in my home, every minute of every day.

He has been in many homes these last three months. I cannot see online church as inferior because, in many ways, it has accomplished part of the great commission in which we were failing. The Gospel has been taken to the people where they are. God’s servants have stepped up to the plate and learned new ways of transmitting his message of hope.

Let’s not lose sight of that in the clamour to get back to ‘normal’. Normal is overrated.

Erase your Ebenezer?

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If you are ever tempted to believe that the Free Church in Lewis has become less hardline of late, consider this: one of our ministers waved a bayonet at the children during a recent Sunday morning service.

Context is everything, however. He was using an ancient (and very blunt, health and safety fans) family relic to illustrate a spiritual truth. This wasn’t learn your catechism with menaces. He wasn’t threatening, or intimidating – and he was safely on the far-end of a camera anyway.

But, if I merely told you that he had wielded a bayonet at the children of the congregation, and left it there, might you not get the wrong impression? We human beings are terrifically adept at picking the erroneous end of any given stick, anyway. Sometimes, of course, we do it wilfully. It suits us to think the worst of those we don’t like, or those of whom we are envious. In such situations, it is all too easy to cherry-pick our facts and dwell on those that paint the blackest picture of all.

When I stood for the Stornoway Trust, I was accused of being ‘ashamed of my Saviour’ because I had not mentioned in my election address that I was a Christian. Now, my reason for omitting this information was simple: while I don’t deny that many people voted for me because of my profession of faith, I would never ask for anyone’s vote on that basis. Being a Christian doesn’t automatically qualify you for (or disqualify you from) public service.

What my accuser failed to take into account was the fact that I patently was not hiding my allegiance; far from it. However, he looked narrowly at my conduct in this one area and judged me – harshly, I feel – based upon it. For him, because I had not explicitly declared myself a church member, I was ashamed and guilty of denying Christ.

We are, all of us, guilty of something. Not one living person can claim perfection in this world. I freely hold my hands up and admit that I do not always speak up for Christ when and as I should. Worse still, my conduct is often far from what it ought to be, so that I am not even a silent witness for him. People can rightly point to Catriona Murray and accuse her of saying and doing plenty that is at odds with her profession of faith. And how much more evidence they would have against me if they could read my black and venomous thoughts. Let me be frank: I am cynical, sardonic, frequently lax in my prayer life, slow to forgive, self-righteous and narrow-minded. If I witnessed in proportion to what I owe, I would be a paragon; but I am not. What I am is a sinner, saved by God’s grace, and a work in progress.

Mercifully, other people’s opinions of me are none of my business. I have no control over them or interest in them. People will try to remind you of what you are at your worst – how many converted Christians are still spoken of in terms of their youthful excesses. ‘There was a day and he was in the pub every weekend, not the church’, and that sort of thing. The world doesn’t permit us to be changing and improving. It freezes us at our very lowest point.

That is why memorialising the past has become such a vexed question. Do we retain the statue of a man who made his money on the back of slavery? Are we right to permit the Duke of Sutherland’s image – ‘erected by a grateful tenantry’ – to remain, looking down upon the broad lands decimated by his plans of improvement?  The boardroom of the Stornoway Trust, too, is dominated by a portrait of our benefactor, Lord Leverhulme, a man whose exploitation of forced labour in the Belgian Congo does not cover him with glory.

So, what do we say about such people? Can we use the rather odd defence someone made of Knox recently when they accused me of judging him by modern standards: he was of his time? Being ‘of your time’, though, is surely a euphemism for just following the herd, being of the world. Knox was not falling short of my standard by being a misogynist; he was falling short of Christ’s. If we let Knox off the hook so easily, then we must make a similar defence for the Duke of Sutherland and Lord Leverhulme.

And that just will not do. Otherwise, we have to look around us, at modern slavery, at child labour, at homelessness, at abortion, at eugenics, at sexual exploitation, at the wilful warping of the education system, at the censorship of free speech . . . and we must wink at it, saying, ‘ah, it’s just the modern way’.

That’s the world’s defence of sin.

I would not remove the memorials. Leave the mannie on top of Ben Bhraggie, and keep the portrait of Leverhulme above the boardroom table. Remember them, though, not as stainless paragons, but as people in whom there was the capacity for both darkness and light. Make sure generations to come see them as three-dimensional.

And, more importantly, let’s think about what this controversy teaches us regarding image. Not the stone, marble or canvas variety, but our own fractured selves – made in the likeness of God, and marred by sin. We too, even if we are being restored, bear the hallmarks of fallenness. Somewhere about our person is the Maker’s thumbprint; it is this, and this alone, which preserves us from destruction.

For, if we were dependent on one another’s mercy, or on our own perfection, who would raise a memorial to any of us?

Getting married?

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Now admit it: you read the title and you thought, ‘once was unbelievable, but if Catriona has duped a second poor man, I’ll eat my hat’. Well, no, it’s not about me. I am hosting a guest blogger – the one, the only (thank goodness!) Ali Moley. However, I reckon Helena deserves a mention as being at least part of the inspiration for this too.

“It’ll never happen,” they said. “You aren’t being realistic,” they said. “It’s very naive of you,” . . . “Maybe you’re mistaken?” they said

We began to have doubts.

Our wedding date was booked for Friday 26th June 2020 and all the arrangements had been made.

Many couples find the process of organising a wedding stressful, but we were actually, really enjoying it. It felt very satisfying to look for and find the best deals, to arrange the smallest detail to make our day as perfect as it could be, to be working as a team, sharing the duties and helping each other according to our strengths and weaknesses. It is something we both very much enjoyed.

And then Covid-19 hit us square in the face like a manky, coughing bat from the blue, turning the world as we knew it upside down.

The tears filled our eyes, and our hands clasped in prayer as the shocking media coverage began of China,and then Italy – over crowded wards, doctors crying, patients on beds, ventilated and dying, unreal because of the distance but gradually all too real with the insistence that the Coronavirus was spreading from nation to nation, getting ever closer to our own.

Day after day, images of poor souls gasping on ventilators were repeatedly shown while the TV Presenter read the rising death toll figures………..and unsurprisingly, the terror took hold.

No-one could have guessed how restrictions would impact our lives in the UK. Before lockdown, we hoped it might have a small impact for a short period of time. ‘Ach, it won’t last long!’ we said to console ourselves.

But then lockdown came.

At first the restrictions were novel, and we faced the virus with Churchillian fortitude and steely eyed determination. But then after a few weeks it became unsettling, disorientating, mood-alteringly normal. The unknown played havoc with people’s minds: the myriad questions and doubts and the growing incredulity of a society that had for so long tried to sanitise or even erase the thought of death from their everyday lives but was now forced to hear the wailing siren of their own predicted impending doom!

Helena, my darling fiancé, caught the virus and began self-isolating in Airdrie, but thankfully after two weeks and a very persistent dry cough she was fine. Her brother Stephen also became infected and after some worrying tightness in his chest, he thankfully recovered too.

By the grace of God, miraculously even, our little island of Lewis was relatively untouched by the Virus – Covid-19 left the Coves alone – but we were on standby, vigilant, “It could come at any time!”

It was getting closer to our planned wedding date and I prayed, “Lord, what about the wedding? Will we need to reschedule it? Will it go ahead as we planned?”

And the Lord spoke – the next day, Sunday 22nd of March.

Both sermons we listened to that day had the following verses from Jeremiah 33:10-11 read –

“Thus says the LORD: In this place of which you say, ‘It is a waste without man or beast,’ in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man or inhabitant or beast, there shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing, as they bring thank offerings to the house of the LORD:

‘Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!’

For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first, says the LORD.”

God had spoken and we rejoiced!

We took it to mean that the wedding would be going ahead at some point just as God had planned it – a day of thanksgiving, rejoicing and praise in the house of God with our family and friends, when the streets were full again and the lockdown had eased.

And God repeated either these verses from Jeremiah 33:10&11 or the lone verse ‘Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!’, (which is the verse on our wedding invites) every Sunday in a sermon we listened to for the next three weeks in a row!

What an assurance from our beloved Father in Heaven!

We decided to reschedule the wedding to Thursday 27 August 2020, but after receiving those verses from the Lord we were assured that God is in control and that our wedding would go ahead according to His perfect plan, hopefully, possibly on that date.

We told others about the verses and some rejoiced and Praised the Lord and some out of politeness said, ‘I hope so.’

But many others said, ‘Maybe you’re reading into it?’, ‘no way is your wedding going ahead this year!’, ‘You are being naive’, ‘you are probably mistaken.’

Some days we listened to the doubting voices, lookingworryingly at the world around us, and we began to doubt.

Other days we looked upwards to heaven and clung to the promise of our God.

As our marriage date draws ever nearer, and restrictions begin to be eased, our hopes of everything going ahead as planned grow daily…….and you know what?

It makes us think of the OTHER marriage we are going to.

You know the one.

It has been arranged and ALL the Lord’s people are invited and will be going soon.

We are so excited that we tell others about the weddingand about the promises that God has made, in the hope that they might come too –

‘In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.’ John 14:2-3

or maybe we say to them,

‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride had made herself ready;….’ Revelation 19:6-7

or maybe we tell them,

‘….Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ Revelation 19:9

And some by God’s grace hear and rejoice and believe. And we rejoice and believe anew.

But others say, “It’ll never happen,” “You aren’t being realistic.” “It’s very naive of you,”….“Maybe your mistaken?”

And occasionally we listen to their doubting voices, and look around at this sinful, fallen world, and we begin to doubt as the virus of unbelief infects our hearts and minds.

But Jesus comes to us with His word of truth anew, the solid gold verses of assurance that we can rely on………and He whispers to us,

‘Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.’ John 14:1

and He calls to our Father in heaven so that we can hear,

‘Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you have loved me before the foundation of the world.’ John 17:24

And together we shout with joy,

‘For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Romans 8:38-39

And as the time draws nearer to that great and glorious day, we by faith rejoice, that the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will take place just as we have been told………..and not one of us will be missing

Will I see you there? I really, really hope so.