Testing

The Night and the Sacrifice

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The sinister side of Stornoway Free Church was revealed to me last Sunday when I was taken aside and threatened by our Assistant Minister. ‘Do NOT record this’, he hissed. Oh my goodness, I thought, all the conspiracy theories were right – he actually suspects me of wearing a wire. But then his meaning dawned on me. Having been called in to take the service at short notice, he didn’t want the sermon recorded as he’d already preached it elsewhere.

His general demeanour was so menacing, however, that I sat with my arms folded throughout the service just so that he could clearly see that I wasn’t even touching the audio equipment. Still, I did manage to take on board some of what he was saying.

It was about Abraham going up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son, Isaac, because God had commanded him to do so. The message of this lovely, familiar incident is one of extraordinary faith, of course. Christians aspire to be like Abraham, prepared to give up that which he loves because his God desires it. Imagine, you find yourself thinking, that level of obedience.

Imagine, the minister said, the night before that sacrifice.

We can probably all do that. I have certainly had those nights. Oh, not sacrifice, no – but long, sleepless hours, dreading what the morning will bring. What will the scan show? Has the oncologist got bad news for us? How will I get through my husband’s funeral service?

It’s difficult for me not to let my mind dwell on what I’ve lost, at this time of year more than any other. From January through to March, when Donnie died, I relive the gradual loss of hope, the coming to terms, the apparent end of everything

Perhaps Abraham also felt that way on what he thought would be his final journey with Isaac, that longed-for son of his old age. But he kept putting one foot in front of the other. It was a faith journey, in the truest sense.

Mine was different. I took every step in resistance to what God was gently telling us. If my stubbornness could have kept my husband alive, he’d be here now.

The long, dark nights before, though, they pass, and even they must give way to morning.

How dreadful that dawn must have seemed to Abraham. Despite never having to do what he did, it is not impossible to empathise with him. My faith has not made such demands on me, probably because I do not possess the faith of Abraham. Yet, I can enter into his suffering in a small way, because I can recall the terrible fear that comes in knowing death is close by.

But what about the journey home, and the night after? It is hard to imagine that Abraham’s bed was much easier. His heart must have been overflowing with love for God who had stayed his hand at the eleventh hour and restored Isaac to him. He must have been filled with wonder at the meaning of his test on the mountain. And he was surely reassured at the willingness his son, Isaac, displayed to be the sacrifice that God required.

I don’t think that the joy and the thankfulness were just because Isaac was alive, though. That is not the world-fixated way that faith works. Christian joy is not tied to such variables as life or death.

Donnie died, but I can understand Abraham’s night after better even than his night before.

He did not require a sacrifice from Abraham but, then, He did not require one of me either. God’s great kindness to me was in taking, rather than asking me to give – because unlike faithful Abraham, I would have sinned my soul and refused. And if that route had been open to me, what a world of blessing I would have denied us both.

The night before is all about dread. But the night after, you see His hand, His nail-marked hand guiding you from the place of sacrifice to the place of peace and of love. You rest in Him, and then you see the journey differently because He is with you in it, always.

And in the light of being loved by Him, you forget there ever was a night before.

 

 

 

Promise Postponed – But Unbroken

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I didn’t know Rev Kenny MacDonald but, somehow, everyone knew him. He was well-kent for the saddest of reasons – because his teenage daughter, Alison, had gone off to Kashmir in 1981 . . . and vanished. But Kenny never gave up his belief that he would see her again.

Sometime in the nineties, a television programme was made. A teenager myself at the time of its broadcast, I cannot forget the unbearably poignant image of Kenny on a hillside in Sonamarg, spelling out her name in large, white stones. What pain, what bravery, what faith. Older now, I still cannot begin to imagine what it must have cost him to leave that place again, without his girl.

And then, the realisation that he was losing his sight. Oh, I remember thinking, how awful if he goes blind before Alison comes back. Then all his assertions that he would see her again will come to nothing. I thought.

Their story had become such a part of Highland and Island consciousness. Now and again, a wee ripple, a rumour that she had been found. These always came to nothing, though. Kenny and his wife, Reta, were always left empty-handed. Everyone willed the story to end happily, for Alison to just turn up – perhaps married, a mother; but just to turn up and give him peace.

As I say, I never met him, but you didn’t actually feel that he lacked peace, as such. Every interview I ever saw or read just showed me again how much faith it was possible for one person to have. And how much love, as a father. He remained convinced that his daughter was alive and, in one of the truest examples of what fatherhood surely ought to be, he never stopped trying to reach her.

I remember that documentary and thinking how incredible it would be if Alison should actually find those stones spelling out her name across the hillside. After nearly twenty years of separation, to know that her father still remembered, and was still looking for her, would surely mean everything.

We cannot know why God permitted any of this: Alison’s disappearance, the long years without answers, or – perhaps most difficult of all – Kenny’s relentless conviction that she was still alive. There were certainly times when it seemed awfully cruel that a man of faith should believe in something he did not see fulfilled.

Of course, other men of faith, even more famous than Kenny MacDonald, have walked that path before. Moses, despite all that he did in faithfully leading the children of Israel, did not himself enter the promised land. He believed in it, he strove for it, and he inspired others to believe in it also but, at the last, he was not to experience it for himself.

Who would say that Moses’ faith was in vain, though? It was because of his faith that so many others would enter the land of promise; it was his steadfast following of God that had enabled him to lead them out of danger so many times.

And Kenny’s faith teaches me something as well. His unswerving belief, and his love for his Lord enabled him to serve Christ while never letting down the burden of fatherhood laid upon him. What we all marvelled at was his devotion; the devotion to his family, to Alison, was part of his devotion to the God who had set him free. For him, I think, it was simple, though it cannot ever have been easy.

God doesn’t promise ease to His people here in this vale of tears. But He does promise an eternity that cannot be described.

Moses reappears in the New Testament, in Matthew 17, standing upon the mount of Transfiguration. Many Biblical scholars say that this mountain was likely to have been in the Promised Land. If so, then Moses did finally stand there, though not in the way he may have thought.

God’s ways and plans are not ours. That much is beyond debate. His timescales are not ours either.

Though Kenny MacDonald has gone to be with his Lord, our hopes that Alison will be restored to her family do not dim.

And because Kenny has gone to be with her Lord, we are certain he will enjoy that reunion with Alison he so desired to see. But it will be much more perfect than the one we all imagined.

What Would You Have Me Do?

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I am, more often than not, a failure as a Christian. The ways in which I let Him down, get it wrong and just wilfully disobey are seemingly endless. But the sins which hurt the most are repeat offences. It tells me what kind of material He’s got to work with in me when He needs to give the same lesson over and over.

What was it this time? Forgiveness. Largeness of heart. Grace. Denial of self. These are just a few of the many things I don’t do well.

It’s been a practice of mine for a while now to get involved in online conversations where the cause of Christ is being discussed. Remedial Christian I may be, but I do, of course, realise that I cannot change the atheist heart, nor save the unbelieving soul. Neither, however, do I think that I should let ignorance and misrepresentation go unchallenged. So I don’t. Many Christians probably think I should leave it alone; and I know that many atheists feel that way also.

These things can escalate and a discussion forum on local democracy led to a series of misunderstandings between myself and someone I had considered a friend. We were not on speaking terms by the time it was all over.

I should have climbed down -not on matters of Christian principle, of course not, but on my own ego. What people think of me, or say, or write when I am properly witnessing for Christ, that doesn’t matter. The day I accepted Him, I was meant to die to self. All such brickbats are not meant to matter in the light of His glory and grace.

But I couldn’t let this go. No – correction – I wouldn’t let this go.

It took a Quaker to make this Wee Free penitent. He knew, somehow, of the ill-feeling between me and this other person, and suggested very gently that I should show her a modicum of support in something very brave she did recently.

Well, I’m not going to lie. He floored me with his mild common sense, and his pure motive. I thought about it from every angle and realised that the only thing preventing me from doing as he said was my own pride.

So I swallowed it. Not as graciously as I could, or should, have. But she, I think, felt as I did and all these months of bitterness and rancour swiftly evaporated.

And it felt good. I didn’t know what a weight had been pressing on my conscience until it was lifted. All because of grace. Oh, not mine. No, God’s grace at work in this man who has somehow fallen into step with me along the journey. If it had been dependent upon me letting go of my pride . . . well, I shudder to think what a state my life would be in.

It set me thinking about people, and about the latent power of the online community. All of this reconciliation hinged, as I said, on God’s intervention. But it was made possible through digital, not face-to-face, connections.

Some folk dismiss social media as being a bit of a fantasy land, somewhere Christians should avoid. I disagree. It is a mirror-image of this world with all the wickedness and danger that entails. There are people there, teetering sometimes on the edge of danger.

So, shouldn’t Christians be there too, shining a light into the dark corners? Isn’t the internet a digital mission field?

I am profoundly grateful to God for putting the wise Quaker in my life, and for teaching me so gently that forgiveness and love must not be forsaken, especially in defending the cause of Christ.

When Christ was nailed to the cross, His Iove never wavered. He was still every inch the Saviour. Remember Satan, in the last blog – he knows he’s defeated, and wants to take as many with him as he can.

Jesus Christ knew at Calvary that victory was His. And as He looked down on the soldiers casting lots for His garments, what revenge did He plan?

‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’.

Though we may reject Him and plot against His cause, He still loves and wants to take as many with Him in glory as He can.

And if I want to be like Him in the smallest way, I need to cultivate that love too.

Mercifully, He reminds me of this when I need reminding. Pray for me that I will not forget this lesson in humility and grace. And pray that, when any of us speaks up for Christ, we ask Him first:

‘What would You have me do?’

May The Force Be With Us (The Real One, That Is)

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So, the newshounds  have finally caught up with An Lanntair’s plans to open one Sunday each month. It is a big deal for them, and for those people living in Lewis who don’t like the island very much the way it is. For the media, it is an excuse to point the quaint, wee island out to mainland sophisticates, so they can laugh at our eccentric ways. Somewhere, right now, I guarantee you, a ‘journalist’ is writing copy that contains the words, ‘they’ve only recently been allowed to hang their washing out on Sunday’.

People outside of Lewis love this. To them, we are hilarious anachronisms in black clothes. The only modern thing about us is the microchip implanted in our heads, controlled by the minister from his study computer. Him and his big, fluffy, white cat.

We are other. And we always have been. It makes us fair game.

Here, I’ll empty out the sack of cliches, and you can write the headlines yourselves – just pick and mix. Strictly Sabbatarian. Narrowly Presbyterian. Deeply Religious. Chained-up swings. Swimming prohibited. Wee Frees. Disapproval. Opposition. Planes. Ferries.

You know, the usual sort of thing. Journalists are after a couple of hundred easy words, so I suppose it’s no wonder they resort to rummaging in the stereotype bin. Tomorrow, they will be casually ripping into someone else’s community.

The people I really don’t understand are the ones who live here in the island. I get that they want to make it like everywhere else; no one can punish them for the fact that they apparently lack any feeling for the uniqueness of the place. We have a saying in Gaelic, ‘an rud nach d’ fhuair Niall, chan iarrar air e’. Similar, I suppose to the English: what would you expect from a horse, but a kick?

But do they never stop, in their endless, whining, ‘but I waaaaant’, to think about why Lewis has not ‘caught-up’ with the rest of the country? Could it possibly be because Lewis did not need to be like other places, having enough of its own character to stand apart?

However, the decision is made. The cinema will open one Sunday a month. To begin with. And then the gallery, the cafe, the shop. Will that be enough for our restless secularists who apparently can’t be alone with their families even one day a week? Of course not. Already they are talking about the swimming pool. Then it will be buses, shops, supermarkets . . .

Then, though? Then, they will be satisfied?

Not even then. Discontentment like theirs knows no end. That’s why they are building themselves this house of cards – they think, ‘one more blow against the Lord’s Day and we will be happy; one more victory over Christ and we will have Him beaten’.

They expect opposition from the church. No – correction – they want opposition from the church. It entitles them to rail against religious privilege, if anyone representing an island church raises even one objection to this latest ‘development’.

Well, they won’t get it. The time for that is long past. They are using their God-given free will to spend their time as they choose. Nothing I or anyone else can say will change that. Already, they know that it’s wrong to keep none of it back in tribute to Him. Oh, they’ll deny it. But they know.

It is called the Lord’s Day, not because He commands us to spend it in chains, bored, and reading the Bible without understanding.
He wants us to fulfil our purpose, which is twofold: to glorify Him, and to enjoy Him.

This is not the language of bondage, but of freedom. God wants us to choose to spend time in His presence – He doesn’t compel, or command; and He will not drag you to Himself kicking and screaming.

Though, one day, you may wish He had.

And, even though this step has been taken, it does not mean the atheists have won. They are not victorious in any sense that I can envy. I can say that even though the auditorium will be full on the first open Sunday, because every ticket has already been sold.

It was calculated that way. Some savvy person knew that these superior beings who will not allow their children to be duped by fairytales from the Middle East, would like nothing better than a Sunday afternoon watching aliens and spaceships.

Harmless escapism? I suppose that all depends on what you’re fleeing from.

Meantime, we Christians will be invoking that much talked-about religious privilege. We only have the one, but it really is all we need. ‘The force’, you might call it.

It is our privilege to pray for those who will not pray for themselves. We pray that their eyes will be opened to the folly of what they’re doing; we pray that they will get a heart of wisdom.

Closed minds and deaf ears will not hear our protests; but God is waiting for our petitions. Not – lest they wilfully misunderstand and take offence – petitions that He should smite them, nor anything of that nature. This isn’t Star Wars, you know.

No. Prayers that they will see Him as He really is. And that they will take hold of that for themselves. This is not about power, or imposing a Sabbatarian lifestyle on others.

For the Christian, this is much more important than lifestyle – it is about life. We would have everyone choose that themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

The Sofa & the Ghost of Christmas Past

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Sometimes, you know, church can be uncomfortable. Oh, I don’t mean the pews: Calvinists are genetically adapted to fit those. If anything, the addition of those pesky cushions has interfered with nature. No, I mean more of a spiritual discomfort – the kind of thing that starts like a niggling little itch, but finally develops into a full-blown ache.

We like being uplifted by the preaching. Then, we can sing the psalms with gusto and pray fervently along with whoever is leading. And we go home feeling good and optimistic. When everything comes together and reaffirms that Jesus is everything and you are His, yes, of course, who wouldn’t be happy? Sometimes, you can actually see on people’s faces – their eyes shine – that this has worked on their hearts.

Other times, though, the sermon can prick your conscience. I had one of those moments this week when the minister accused me of worldliness, right in front of everyone.

Now, in case you’re imagining this is some archaic Wee Free thing where the black clad and be-collared minister fixes you with a fiery glare, and shouts, ‘woman, ye are a worldly sinner’, think again. That isn’t how it works in the real church, only in films and newspaper articles by people who have never actually been inside one.

In fact, when a minister is preaching, we are not really hearing the man. Yes, it is his physical voice, and words that he has chosen, but we are to believe that this is God speaking through them. Faith comes by hearing the Word preached and, as the Bible itself tells us repeatedly, faith is not of ourselves.

For me, a warning against worldliness was very timely. I cannot do the whole sermon justice here, but the counsel was not to become too attached to the things of this world, as John warned in his first letter. These things are, as we know, transient, and it’s a very bad idea to tether your life and soul to them.

Now, don’t laugh, but the reason I squirmed at this was because of my sofa. It’s a chestnut brown, soft leather chesterfield. I have had it two years and I have been very careful of it, gently vacuuming it each week, and wincing at the mere sight of people actually sitting in it.

Well, I don’t know who would want to sit in it now. Last Saturday, I trustingly and naively, left Mr Roy in his basket in the sitting room while I went to church. I came home, made a big fuss of how good he’d been, fed him a steak bake and then actually went into the room. There was a large puddle on the seat. Oh, he’d very thoughtfully chucked the cushions onto the floor (presumably so as not to ruin them), before urinating on the one seat in the room least able to cope with such an assault.

And I was livid. You know, in that unreasonable way that disregards the fact you’re addressing a dog and not a person who has done this to annoy you. I told him it was no wonder he’d had so many different homes, that he was unloveable, ungrateful, smelly, thoughtless (!) and even, with unwarranted hyperbole, that he was a ‘menace to society’.

It was several days before I could bear to look at him. I forced myself to pat him and speak civilly, because deep down I knew he had no idea what was wrong, but I was still very upset.

About a sofa. Yes, I do realise how shallow that makes me sound. By Wednesday, I had actually got over it, more or less, having started enquiries about getting it professionally cleaned. I knew that once it was clean again, I could forgive Mr Roy.

That’s why, on Wednesday evening, God accused me of worldliness. Well, not just because of the sofa, but it serves to represent everything else that gets too much place in my life. I recalled what Thomas a Kempis said in a book that has been a favourite since my teenage years, ‘The Imitation of Christ’:

‘To triumph over self is the perfect victory. For whoever so controls himself that his passions are subject to his reason, and his reason wholly subject to Me, is master both of himself and of the world’.

There is no one harder to conquer than yourself because there is no one more likely to allow you moral latitude. But I have begun an important lesson. Perhaps I need to see Mr Roy’s intervention like the visit of Scrooge’s first ghost who, frustrated with the old miser’s lifestyle, called him, ‘man of the worldly mind’.

It is fine to have nice things. And, it is good to take care of those things, being grateful to God for providing them. I do thank him for my comfortable home, and more so when I read of the destitution often faced by widows in the past. But, there is a disconnect between my thanksgiving and my attitude. My house, my furniture, my possessions . . . none of those should come before obedience to God, and trying sincerely to imitate Christ in a life of holiness.

Besides, I love Mr Roy for himself, as much as for the fact that he was Donnie’s faithful companion till the end. He is irreplaceable. And his little misdemeanour reminds me of something I must never lose sight of:

God loved me, even before the stain had been cleansed. If His forgiveness had been predicated on my being clean, I would have been beyond hope forever.

 

Ambushed by the Enemy Within

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I have a friend who is an elder. He is also a relative of some description but this is Lewis, so isn’t everyone? We have a Henry or two in common ancestry, that’s all I know. This particular fellow has a weakness for loud ties and, despite the fact that he has zero rein over his tambourine-wielding wife, I have an awful lot of time for him. She may be out of control, but I’m quite fond of her too, and have high hopes of reforming her. Or, at least, of removing her tambourine to a place of safety (probably Martin’s Memorial).

He asked me an interesting question about this blog recently. In fact, he’s asked me twice whether I get a lot of negative comments about it. A valid enquiry. Apart from that one time the minister cautioned me that I was in danger of harming my mother’s mental health (‘you’re sending your mother droil and she’s going to have to leave the island’ were, I believe his exact words), no one has given me any hassle about what I write.

It surprises me in one way because I have certainly experienced spiritual attack. I expected to; I’m a member of a very level-headed and scripturally-grounded church, so I was warned to expect such things after coming out for Christ. They prepared me for it, and they equipped me to know how to deal with it.

When it came, though, it did not happen the way that I thought it would. The Devil is the master of the surprise attack, the spiritual ambush, and while I was busy crying and getting upset about what had happened to me, he was stealing my peace. And here’s how he did it:

He exploited my sinful weakness and my propensity to harbour a grudge. Deviously, he got me to inflict the real harm on myself.

On what would have been my husband’s birthday last year, with the knowledge that his headstone was being installed in the cemetery at that moment, I took the dog for a walk, already feeling emotionally fragile. Yards from my own gate I was subjected to an aggressive verbal assault from a neighbour that I had never spoken to in my life. About Donnie’s death, she spat these words I will never forget: ‘I don’t care. Sh*t happens’.

I shut down. Instead of reaching out to God, instead of running to be with His people, that Sunday, I stayed at home, feeling sorry for myself. And her poisonous words festered. She had physically threatened me, but her words about my loss were what really stung.

Earlier this year, before I even started the blog, I received a horrible tirade of anonymous messages. They were sinister, dark and vile. Amongst other things, I was accused of cynically portraying myself as a ‘perfect Christian’ and ‘the grieving widow who found God’. It was a time of great grief for our church, so I didn’t feel I could confide in people who were already over-burdened. This time, I didn’t stay away from worship, but felt strangely isolated.

And it was all my own fault.

You see, the power to harm me spiritually did not come from the words used by either of these poor souls. It lay entirely in my own difficulty with forgiveness, and an unfortunate tendency to self-pity.

The frontal attack from these people was not what my eye should have been on, but the enemy within. My heart is deceitful above all things, and it can even fool me.

But my church prepared me. Somewhere in the armoury I had what I needed. Prayer and the Word, as we are repeatedly told, make up the first line of defence. We have the weapons, we have the whole armour of God – but we forget to use them.

In this case, I eventually understood what He wanted me to do. I let go of my bitterness and the feelings of injustice that I am apt to nurse all too fondly. It is not
up to me to forgive, but it is so much better to pray that God will. Once you have prayed for someone, all the enmity goes. He has forgiven me much more than this; why should these two troubled souls not have the same? Perhaps because they don’t deserve His forgiveness?

But, then, neither do I. Yet, I have it.

When I let go of all the bitter thoughts, when I stopped rehashing their attacks in my mind, the miracle happened. God’s peace returned, and the Devil skulked away. He can’t abide the light.

Prayer is the most effective tool, the most powerful weapon, and the most enduring comfort that any Christian has. If you need to achieve something, to defend yourself, or to find peace, use prayer.

This blog has been a source of great blessing to me; it has brought so many wonderful people into my life. It is encompassed by a ring of prayer. I believe that is more impenetrable than a ring of steel.

And, know this, so does the enemy.

 

 

Christianity and the Art of Motorcycle Accidents

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Reading back over some of my blogs recently, I wanted to remind myself of what it is I’ve been rambling about. And then it occurred to me that I might be on the verge of creating a false impression. Mostly, when I write about faith, I talk about how it triumphs over adversity, how it has kept me, how it is sufficient for anything.

But I wouldn’t want to be accused of distorting the truth. Sometimes, my faith fails me.

The last time was right in the middle of the communion weekend. I had been to the Friday evening service, done a bit of shopping and was, finally, at half-past nine, making something to eat, having missed lunch and dinner. My home was quiet and my mood peaceful; but then the bad news came.

An accident, my nephew and his motorbike, hospital. In the few short minutes between hearing that the ambulance had picked him up out of the moor, and my sister calling to say that he was alright, I had imagined all sorts of things, but mostly that he was dead.

And, to my eternal shame, my first thought towards God was, ‘why have you done this to us now?’

The Devil can turn us into petulant children: why has God allowed this, haven’t we suffered enough? Surely He would not be so cruel, to inflict more loss on our family. In maybe three minutes, I had entertained despair, anguish, disbelief; that was all the time needed to make me forget who I am in Christ, and who I am to Christ.

Next day, discussing the accident with two people at my kitchen table – one a Christian, one not, as far as I know – we talked about God’s intervention in our lives. The lady, who is a Christian, agreed with me that His hand could be seen in the previous night’s events. Her husband shook his head at this and said that things will happen anyway, and we over-attribute them to God.

My defence was inadequate as ever. I am constantly aware of the words that were in my ear the evening I went to profess faith for the first time. The minister had preached from 1 Peter, ‘always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you’. And I am outstandingly useless at this. It troubles me how often I fail Him in this regard, even though I do try hard to find the right words.

But God did show me His hand in this. First of all, the news of the accident was broken to me by one of His people, which made all the difference. My sister, unusually, was not at home, but out with a friend when she heard, and so the friend drove her to hospital and stayed with her. Ordinarily, I would have been the person to do that, but I didn’t have to, which mattered to me because my last memories of that building are not good ones.

And, of course, Andy is alive and in one piece, apart from a broken and dislocated thumb.

During the not knowing, though, I thought of my nephew and, instead of the strapping twenty five year old who is 6’2″ tall (he doesn’t have the hobbit genes I inherited ), I was picturing the toddler whose hand I used to hold crossing the road. Your own mind can turn against you, which helps you turn against God. Is he dead, I wondered, or maimed; is he scared, is he alone? And all the while, thinking of the vulnerable wee boy, not the man.

Well, no, he was not alone. The people who caused the accident may have callously left him there, but the Lord put other people on the road that night – kind people who waited with him, reassured him and, crucially in Lewis in August,  tried to keep the midgies at bay until the paramedics came.

All of this tells me that, for every clever move the Devil makes, God is several steps ahead.

He protected my nephew, He  protected my sister; and He protected the rest of the family in that, by the time I called to tell them of the accident, we already knew that Andy was not badly injured.

And He certainly surrounded me. I suffered agonies for only a few minutes – He did not permit my anxiety for long. In all my human frailty, though, it was sufficient time to question God. That is certainly something for me to pray over and work upon. If Satan finds a way to drive a wedge so easily, I know he will use it at every opportunity .

Surely, if ever there was a case for the whole armour of God, my fragile heart is it. I am so thankful that my safety comes from the Lord and does not rely upon me.

And, despite my failure of nerve, I can still say, like Hudson Taylor, that though my faith may only be a little thing, it is in a great God. However I falter in my belief, His trustworthiness remains the same.

Ready for the light

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Sometimes in this world, I think we receive tiny glimpses into heaven. Just like the briefest ray of sun might touch you and warm you on an otherwise gloomy day, these are precious moments which can keep us going through many difficulties.

Today, I heard news that confuses me, because I hardly know how to feel about it. One of the loveliest ladies I have ever met died last night. She has gone to be with her Lord, she is free of pain and worry, free of missing her husband, free even of old age. For all those reasons, I rejoice on her behalf. Her burden has been laid down and she can rest in the arms of her Saviour.

But heaven’s gain is most decidedly our loss. We are only human, and we will miss her from our midst. Her family who loved her so much and cared for her so well have now to find their way from here onwards without her wisdom, her kindness and her strength. The particular beauty of this situation, however, is that she herself equipped them very well to deal with the temporary separation that must be theirs.

She had helped all her children come to know her Saviour as their own and to know Him better still at times through her own lovely witness. Lately, knowing that her time with them was growing short, she could rest on the knowledge that the same Comforter who had been with her would also be with her loved ones.

Much as they cared for her, they are in infinitely better hands. He has entered into their grief and, better still, He knows its purpose. It is the ultimate comfort for every Christian at times like these. I can testify to His steadfastness myself, and it never wavers or dims.

The last time I spoke to Rachel, the lady in question, was a week ago. I had a feeling, as I drove home, that I would not see her again in this world. She always seemed to me to be a little too good for it anyway. Not, I must add, in any kind of lofty, impossibly pious way. Let’s not forget that the lady was from Ness and way too authentic to be a plaster saint. It was just impossible – even for me – to be a bad person in her company, or to believe that there was much badness in anyone else.

She was a very wise and seasoned Christian, and I regret not talking more with her. I could have learned such a lot. But we shared many lovely moments and even the last time I saw her, we had such a laugh over . . . well, that will have to remain a secret for now.

Near the start of her battle with cancer, I spent a couple of hours in her company, though. It was an enriching experience just to be with her. She did not wallow in self-pity, nor speak much about the illness at all. It was typical of her that her main concern was for everyone else, and that she maintained an interest in others right up until the end. I have never known anyone to be so much in love with people. But that was because she walked so closely with her Lord.

We have been aware for some time that this moment of parting was swiftly approaching.  Visitors came to, and went from, her home just as they always have, but there was something extra, something different this time.

On the Sunday night before the Stornoway communion, I was privileged to share a time of worship with her and a small group of others in her home. She looked serenely beautiful as she bravely pointed out the verses of psalm that she wished us to sing. And the singing was . . . well, out of this world. There were only six of us in that room, but the sound produced was immense in every sense. It seemed as though we were accompanying her down to the water’s edge, and were afforded a glimpse of what awaits in that haven we all desire to see.

Ever since I heard that she had taken her leave of us for now, I have been thinking of these words, penned by Calum and Rory MacDonald:

Long ago she knew someone who told her
All the things she’d done in life
Now she’s waiting in the morning fields
Ready for the light

We grieve, not as those who have no hope, but as those who have watched a loved one go on home without us. As natural human beings, we miss them from our lives; as believers, our grief is more like cianalas for that better country that awaits us all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

God’s unwanted gift is one of His greatest

/ posttenebrasluxweb / Leave a comment

Death, in case you’re under any delusion, doesn’t wear a long, black coat, or carry a scythe. Nor does it only happen in Lewis, although we are remarkably good at it. I don’t mean that facetiously. Actually, I think we have always handled the business of dying with considerable aplomb, and that has somehow earned us the reputation for being a bit, well, morbid.

I don’t have any statistics on this, you’ll be glad to know, but I am fairly confident that the average Leodhasach goes to more funerals than his counterpart anywhere else in the country. Although I’m a wee bit away from pension age (and, unlike previous generations, actually getting more so the older I grow), I could not begin to estimate the number I have attended.

The book of Ecclesiastes says, ‘It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting’. While few of us would opt for the former over the latter, there is – unsurprisingly – the wisdom of Solomon in this.

God draws us closer to Him in the times when we are broken. I think, like any parent seeing their child in pain, His infinite heart goes out to us. He knows what it is to grieve and although He knows our end from before our beginning, He also knows our limitations. Our Heavenly Father knows that we are going to have all tears wiped from our eyes ultimately, but He also knows how our faith can waver. Although we always have that truth to comfort us, we don’t necessarily remember it as we should.

After my father died, six years ago, I felt as though a door had been opened up into eternity – a door through which death might very well come again. Despite my job, I am not much given to premonitions. Nonetheless, I had a very strong impression that death had unfinished business with me. Within two years, my husband was undergoing an operation and treatment for cancer: the illness that took his life a little while after.

I have not written about Donnie’s last hours before now because I supposed no one wanted to know. But I have since read a very brave and honest account by another blogger, who lost her mother to the same disease, of what seeing someone dying can be like. Sometimes, we can handle everything else connected with mortality so well, and yet shy away from the truth of the death-bed.

Before he finally fell asleep, he would drift in and out of consciousness. Every time he awoke, he would look at the clock as though surprised and disappointed to find himself still subject to it. When I asked him if there was anything he wanted to talk about, he told me that he would be fine and then, surprisingly, he quoted, ‘I go to prepare a place for you’. Smiling, he added, ‘but you won’t like the curtains because I’ll have to choose them myself.’

He was still his lovely, cheeky self. But better, because although he was being kind as ever, I think his heart had already left me and his family, and gone on ahead. There had been months of pain and sickness, even flashes of fear and irritability. Here, though, in his final few hours of alertness to this world, it comforts me that his eyes and his soul were already looking to eternity.

The body is frail. He was strong and healthy until this sickness came. In the last hours, as I held his hand, the infection in his chest made a noise like several pots boiling at once. Despite this he – himself – seemed to be in total peace. And then, he was gone. Never one for great shows of drama, his death was typically quiet.

Watching him go, knowing the spiritual significance of that moment, you expect something more.

Why, though?

Physical death, after all, is separation of soul from body. The battle in his lungs had nothing much to do with the peace of his inmost being. What I and that lovely nurse were witnessing was simply his body closing down, no longer needed, for now.

His soul, on the other hand, had gone on. We who had felt so much pity for him in his suffering, and who feel so much sorrow at his loss, are actually the more to be pitied and sorrowed over. Donnie is where he would certainly never want to return from.

After he died, I was troubled by the verses in Matthew 6 that urge us to store up treasures in Heaven, ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. I worried that the treasure I was thinking about was my husband and that I simply – understandably – wished to be where he was.

But this is why grief can sometimes be God’s gift to us. It is not something that can be gone through, dealt with, and shelved away. Two years on, I still get waves of overwhelming, almost physical pain. And in those moments, I can go to my Saviour and show Him my bruised heart.

No one else comforts like He does. I can truthfully say that He has been closer to me in my sorrow than at any other time and, for that reason, grief itself can become a strange sort of treasure.

It was through death that He gave us the greatest gift of all.

 

 

God’s unwanted gift is one of His greatest

/ posttenebrasluxweb / Leave a comment

Death, in case you’re under any delusion, doesn’t wear a long, black coat, or carry a scythe. Nor does it only happen in Lewis, although we are remarkably good at it. I don’t mean that facetiously. Actually, I think we have always handled the business of dying with considerable aplomb, and that has somehow earned us the reputation for being a bit, well, morbid.

I don’t have any statistics on this, you’ll be glad to know, but I am fairly confident that the average Leodhasach goes to more funerals than his counterpart anywhere else in the country. Although I’m a wee bit away from pension age (and, unlike previous generations, actually getting more so the older I grow), I could not begin to estimate the number I have attended.

The book of Ecclesiastes says, ‘It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting’. While few of us would opt for the former over the latter, there is – unsurprisingly – the wisdom of Solomon in this.

God draws us closer to Him in the times when we are broken. I think, like any parent seeing their child in pain, His infinite heart goes out to us. He knows what it is to grieve and although He knows our end from before our beginning, He also knows our limitations. Our Heavenly Father knows that we are going to have all tears wiped from our eyes ultimately, but He also knows how our faith can waver. Although we always have that truth to comfort us, we don’t necessarily remember it as we should.

After my father died, six years ago, I felt as though a door had been opened up into eternity – a door through which death might very well come again. Despite my job, I am not much given to premonitions. Nonetheless, I had a very strong impression that death had unfinished business with me. Within two years, my husband was undergoing an operation and treatment for cancer: the illness that took his life a little while after.

I have not written about Donnie’s last hours before now because I supposed no one wanted to know. But I have since read a very brave and honest account by another blogger, who lost her mother to the same disease, of what seeing someone dying can be like. Sometimes, we can handle everything else connected with mortality so well, and yet shy away from the truth of the death-bed.

Before he finally fell asleep, he would drift in and out of consciousness. Every time he awoke, he would look at the clock as though surprised and disappointed to find himself still subject to it. When I asked him if there was anything he wanted to talk about, he told me that he would be fine and then, surprisingly, he quoted, ‘I go to prepare a place for you’. Smiling, he added, ‘but you won’t like the curtains because I’ll have to choose them myself.’

He was still his lovely, cheeky self. But better, because although he was being kind as ever, I think his heart had already left me and his family, and gone on ahead. There had been months of pain and sickness, even flashes of fear and irritability. Here, though, in his final few hours of alertness to this world, it comforts me that his eyes and his soul were already looking to eternity.

The body is frail. He was strong and healthy until this sickness came. In the last hours, as I held his hand, the infection in his chest made a noise like several pots boiling at once. Despite this he – himself – seemed to be in total peace. And then, he was gone. Never one for great shows of drama, his death was typically quiet.

Watching him go, knowing the spiritual significance of that moment, you expect something more.

Why, though?

Physical death, after all, is separation of soul from body. The battle in his lungs had nothing much to do with the peace of his inmost being. What I and that lovely nurse were witnessing was simply his body closing down, no longer needed, for now.

His soul, on the other hand, had gone on. We who had felt so much pity for him in his suffering, and who feel so much sorrow at his loss, are actually the more to be pitied and sorrowed over. Donnie is where he would certainly never want to return from.

After he died, I was troubled by the verses in Matthew 6 that urge us to store up treasures in Heaven, ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. I worried that the treasure I was thinking about was my husband and that I simply – understandably – wished to be where he was.

But this is why grief can sometimes be God’s gift to us. It is not something that can be gone through, dealt with, and shelved away. Two years on, I still get waves of overwhelming, almost physical pain. And in those moments, I can go to my Saviour and show Him my bruised heart.

No one else comforts like He does. I can truthfully say that He has been closer to me in my sorrow than at any other time and, for that reason, grief itself can become a strange sort of treasure.

It was through death that He gave us the greatest gift of all.