I didn’t do much writing while I was in hospital. The nausea and fatigue made that very difficult. (Interestingly, on one of my bad days a doctor told me that nausea can be worse than pain.) However, what you will read below was written last Sunday, 12 January, after being told that I would probably be going home in a few days.
“I think this time has given me a deeper appreciation of ‘home’. I can’t just recall how it arose but in chatting with one of the nurses I mentioned my study. She said: ‘It must be great to have a place like that.’ It was a reminder of the privileged life I lead and the joy of having ‘a place like that’ where I can study, meditate, pray and prepare.
“I remember a friend coming into the study one day and saying: ‘So this is where it all happens.’ I made a joke about all the things that needed to happen urgently like tidying for instance. But there is a sense in which he was dead right. From the silence of contemplation comes the action that reveals the Kingdom of God. Moses came down from the mountain and out of the Tent of Meeting to reveal God’s will for His people. Isaiah came out of the Temple with a vision of his role as a prophet in a nation that needed to change. Jesus emerged from a forty day period of spiritual conflict in the desert to preach and heal. From the isolation of Paul’s prison cells came words that advanced the Gospel in his time and continue to do so.
“All of this has arisen from a sense of ‘home’ and my appreciation of a particular part of it. But for a Christian a ‘home’ can be made anywhere because God’s presence and love and power can always be depended upon. That can happen even in the most desperate circumstances that you would baulk to call ‘home’. How homely was Flossenberg Concentration Camp to Dietrich Boenhoffer? Did Watchman Nee’s heart warm to be resident in Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai for twenty years? Did Richard Wurmbrand look back with fondness to his long imprisonment and torture in various prisons in Rumania during the Cold War? Doubtful. But in each one of those cases and many others like them emerged Christian witness that has inspired and will continue to do so. These men found God in the worst of places and encouraged others to build the Kingdom where they are.
“So, home? At this moment I am not at home because I am not in a particular building with my wife and son and with all the things with which I have formed a connection. But today, the Lord’s Day, I have experienced a call to make this hospital ward my home, to be content, to engage with my God, to welcome visitors, to be sensitive to any opportunities for witness.
“I have pushed my table up against the wall, bluetacked a wee cross to the wall, set my Bible on the table and created a corner of the room that feels like home.”
