CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: Bad stuff is time-limited; love will heal problems
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The other Monday, my wife Lorna and I took Ezra the dog for a walk round Loch an Eilein near Coylumbridge.
It was a bright, chilly late winter day with a warmth in the sunshine.
When you stopped walking, there was absolute stillness. No footsteps on the gravel, no voices, no sound other than a tapestry of birdsong and mumbling waters: a deep, heart-stilling peace in which I was aware of the closeness of God.
I can never experience utter silence due to the tinnitus which has been part of my life for many years – a spectrum of phantom sounds, a hissing and ‘whooshing’ in my ears.
That day tinnitus reminded me of things which disturb my inner equilibrium and sense of God – the background buzz of anxieties, fears and negative thoughts. These mental intruders seem very real, but most of them like tinnitus are phantoms, adrift from ultimate reality or truth.
I believe that my life, whatever happens, is utterly secure in the hands of God. And so I seek to go forward, choosing joy, acting and living in the light of divine love, not allowing the tinnitus of persistent doubts and fears to entirely obliterate the peace of God.
Once there was a serpent in the Eden of Loch an Eilein – or rather, a wolf. We passed the island castle which once belonged to the marauding Wolf of Badenoch.
In 1390, following a dispute with the Church, Alexander Stewart set fire to Forres and burned down Elgin Cathedral and Pluscarden Abbey.
I thought of the external wolves which threaten us – war, conflict, harsh unlovingness. But I looked at the castle today – ruined, overhung by trees, an epitome of peace.
And I remembered the Christian assurance that bad stuff is time-limited. In the end the Prince of Peace in whose front-line we stand shoulder-to-shoulder will overcome. Eden will be restored. Love will heal even wolves and serpents.
Several streams entered the loch, one flowed from it. Despite the tinnitus of anxiety and the roaring of the Wolf, streams of divine comfort, love and empowering flow perpetually into our hearts, and we in turn become streams of living water, refreshing those we meet.
There’s a Loch an Eilein Retreat Centre where you can holiday amidst the loveliness. Our morning was a short retreat – time to relax, to be together, to find God in the beauty around us. Soon it was time to return to Aviemore for coffee and cake, but we took with us the loch’s gift of peace.
Deep within each one of us, often concealed from us by our pain, lies a Retreat Centre, a Loch an Eilein of the soul where God waits to nourish and refresh.
