|
Most of us derive a considerable
percentage of our emotional security from our work or ministry. It
provides us with much of our “identity” as well as our sense of
purpose in life. No surprise, then, if we find adjusting to revised
circumstances challenging.
Towards the end of 2001 a friend
turned up at our house, wanting to know how I would feel if the Lord
were to ask me to lay my ministry down. Very much hoping that He
would do no such thing, I made the “proper” reply, that if He really
were to ask me to do so, then of course I would do it.
As it turned out, her question was
anything but rhetorical. Fast forward events a few weeks and Ros
found herself making enquiries about a midwifery post that was being
advertised on the Shetland Islands.
“Shetland?” I gasped, “but that would mean leaving everything
behind.”
Ros laid the telephone handset back
in its cradle. She was looking thoughtful but intrigued. My mind was
reeling. So far as I was concerned, God had led us to Shropshire,
and so far as I was aware, we were here for the duration. Which only
goes to show how little I know! Mind you, I doubt if I would have
been prepared to contemplate such a radical change of direction had
it not been for the question my friend had recently asked me – along
with a prophetic word that a visiting couple had brought us.
They had asked to pray with us, and
the lady shared a vivid picture that she had received. “Our life had
been heading in one direction,” she declared, “but the Lord is about
to turn it a full ninety degrees.” Well – how do you handle a word
like that? It felt profoundly significant, but since there was
nothing whatsoever we could do about it, we shared it with friends
for the sake of accountability and then “pouched” it until the Lord
did something to activate it. It looked as though that “something”
might be starting to happen!
“Okay,” I said, gulping hard, “but
everything will be different up there. It would help if we had one
point of continuity. How about giving Anna a ring and see if she
would be prepared to come with us?” (Anna had been looking after our
youngest, who was then two years old.) We rang her together, and
popped what seemed to us a most improbable question: how she would
feel about moving to Shetland?
Anna gasped when we asked her. Ten
minutes later she e-mailed me her diary entry for the day I had
first discussed the possibility of her working for us. “Robert and
Ros have asked me to work for them. I would be delighted to do so,
but I am afraid that it will get in the way of my calling to
Shetland!”
Although we knew she had visited
Shetland before, Anna had never shared this call with us. The first
confirmation had come. Within days there would be several more, some
of them equally as dramatic. To our great surprise, we found
ourselves, a few months later, heading nearly a thousand miles north
to live on the remote but beautiful Shetland Islands, where Ros had
been appointed as the senior midwife.
Ros and Tim travelled up a few days
ahead of me in the worst storm of the year. I will never forget
setting out on a heavily overcast late February evening from
Aberdeen harbour, trusting the guidance I had received, but weighed
down with grief at leaving so much behind.
The storm had lessened to a Force
Eight by then, but the swell was intense, leaving the ferry
labouring as it smashed down into the huge waves. At some stage of
the crossing, the Lord drew near and pointed out that He was doing
the very best for us. The way He had provided a beautiful house
called Ruach for us, overlooking some of the most spectacular
scenery in the country,16 had felt nothing short of miraculous, yet
such was my sense of disorientation that it did little to lift my
spirits.
Change is challenging, and some of us
find it harder to cope with than others. The crucial thing is to try
to adjust to the new realities as quickly as possible.17 Although
the Lord had given broad hints as to what I would be doing in terms
of my writing ministry, we were effectively, starting again from
scratch: not an easy thing to do at any stage of life, but harder
perhaps in a remote location.
Our forty-two-month sojourn on
Shetland brought many blessings, but also immense griefs. The move
proved particularly traumatic for our thirteen-year-old son, who
faced many challenges integrating into a school where he was the
only English person.
When the Lord showed us that our time
on the island was at an end, He warned us that we would be “shifting
and shuffling around” for some time to come. This was hardly the message we wanted
to hear, but it prepared us for what was to come. We found ourselves
obliged to move three times in a year – which meant being involved
in four communities: something that stretched us to the limit. It
took considerable energy to pack up each time, not to mention the
emotional challenge of developing an entirely fresh set of
relationships in each place.
Each season had its own blessings and
rewards, but each by definition also lacked certain advantages that
the others offered. We sensed that these were “transition” phases,
but were taken by surprise each time by just how short-term they
proved to be.
We are privileged now to have been
brought by God to the beautiful township of Malvern, set amongst the
still more inspiring Malvern Hills, where, for nearly twenty years,
we had led prayer and worship conferences before being whisked
northwards to Shetland. Rosalind has long since been serving as a
“midwife” to midwifery students at the University of in Worcester,
where she is continuing her long standing calling to be an influence
for good in the midwifery profession. And I am thriving in spirit,
if not always these days in body, in being set apart as a Levite for
the Lord. |
