BBC Radio 4 2016-09-09

Good Morning,

Ten weeks ago a good friend of mine was checking something on a roof when he fell thirty feet to the ground. He received a serious head injury and remains in hospital in what is called a minimally conscious state.

On Monday I went to visit him with two of his friends. It was the first time we’d been able to see him and we were apprehensive about what we’d find. Would we recognise our friend and would our friend recognise us? Just before going in his wife and daughters, conscious of our fears, told us that he looked a bit rough but was still recognisably the man we knew. He was not able to respond on command but he had occasionally shown flickers of awareness.

We each greeted him, taking his strong hand, and looked in to his one open eye for that glimmer of recognition or response. The broken body lying there did not seem to belong to the tough, ex-army man we knew but he was still our friend; and over the next hour we talked to him, sang to him, prayed for him, had a metaphorical pint with him. Every blink or intake of breath became a precious event, as eloquent as any words. We felt sure he knew we were there – and that he was loved.

But while he lay there, between consciousness and unconsciousness, we ourselves hovered in and out of hope and doubt. Our friend’s condition asked hard questions of our deepest fears and highest hopes. Does he really know we’re here? Where’s God in this? Will he heal him? Why has this happened? Should we just obey the psalmist who said ‘be still and know that I am God’; or should we implore the God who raises people from the dead to wake our friend to full consciousness?

The accidental is a reality we must face in a contingent world. And it’s a special challenge to anyone claiming to believe there’s meaning to be found, especially in the toughest trauma. My friend’s wife – a woman of faith – was honest about her anger at what had happened, and at her husband for threatening to leave this world too soon. But she admitted that her raging had taken her to a deeper, more intimate experience with God. The accident had re-ordered their lives around the fundamental hope that He loves us in all situations.

Over the years my friend has, more often than not, dropped me a line if he’s caught a Thought For The Day. In his no-nonsense way he’d always tell me exactly what he thought. Being a pragmatic, unsentimental Scot, he’d balk at the idea of his being the subject of a whole Thought but I’ve been told that there’s a radio next to his bed and that he’s listening now. So, I don’t know if you can hear me, Will, but I’m saying it anyway: you are not alone and you are loved.