Battlefields

We used to travel over to Aberdeen every month for IVF treatment. It was at the drop of a hat. Downing work tools. Heading off in the car. One of those days was an 11^th November and we pulled into a layby and sat silently for two minutes while the ‘Last Post’ sounded over the radio. It was in the days before mobile phones and sat-navs. No pictures of fields of poppies to look at.

Many years later, when poetry became my passion, I wrote these words-

Homeward Bound 

I think I saw You on the battlefield

I really think I did

You strolled through the smoke

as if it were a dawn mist

not choking

not hot and blistering

I watched You gently

shake the soul from

the broken body of a

man just died

You lifted him in Your arms

and You took him home

that day was hell

and I saw a glimpse of heaven

I know people who know saints and today is the feast day of St Martin of Tours, the patron saint of soldiers amongst other things. He was made to join the army when he was 15 but war was not his love. I have two great nephews who are on the verge of joining the army. I was also close to joining, not as a soldier but as an English tutor. Being not so tall and short sighted was not an impediment to teaching. I don’t think I passed the interview.

Not all battlefields are limited to soldiers and exchanges of fire to defend a country or make a stand against a hostile invader, although sometimes ‘hostile invader’ is the right term. Three months, may be four, a hostile invader was uncovered, not by a network of spies but by a breast scan.  Small enough not to be seen or felt, the cancer tumour was almost not there at all – but it was. Since then I have been poked, prodded and punctured. I was walking into town this morning with the mantra in  my head, ‘85% survival rate. What’s to worry about?’ There is a bit of me that insists that removing the ‘almost nothing there’ tumour is like getting a tooth removed, except that it isn’t.

My battlefield is my body. There is no choking smoke, nothing hot or blistering – just a whole host of tablets at the moment, an operation in the coming weeks and a short course of radio therapy. I will not lose my hair although I have hats in abundance. It’s not a whole breast removal, although I have a pattern for a knitted breast replacement. I’m not even feeling particularly fragile although I have become ‘at risk’ in some circles.

As a person of a living, vibrant faith I am convinced Jesus is with me on this battlefield. If this cancer is my fiery furnace, He is the fourth man walking freely about. I will emerge unscathed and without the fragrance of smoke hanging about me. He gently shakes me, lifts me and carries me when I am done being brave. I don’t have the hell that others are facing and a person does not need a cancer diagnosis to be facing hell. A bill we can’t pay, a child with too many health challenges, a black pit of depression that opens up in front of us – hell comes in all shapes and sizes.

My way through? Jesus.

I began with a poem, so I will end with one -

Words I Speak to Myself

Don't you know you're rooted deep

Tied ro Him who keeps your soul?

Don't you know His constant strength

Fills your being, makes you whole

Don't you know He stills your storm

With outstretched hand He speaks a word?

Don't you know you've placed your trust in Him and

In the hidden place your faith is stirred?

Colossians 2:7

peak to Myself

 Don’t you know, you're rooted deep

Tied to Him who keeps your soul?

Don’t you know His constant strength

Fills your being, makes you whole?

Don’t you know He stills your storm

With outstretched hand He speaks a word?

Don’t you know you've placed your trust in Him and

In the hidden place your faith is stirred?

Colossians 2:7)