Grace Notes - When Life becomes a nightmare

 Richard Underwood (Soham)

When the lights go out, do you ever suffer from nightmares? Everything is distorted. Even things that are familiar and comfortable take on an unfriendly air. Last summer, living in Soham, was a bit like waking up not to escape a nightmare but to enter one.

Philippa and I were on holiday in France when the news of Holly and Jessica’s disappearance broke. We followed developments prayerfully from our safe haven across the Channel. On our return, we were met at Stansted Airport by Ted, the church administrator. All the way up the M11, he filled us in on the harrowing details. But nothing prepared us for the wall of despair that hit us as we climbed out of the car and hauled our suitcases into the house. The church car park opposite our home had been invaded by TV vans with satellite dishes and eager newsmen beaming every latest development to the four corners of the earth. It was like coming back only to discover that home had changed while we were away. We were waking up to a nightmare. Now the community has settled back into its normal gentle rhythm. But the scars remain. Counsellors are still visiting two of the town’s schools on a regular basis. Hardly a week goes by without Holly and Jessica’s names cropping up in the news in one way or another. On the surface, everything has returned to normal but we face the ordeal of the trial in October. And we all know that just beneath the surface...I have reflected long and hard on the events of the last few months. What are the lessons? These spring particularly to mind.

Out of the loop…One of the immediate issues facing my fellow elders in my absence was how far the church should get involved. Should we encourage our folk to attend the widely publicised evening vigil at St Andrews on that first Wednesday night? With the press clamouring to talk to anyone who was anyone, what sort of stance should they adopt? Rightly, I believe, they decided to keep the church out of the loop. While the Anglican and the Methodist ministers were busy fielding questions from the press, we were free to meet the needs of the people. With people flocking to the parish church in their thousands, we ensured (with the total cooperation of the vicar and the generous help of Scripture Gift Mission) that there was an abundant supply of gospel literature available. We opened our doors for any Christian in the town who wanted a quiet place where we could pray and special times when we could pray together throughout each day. I’m not sure if, in nearly twenty years of ministry, I have ever experienced such difficult times of prayer. It was as if the Lord had removed his protective hand from Soham just for a moment and we were exposed to the full blast of the evil one.…but part of the family. We worked hard with Christians from the other churches in every way we could to bring comfort – and especially the comfort of the gospel – to people who turned up at the parish church to seek some kind of meaning in the midst of the mess. But, however hard it was being out of the local church loop, we were inundated with calls, cards and e-mails from literally all around the world. I have never experienced before the sheer joy of knowing that we were part of God’s wonderful worldwide family. To those of you who helped to bear us up at this time, can I say a heartfelt thank you on behalf of the whole church. The loss of meaning

Diana-like, the parish church and its grounds began to fill up with flowers, messages and Man Utd. shirts. Taking my turn on Monday evening, I watched in awe as literally hundreds of local people stood quietly in line to sign the books of condolence. Here were broken human beings, like sheep without a shepherd, created in the image of God but they’d lost contact with God. He had wired eternity into their hearts and here they were, far from home, facing the brutal fact of evil and desperately seeking something. They were hungry for answers and all they’d got to hold on to was some faint memory from the past. So, they turned up at church in their droves, hoping that they might find hope. The discovery of grace

We might regret that the gospel wasn’t presented more clearly over the summer (although presenting the gospel in the face of a tidal wave of grief and anger requires enormous God-given skill). But we shouldn’t overlook the evidence of something else – what our forebears called common grace. The way the local ministers led the whole community through a time of unprecedented crisis was exemplary. There were acts of compassion and human kindness in abundance. A town that had been violated not just by a terrible act of wickedness, but also by the intrusion of the world’s press pulled together magnificently. I felt proud to live in Soham last summer. And I thanked God for his promise that as long as this world remains, life will never ever be hell on earth – quite. Where sin abounds…What are the spiritual repercussions of the events of last summer? Firstly, it’s hard to believe that any small community has ever been the focus of such concerted worldwide prayer as Soham. Surely, the Lord will not let the heart-cry of his people go unanswered. There has to be a spiritual dividend. Secondly, Satan always over-reaches himself. The Lord Jesus will win – even in Soham. As the Scriptures testify – where sin increases, grace increases all the more (Romans 5:20).Why shouldn’t Soham – now a byword for wickedness – become synonymous with a glorious outpouring of God’s kindness? Why shouldn’t a mighty act of his right arm turn this community the right way up again through the preaching of the gospel? People are thinking about the big issues in Soham. And people are being saved to the glory of God in Soham. It’s a small start. From the messages and the pictures so lovingly left in the churchyard last summer, there’s a long way to go. We’re firmly in the grip of folk religion here.I still feel a chill in the pit of my stomach when I think back to last summer. I’ve lost some of my old passion for watching the news five times a day – I now remember what it felt like being bombarded by reporters wherever you turned. It was a nightmare. But wouldn’t it be just like the Lord to take that nightmare and turn it into something beyond my wildest dreams!