Safe Home

by GRIERSON, G. | Category: N/a | Mar 2009

It was the annual school cross country race at the school I attended in Yorkshire. Different teams were competing; the gruelling course involved running alongside a river for a few miles, across a bridge, back along the opposite river bank, up a steep flight of steps to reach the top of a cliff and finally onto the school sports field to the finish line with most of the school cheering on the finishers as they crossed the line. After setting off with collective enthusiasm, the course soon sorted out the 'men' from the 'boys', and I found myself plodding along somewhere towards the back of the bunch of runners. As the pain began to set in, only one thought remained in my mind: 'Get to the line and finish.' The words, 'Nearly there; nearly there,' accompanied the rhythm of my heavy feet and pounding heart. And then the finish-line was in sight at last, and a few of the crowd were still there to clap in the last of the stragglers as they came up the home-straight and crossed the line. Safe home - and I wasn't the last as I'd feared!

'Safe home.' Years later, in a nursing home in Northern Ireland, poor Nancy would always say that to me as I left her room, having said goodnight to her at the end of my shift. Nancy, who was living out the rest of her years needing full nursing care, who couldn't even turn herself over in bed, but who was still able to enjoy a laugh - a bit of 'craic', as the Irish call it - to lighten her days spent limited within the confines of a small room and a weakening body. It wasn't until some time later, when I was driving through a small village on the north Antrim coast of Ireland, near the Giant's Causeway, that I came across Nancy's farewell words again. They were on a signpost at the side of the road for motorists to read as they left the village: SAFE HOME. So that's where Nancy got it from. It was a traditional Irish blessing when parting with friends.

As a nurse I have sat with a lot of terminally ill people as they have reached the end of their 'race'. Sometimes there seems to be nothing left to do, but to sit holding their hand, trusting that that touch at least will be the source of some comfort. I know in my mind and in my heart that I am going to heaven when I die because I have trusted in the Lord Jesus as my Saviour. Jesus said, 'In my Father's house are many rooms; ... I am going there to prepare a place for you.'(1) and Paul expressed a preference 'to be away from the body and at home with the Lord'.(2) I know the last finishing straight could be a hard one, possibly with pain. But I also know that He will be there to meet me and that all the pain and the sadness will be over.

One year, while attending a Christian teen camp situated quite close to the Giant's Causeway, the camp leader, in one of the meetings, gave us a small piece of paper and a pencil. He asked us all to imagine being on an aircraft for a journey and the captain comes on the intercom to say that a serious emergency has occurred and the plane is about to crash. 'You have 10 seconds left to live,' Harry the leader informed us. 'You have a small piece of paper and a pencil. What message will you write before the plane crashes in the hope it will be found in the wreckage afterwards?' I gave it a moment's thought and then wrote on my piece of paper:

SAFE HOME. JOHN 3:16

That Bible verse gives me the certainty that, whatever happens to me, I will be 'safe home' - with my Saviour.

Bible quotations from the NIV: (1) John 14:2 (2) 2 Cor.5:8

GRIERSON, G. | Mar 2009
N/a