Merle is writing a four-part series based on some trips that we have made for for work and breaks. Here is the first:

A couple of hours into our journey from Suffolk to Yorkshire for a week’s holiday we passed a car crash. Three police cars, an ambulance, fire engine and air ambulance were at the scene. Apart from a car lying upside down in a ditch no other vehicle appeared to be involved. There was little traffic on the road, quite normal for a Sunday afternoon, and other than the emergency services and the barely visible car, there were no obvious hold ups and everything appeared to be normal. Whatever the cause of the accident the presence of the fire engine and air ambulance suggested the serious nature and consequences of the accident. John's remark of 'that is a salutary reminder' was the only comment made about the incident as we lapsed into silence preoccupied with our own thoughts.

My thoughts were taken up with a dilemma caused by the shootings in Whitehaven ten days previously. One of the places I looked forward to visiting was Whitehaven in Cumbria. My maternal grandparents had emigrated from there in 1912. I had been brought up as a child in the vastness and heat of the Central and South African continent and so the stories of green fields, mountains, sheep dog trials, coal mines, fishing villages and fish and chip suppers seemed so wonderful. But for me, it was too soon to visit where such human tragedy demanded time for people to grieve.

Whether it be the expected or unexpected, things can happen at any time, the impact of which may change the course of lives for ever. Overnight one can go from riches to rags and vice versa, marriages can break up, friends fall out, our health fail, lives shatter or our homes be repossessed, swept away in a flood or burnt down by a forest fire.

The Apostle Paul says in one of my favourite passages of Scripture:

'For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels and demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Romans 8:38).

God’s promise is that if we ‘come near to God….he will come near to you’ (James 4:8).

Click here for the next reflection.