Upon high places

This extract is taken from Upon high places, stories from the mountains of Wales by Mike Perrin, published by Gwasg Byntirion Press at £6.99, and is used with permission.

From high on the hillside above, only the occasional bleat of a sheep broke the silence of the night. A gust of wind rustled some rushes nearby. I shivered, drew the hood of my sleeping-bag a little tighter and lay there looking up at a host of stars.

With no rain for several weeks, the ground was hard and my boots did not make the most comfortable pillow, but in that moment there was nowhere I would rather be. The steep cliff of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu rose from the scree on the far side of the small lake. Those who had ascended Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) by track or by train in their hundreds during the day had long since returned to their comforts in the valley below. Now, for these few hours of darkness, the high places were mine to appreciate alone.

What had prompted such strange behaviour? My own home and a warm bed were but ten miles away. I might reply, a deep and lifelong love of the mountains, but that would only part of the truth. For I felt the need to take stock of the situation I now found myself in, and for me that required time in a silent and solitary place. I needed to see things clearly.

Family tragedy

Three years before, almost to the day, our dear son Carl had been drowned in the swollen floodwaters of the River Cothi in Dyfed. He was only 28. He had been serving God as a water-engineer in Ethiopia for several years, firstly with Tear Fund (The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund) and then with SIM (Society for International Ministries, formerly the Sudan Interior Mission). Then, so suddenly, whilst visiting his family and friends, God chose to take him 'home'. How we missed him and grieved his loss.

Before another year had run its course, my wife Elaine was diagnosed as having a brain tumour and was immediately admitted to the Royal London Hospital for treatment. God saw fit to spare her and months of anxious waiting and wondering gave way to a programme of rehabilitation, but this experience also served to remind us of human fragility and the uncertainty of our days.

And now, while perhaps we were still learning to come to terms with these experiences, we faced a third crisis. It had sadly become necessary to resign as pastor and leave the Baptist church in Colchester that it had been such a joy and privilege to serve. I began to suffer from a persistent asthma-related cough soon after accepting the call to the church. Now, after seven years of ministry amongst a people we had grown to love, I had at last been forced to give up. Medical opinion was unanimous. It was a most painful decision to take, but we had to accept that this must be the will of God. We had lived in North Wales for 23 years before we ever moved to Colchester; we still had a house near Porthmadog, with a church and people we knew well close by - surely God was saying that we should return to our former home.

As we moved back to Wales, there may well have been some who envied us. It all seemed so simple - early retirement in a beautiful part of the country; more time to spend with our grandchildren. But as I lay 'cocooned' in my sleeping-bag looking up at the night sky, my mind was being assailed by other thoughts. Why was it that God had brought us to this situation? Whatever did the future hold? Could I really accept the possibility of never preaching on a regular basis again, particularly when preaching the gospel had always meant so much to me? And what about the small matter of financial provision? I thanked God for our home, but would state benefit be sufficient to live on? All this was unknown territory.

Jacob's ladder

Then it was I remembered Jacob. What turbulent thoughts he must have had as he trekked northwards from Beersheba toward Haran. He must have been afraid because his brother, Esau, had threatened to kill him. And he may well have had a sense of past failure and possibly a feeling of guilt. He is also likely to have been acutely aware of his own frailty as he set out alone on a walk of over 400 miles across largely trackless wilderness. And what would he find at the end of his journey? Somehow my own needs began to appear quite insignificant beside those of Jacob, but still I followed him in my mind. Weary from his walking, however, he slept and, sleeping, he dreamed. But his was no ordinary dream made up of senseless fragments which become even more meaningless when you try to remember them the following morning. Jacob's dream was God-given revelation and as vivid as if he were observing reality with wide-open eyes and a fully conscious mind.

There are two elements to Jacob's vision described in Genesis 28.12-13. It is questionable whether the better known and more frequently remembered of the two is really the more important. The ladder or stairway between heaven and earth, with angels ascending and descending, certainly has much to say to those who are trying to make sense of the confused events of their lives. Jacob's ladder is there to remind us that earth and heaven - the realms of the material and the spiritual - are not totally separated, the one unreachable from the other. There is a place where the gulf that normally divides the two can be bridged. The heartfelt cry or fervent prayer of a person, even of Jacob's reputation, can ascend and be heard in heaven's throne-room. At the same time, an unlimited supply of forgiveness, mercy and strength is forever being despatched from on high and is thus freely available. What hope and refreshment such a picture gives to the weary traveller on life's journey!

And yet there is an even more glorious truth revealed to Jacob, and one that brought even greater comfort to my own heart that night on the mountainside. According to Genesis 28.13: 'There above ... stood the Lord'. Angels ascending and descending must have been something to behold, but not even this could rival the sight of the majesty of God himself as he stood over all.

From my earliest years, I had been taught to believe that God is sovereign ; that he is in perfect control of the affairs of nations and individuals, and that he had a plan for my life. From the day that I began in Christian ministry, I had sought to teach this glorious fact. 'We know that all things worth together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose... If God is for us, who can be against us?

But truth - even glorious truth - however clearly understood in the mind and embraced by personal faith in the heart, needs to be applied to daily circumstances and personal experience. And this is sometimes the hardest part.

Marvellous sky

In my bivouac below Clogwyn Du'r Arddu on Snowdon, I dreamed no dream (of any relevance) nor saw any vision. As I gazed at the night sky, however, trying to comprehend the vastness of space; as I marvelled at the sheer number of stars and galaxies visible to the naked eye, recognising that man could see unaided only a tiny part of an incomprehensibly vast universe, so the sublime realisation dawned - my Father in heaven created all of this! 'He made the stars also' may have been a simple statement of fact recorded in Genesis 1.16 (AV), but for those who have been brought by grace into the family of God, what implications! The mighty Lord of creation who flung the stars into space and who keeps the planets in their orbit is also the Father who loved me enough to send his Son to die for me, and that being so - 'He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?' (Romans 8.32, NKJV). God really was in control of the situation. All that had happened from the moment of my birth, he not only knew about but had divinely controlled for my good and his glory. Why should I be perplexed or anxious? How could I possibly fear the future? Did it really matter if my role or ministry among his people were to change or that I might not preach regularly again? He had saved me not to be a preacher but to be his child. All he required of me was that I should trust him. And with that I slept.

I awoke at 5 o'clock, rolled up my sleeping bag and was on the summit of Snowdon in time to see the sunrise. A new day had begun.

Stories from the mountains of Wales

Family tragedy

Jacob's ladder

Marvellous sky

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