This is Kate, the open boat in which my father's Uncle Jack made his escape from Nazi occupied Guernsey in August 1943. His wife had left the island before the jackboot stamped on normally peaceful Guernsey, as she was expecting their first child. All the 7 people who made their bid for freedom faced a dreadful ordeal. Sailing the hundred miles or so in an open boat is one thing, dangerous enough, but with the channel seeded with mines and German E Boats and other warships patrolling their route it was almost foolhardy. But their risk paid off, and they arrived in England just as the war was beginning to turn the Allies' way. For them, freedom was spelt R_I_S_K! But then it often is. Sometimes the only way to escape enslavement in any realm is to take a risk and step out in an unknown but different direction.
On the 14th of June this year I will take a known and calculated risk to overcome a dreadful illness that has occupied far too much of my life over the past 20 years. I am not unaware of the dangers involved, nor am I wearing too rosy coloured spectacles as I view what life after the operation might be like. Expectations have to be realistic, tempered with reality. When Jack reached England he found that he had a baby son, but not a wife. She had not survived to greet her escaping hero. But he was needed, and he also provided very welcome care to his young nephew, my father, who had been evacuated before the Occupation began. So my hope this month is not in the surgeons nor in my own ability to endure. My hope is in God, who loves me and gave his son Jesus for me. He has a good plan for my life, here and in eternity.
For each of us life's challenges will be different and unique. Whatever binds us and holds us back has to be faced with courage and faith in the call of God. Our own version of 'Kate' might seem just as frail and inadequate, but if we step out trusting in God and his love for us, we shall discover a degree of freedom and triumph over adversity that only those who take a risk can understand.
As you can imagine, I have a soft spot for 'Kate'. If you want to see her she is outside the front door of the German Occupation Museum in the Forest, Guernsey.
