A Place in the World by Veronica Bright

 

The sun has set. A cool breeze flaps one side of the tent, as Abraham steps outside. There is the comforting scent of animals, a rustle here and there as they settle down, the bleat of a lamb. An almost silence. Then his wife Sarai is beside him, and together they look up at the stars which seem to have been tossed in exuberant handfuls onto the solidness of a background. Could this be where Abraham first experienced the reality of God?

Once upon a time my husband and I took our caravan to a quiet campsite on Exmoor, hoping to experience the dark skies for which Exmoor is renowned. It was winter and the weather demonstrated its ability to produce persistent cloud. After a forecast that suggested a glimpse of the night sky, we went to Wimbleball Lake, set up our loungers and blankets, and waited, binoculars at the ready. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just cloud. The last day of our stay arrived. Once again  we set off after dark for Wimbleball Lake. And this time, as we lay on our loungers, the sky cleared and there they were…stars and stars and stars, pinpricks of light twinkling, yes, like tiny diamonds, precious and priceless. A reminder of the vastness of God, and yet, the nearness of God. The understanding that everything belongs to Him.

In our writing we take our experiences of God out into the world. We may go confidently, sure of Him and of ourselves, and that’s OK. We may go hesitantly, fearful of failure, thinking we’re not capable of all this. And that’s OK too. It is a scary world, and sometimes, and in some places, it’s a frightening world. But as we write, we learn more about God, more about the world, and more about the people in it.

We all have a place here in the world, and yet we are all strangers at somebody’s gate.

Veronica Bright is a former reception class teacher whose pupils inspired her books of dramas for collective worship and many of her prize-winning short stories for adults, now self-published in three collections. She has also self-published a book to help fellow-writers, called 'How to create believable characters using the Enneagram'. She is the ACW short story adviser and runs the Writing for Children Facebook group with Sally Todd. She blogs monthly on her website at http://www.veronicabright.co.uk