Disappeared

Image by J Prem from Pixabay

I am haunted by the story of the missing mother, who disappeared along the banks of the River Wyre in Lancashire over a week ago. The police theory is that she may have fallen into the river. Her anguished family are traumatised by the endless hurtful speculation on the internet. Therefore I will not add a hashtag with her name to this post.

I am praying that she will be found. To not know her fate is far worse than knowing, however terrible the truth may be.

The story of her disappearance haunts me because I too once knew someone who disappeared without a trace. She was a friend of my sister’s, and I met her many times at my sister’s church. We went on a walking holiday in Switzerland in 1991, and Pat and her husband were part of the group. They emigrated to New Zealand some years ago to join their family there. Pat began to develop Alzheimers’. One afternoon in January 2017 she went out for a walk around the block, wearing a lanyard to identify who she was. Then she vanished. There was a massive police search. The story hit the NZ national headlines. Nothing. No trace. She has never been found.

Her home was near the sea, and it is possible that she ended up lost in the Pacific Ocean. It’s a dreadful ending to contemplate for a committed Christian who had a robust, joyful faith and was much loved and respected by her family and friends. And there is a very dark question at the back of my mind, as I’m sure it lurks at the back of yours … if God can allow such a terrible thing to happen to a faithful, servant-hearted person like her, how on earth can we trust Him – for ANYTHING?

As Christian writers, I think it important to tackle these hard questions or at least to think about them. Tough themes may not be the main focus of our writing, of course, and I’m not suggesting they have to be. A writer is not obliged to tackle every single trauma out there. Writing to inspire, to comfort and to entertain is every bit as valid as delving into darker themes.

Yet it is a writer's nature to capture the human experience, both the light and the darkness. Christians know that God’s people are not always magically protected from terror and trauma. The massive difference – and it makes all the difference – is that we don’t believe in a nihilistic, meaningless universe in which people can disappear and it doesn’t mean anything. The lives of these two women who vanished without a trace are immeasurably precious. They lived. They were loved. They are still loved. I dare to believe that somehow – SOMEHOW – all this can be redeemed, ultimately, when Christ makes the whole universe new.

Writing about such things helps too. Whatever you are facing personally, may God use your writing gift as a channel and also a catalyst for healing and strength.

I’m an Anglican lay minister: my day job is administrator for the education and learning department of the United Reformed Church. I wrote a devotional for the anthology Light for the Writer’s Soul published by Media Associates International, and my short story ‘Magnificat’ appears in the ACW Christmas anthology Merry Christmas Everyone.