Thought for the week: Deep Christian faith provides resilience and serenity
In 1975 I became the minister of Pettigo Methodist Church in Fermanagh, just yards from the border with Co Donegal.
It was there that I met Hazel and her father George who owned a respected grocery and hardware business in Pettigo.
They were stalwart church members, whose forebears were linked to the beginnings of Methodism in the area, going back to the Rev John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.
Whenever I visited Hazel I never left without a cup of tea and a word of encouragement.
Recently, as I watched the newsreels of the fires burning in Los Angeles and listened to the moving stories of those who had been left with nothing, Hazel came to mind.
In 2001, some time after her father’s death, one evening when Hazel was in bed the house went on fire, and everything was destroyed.
All her personal effects were gone but Hazel herself escaped.
Nothing was left, not even her spectacles, and priceless memories and family history were lost forever.
After the fire, people from both sides of the border and religious divide supported Hazel with many acts of kindness.
After a few days I spoke to Hazel and was amazed at her incredible resilience and serenity.
She had a strong personal Christian faith and told me she thanked the Lord continually for sparing her life. Suffering from smoke inhalation in 2007, six years after the fire, Hazel died.
If there was anyone who fulfilled the words of Jesus, it was Hazel:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”