Day Ten: County Donegal
Sunday 10 May
The annual VOX magazine Finding Faith Tour looks very different this year. Instead of a 7-day road trip around the island, this year VOX editor Ruth Garvey-Williams brings you highlights from all 32 counties (one per day plus one for each of the 31 days in May). Contact Ruth if you have a story to share.
Day Ten: New Insight during Self-Isolation
Lockdown seemed very comfortable for Liam Burns and his wife Joyce in Greencastle, Co. Donegal. A retired physics teacher living within sight of beautiful Lough Foyle, Liam baked more kinds of bread than ever before and enjoyed walks within the 2km radius of his home.
But two weeks ago, Liam began experiencing symptoms. “Suddenly the disease had crossed our threshold, despite staying at home with hardly any contact with other people during lockdown. Now we had a new threshold within our home (I moved into the granny flat and stayed isolated from Joyce).
“I was fast-tracked for a test and the fact that I was barely able to drive to the test centre in Letterkenny reinforced the sense of impending doom. Let’s just say that you find your mind turning to putting your affairs in order. That sense didn’t last very long but you have to leave your mind open to the possibility, and it was certainly the uppermost worry for my family.”
The experience of illness (for 12 days Liam spent 80% of the time in bed, completely exhausted, with a persistent cough, and needing to learn how to use voice recognition in order to send messages) caused him to reflect on his faith. Although the loving concern and prayers of so many were a great encouragement and support, the many kindly prayers for his full recovery caused him some degree of pondering.
“We can live in a comfort bubble. But if I believe that God is sovereign, that God is all powerful and that God is good, I have to allow that sometimes God requires His people to journey with others who are suffering and dying. It is not that I reject prayers for health but that I want to hold on to the goodness of God no matter what happens. So if anybody is praying that I get back to my comfort bubble, I’m not saying, ‘Amen’ to that prayer!
“Through it all, my overwhelming sense was, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul!’”
“Even Covid cannot take that away from me,” Liam says. “God does give His people protection but they may also find themselves going through deep dark valleys and finding new purpose there.”
At the end of the week, Liam’s Covid test came back negative, although as a scientist he understands the margin of error, but he was grateful at least to be reunited with Joyce and to start the long road to recovery. But he does this with a profound sense of those core truths of God’s sovereignty, His power and His goodness - “To be honest, in the months before all this my devotional life had got a bit limp and weak so I welcomed this sense that God was making Himself more real to me in a perhaps harsh but fresh way!”
