I’ve never forgotten the account of a fishing village on the coast of Cornwall, facing potential disaster years ago. Although well accustomed to the force of prevailing south westerly winds blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean, one afternoon an altogether unexpected storm arose, battering the Cornish coastline. Ominous clouds amassed, driving winds howled, whipping cold grey seas into a frenzy.
Lifeboat Station at Polpeor Cove on Lizard Point, Cornwall, England. Photo: SlimMars13, pexels.com
Murray Smith
Anxious villagers worried for their fishing boat fleet which had set sail before daybreak, to undoubtedly have ended up caught in the storm’s tempest. With skies darkening and the storm intensifying, the villagers’ concerns grew. By late afternoon, locals clustered on the foreshore – silently staring seaward. Nobody would sleep that night.
As the storm raged mercilessly throughout the coming hours, screams from a bayside home, were heard above the howling wind. A fire lit for warmth, had gone wrong and was burning fiercely. A mother, wife of one of the fishermen at sea, had snatched her children from their beds and now stood wailing and shivering helplessly as villager’s best efforts to contain the blazing house fire were abandoned. The flames crackled on, spitting sparks into the black skies.
Overnight the terrible weather gradually subsided. A family losing their home, amplified the unspoken fear in hearts contemplating an even more unbearable loss to the storm’s violence – the loss of their fleet with lives of husbands, fathers, sons, brothers crewing the boats… the majority of the community’s providers.
With the sun rising, villagers gathered on the calm foreshore – a stark contrast to the boisterous night that had slowly surrendered to daybreak. Prayerful, hopeful hearts waited in silence. Suddenly, a startling shout split the stillness… “There!” “Look!”
Fishing Boats on Sea. Photo: Lee Duc, pexels.com
A tiny silhouette of a fishing boat had appeared on the horizon… then another, soon one more, until slowly, the entire fleet was accounted for… all heading home. Tears of joy flowed as thankfulness and relieved hugs ‘drew’ the fleet closer to dockside.
The water’s-edge reunion was indescribable, tainted only by one poor woman’s plight with children clinging to her skirt, carrying shattering news to her husband, of a fire destroying all their earthly belongings the previous night.
Drawing her lovingly to himself, he cried exuberantly, “Thank God Almighty for that fire!”
He explained the terrifying ordeal of being lost in the middle of the storm. Raging, darkened seas and skies left the crews without bearings for determining a course home. Without any assurance of which direction land lay in, striking out in the wrong direction would have sealed their fate. But suddenly a speck of flickering light had appeared through the dark, miles away, between wave crests… it had to be land and they set their course for it. That light was their ‘salvation’- the flames of a family’s home burning to the ground.
This poignant story carries a message for us in a darkened world, lost and confused. Life’s storms destroy our ‘bearings’ but it’s into our mess that Jesus calls out, “I am the light of the world.” He laid down His life to shine the way to bring us safely home.
We have a choice, like those fisherman. Will we be wise enough to ‘follow the Light’?
Storm, Cornwall coast. Photo: Ericson Fernandes, pexels.com
