HERE BRING THY WOUNDED HEART...

Here Bring Thy Wounded Heart… (reposted by request)

Just over six weeks ago my life changed completely. It was the end of a wonderfully ‘active’ holiday in England, just 2 days before returning home to the USA and then, a much anticipated two week drive to various corners of the country to visit family and say farewell before making a long-planned move to the UK.

My hostess, and now fiancé Glad, and I stopped for lunch at a restaurant offering a beautiful view of Exeter and its magnificent Cathedral. I had been taking photos at every turn, yet when seeing the immense cathedral from the unique perch provided from the 4th floor vista my interest turned lethargic, as did my interest in the food placed in front of me. What followed is a bit of a blur... Glad kept saying;”your words are slurred.” I had no sense whatsoever that my speech was in the least bit slurred. It was at that time that I began to feel weak so we decided to head back to her SA quarters as I had a number of students' essays to grade (I’d brought work with me to complete on my holiday. ) As we walked to the car park I felt more and more weak and had to lean on Glad as we walked- Glad immediately grasped the gravity of the situation and called the nearest hospital to share her observations and to ask if I should be brought in to be examined.

Twenty minutes later I was being examined and x-rayed and it took the doctors only minutes to determine that I had suffered a stroke. I was immediately checked in and wheeled to the stroke unit. The night brought moments of near panic as the wails of several patients echoed in the dark. There were also 2 visits by orderlies wheeling in gurneys with bundled up yet-to-be-filled body bags !

By the next morning I realised I’d lost complete use of the left side of my body and a rigorous series of tests were begun. IV drips were in place and a heart monitor was attached. I attempted to walk to the bathroom several times only to fall hard to the floor. The staff used a mechanical hoist to move me back to bed and wrote in big letters on the chalk board above my bed ‘do not allow patient to attempt moving about on his own’. I finally understood the extent of my paralysis and my physical limitations now began to impact on my psyche. On that bright sunny morning began for me the dark night of the soul.

Most of us when we encounter major catastrophes in life are fortunate in being able to turn to someone having had a similar experience and who can talk us through both the physical and psychological challenges. I was immediately surrounded by a host of wonderful new friends from the Exeter Temple Corps. The term ‘Salvationist family’ took on once again a very special meaning especially since my own family was thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic. E-mails and ‘Get well’ cards arrived from many parts of the world and were very, very welcome. However, as nightfall came, with friends now heading home came that very real but yet, confused internal world that no-one could have warned me about. It was an unwelcome and totally unknown state that shook and threatened my spiritual resolve. Where and to whom can I turn? This was different...

I took out my New Testament and SA songbook and decided, as we all have done from time to time, just to simply open it and see what words might confront me. These are the words that I first saw (SASB no. 573)
‘From every stormy wind that blows,
From every swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat;
‘Tis found beneath the Mercy Seat.’ -beneath ? under ? a hiding place ??? a place to escape to ?

Captain Nigel Bovey in his well-researched book ‘The Mercy Seat’ shares the definition of the Mercy Seat as defined by a number of SA and other notables. Most of them refer to the Mercy Seat as a place to seek forgiveness and grace. I would add to their definitions that it's that holy space and place I have visited hundreds of times, most recently just the week prior to my stroke, at the Exeter Temple Corps where the large words inscribed on it are; HERE BRING THY WOUNDED HEART... we seek a present, up-to-date spiritual union with our past in that place where we know a loving Saviour friend awaits. On my hospital bed I brought to Jesus my wounded (physically and psychologically) heart with the words of the song 420
‘I bring my heart to Jesus, with its fears,
With its hopes and feelings and its tears….

As I read those words with eyes blurred, a combination of damage to my eyes from the stroke and tears what I really wanted to do was crawl under the mercy seat and there remain- to hide with only God Himself present...

The Exeter Songster Leader (Rona Walton) on her visit to my bedside shared the words from the Songster selection ‘Prayer’ ,

‘Prayer is … the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye when none but God is near

Bovey shares in his book the concern of David Hammond, a Canadian, that the original purpose of the Mercy Seat is being lost in the transition from being a ‘Penitent Form’ where the big two crisis. Salvation and Sanctification were resolved. Is it too simple to suggest that each of us be allowed to define and seek our own definition of the Mercy Seat and our private reason for holy visits? Am I off the mark in making my hospital bed my Mercy Seat ? This Ascension week Paul reminds us in Eph.4:10 that Christ ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe; by any definition that includes my hospital room. ‘I have a friend O such a friend Who loved me ‘ere I knew Him’ He knows me and He resides with me here, in the stroke ward, and He knows you. He understands my pain and sympathises with me. He is the friend who forgives, restores and renews me physically, psychologically and spiritually.

We come to the Mercy Seat for a number of reasons beyond the obvious. Jesus left His closest friends- and knelt at ‘His Mercy Seat, not for salvation or sanctification but for assurance…it was at a time when friend’s concern, care and empathy didn’t fully bring the necessary spiritual and psychological comfort He sought. He chose a boulder in the Garden of Gethsemane as His Mercy Seat as He tearfully pleaded with His Father. Paraphrasing Henri Nouwen; Jesus created space in His heart for He who is greater, for He whose vision was clearer, seeking the Father’s approval and healing touch. The humanity of Jesus displayed in the garden is what enables Him to step into our human frailty as both our Healer and Intercessor.

He is there for us all when the clouds of doubt roll in; as they do ! We have a Hiding Place- a Mercy Seat.

Dr. Sven Ljungholm
Middletown Corps Ct. USA
(presently under the flag in Exeter UK)