Cloud and Fire

Today, I woke up in a fairly commercial camp site after an early hours time of screaming children and merry adults; my thoughts were muddled and negative, my old anxieties just below the surface. I felt tired of my own tourist tracks, I hoped to find something older, friendlier and more comfortable.

As I set off on my bike, my mood lifted, when travelling on a typical 45 mile day, the first ten miles seem sluggish, but I soon got  into the swing of things and my mood lifted as the scenery grew wilder.

I knew a challenge lay ahead, at the end of today’s ride there was a tough climb ( my second ever toughest climb according to Strava). Yes, it was tough!

When I arrived, the owner slowed me down, he made me a free cup of tea with a kit kat and I felt myself experiencing an unexpected emotional peace, the partial quenching of an unconscious longing.

C S Lewis describes this as a kingdom of God longing for the fragmented memory of a memory of a spiritual place we have never fully seen but which our inner heart longs for. Today at this camp site I sense a fragment of shalom, a tiny healing of brokenness, as a Kingdom of God peace is stirred within my soul.