Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Baroness Caroline Cox of Queensbury, founder and chief executive officer of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust and guest speaker at the national prayer breakfast for Scotland.
Baroness Caroline Cox of Queensbury (Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust)
Presiding Officer, members of the Scottish Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the opportunity to share a brief reflection.
My Christian faith is often challenged and sometimes very shaky. One of the greatest challenges is the reality of suffering. As a nurse, I daily encountered the suffering of other people’s illness and death; in my personal life, I grieved for the death of my brother aged 22 from cancer. Now, much of my time is spent with people who are suffering from war, persecution and oppression around the world.
As a Christian and someone who tries to believe in a loving, omniscient God, how do I reconcile that belief with the horrors that I witness? It is often with great difficulty, but I humbly offer one insight. This came to me in Sudan at the height of the war in 1994, after walking through killing fields, when my faith was profoundly challenged.
Incongruously, the idea occurred to me that one reason why we, who live in freedom and relative abundance, may fail to come to terms with such suffering is perhaps reflected in how we keep Christmas. Of course we rejoice in the birth of baby Jesus and the manifestation of God’s love but, in all the festivities, we tend to forget that, while Mary was celebrating the birth of her son, other mothers were weeping for their sons who were killed by Herod.
My thoughts continued to Good Friday. When Christ was dying in agony, all his mother could do was stand at the foot of the cross, while the sword of grief pierced her heart. Finally, it occurred to me that perhaps part of any Christian’s calling should be to be prepared to attend whatever Calvarys our Lord may call us to, and to be present, as Mary was, in heartbroken love and immense respect. For, at the foot of the cross, we can glimpse some insights into the redemptive power of sacrificial love.
Those Calvarys may be on our own doorsteps, but those of us who are privileged to visit victims of persecution are often humbled and inspired by their courage, faith and love. A lady from the Karen tribe in Burma, Ma Su, who was shot by a Burmese soldier, is just one example of such reconciling love. When I asked her how she felt about the soldier who shot her, her reply was simple:
“I love him. The Bible tells us we must love our enemies. So of course I love him. He is my brother”.
Her words echo Christ’s words on the cross, praying for forgiveness for those who were inflicting his death. They demonstrate the power of redeeming love, show how God can be a very present help in trouble and testify to his faithfulness, which endures from generation to generation.
I thank you for letting me share those brief words.