‘We are in the Business of Hope’.
These words jumped out at me when I opened a recent email from the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI).
A few years ago I collected donations for the RNLI. Still in contact with this charity, I receive emails containing stories and videos of recent rescues around the U.K.
This latest email recounts a rescue by Gavin Steeden, Deputy Coxswain of Swanage Lifeboat Station.
‘I’ll never forget seeing hope in the eyes of two sailors as they were plucked from the bow of their sinking yacht by my crew. It was a stormy evening, the sailors were doing night time navigation training when their yacht ran aground so hard the rocks holed the vessel and it began to take in water. One minute I was home sound asleep, the next I was at sea with the crew. When it’s your job to launch into raging seas because somebody needs you, you’ve got to have hope in your heart. And you hope upon hope that you bring your crew and survivors back home safely to their families. That hope comes from caring’.
When Paul asked me to write a ‘Thought for the Day’ about hope, that got me thinking, ‘what is hope’? The dictionary explains it as ‘Looking forward with optimism’.
Never more was this the case as during the two World Wars. In 1939, to keep up the morale of the overseas armed forces, the BBC granted Dame Vera Lynn a programme called ‘Sincerely Yours.’ Of course ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ were always included. Not everyone was in favour of the sentimentality of the songs, believing it would cause homesickness. However, it was soon found that the hope element of the lyrics was a great boost to both military and families alike.
I was aged six when the Second World War broke out. By the winter of 1940/41 air raids were a nightly occurrence. I remember vividly one such raid. There was no warning by wailing siren of an imminent attack. My parents and us children, four in all, including new born baby, were nervously huddled together at the foot of the stairs, unable to get to the Anderson shelter because of gun fire, shells and shrapnel. The well-known drone sound of enemy aircraft overhead confirmed the dangers. I recollect my father saying to us trembling bairns, ‘right, courie-in and we’ll all say The Lord’s Prayer’. We hoped our prayers would get us to the protection of the shelter. Warfare subsided, we ran to safety, prayers answered.
This last year of ‘lockdowns’ has been a testing time for everyone. One hope now is that vaccines prove reliable, and like smallpox, polio and scarlet fever, the Covid 19 virus will be a rarity. Surely the latest news of the slow easing of restrictions is a reassurance that better days are ahead.
One of my favourite hymns, because of the enduring words, is ‘My hope is based onnothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness . . . in every wild and stormy gale my anchor holds and will not fail’.
Adrienne
