A quarter past ten at night, just after mid-summer. The sun had set a while ago, but it was still quite light, even though there was a thick covering of cloud. I sat on the river bank and marvelled at the expanse around me. I was just losing sight of the Kesteven highlands in the southwest as the light dimmed. Behind me in the distance was the tower of St Botolph's church in Boston (the Boston Stump), not far from the coast of the Wash. To the southeast the tower at Pinchbeck was visible and, in the northwest, Bicker church. All told, the area visible around me covered around 300 square miles, where not obscured by trees. The wind was blowing strongly and there was some drizzle in the air. Looking south across the river one house was in sight, but this was a wild night with the weather marking its dominance across the swathes of open land around me.
I had had a hard day. There was a lot to do and it had not all got done. Several questions had arisen and not yet been answered. I was tired and God didn't seem to be talking about any of my problems. So I sat on the bank and waited. As it became darker, I could now just make out the reeds swaying below me near the water and the clouds above were becoming black.
All apart from one very small area towards the southwest, which was shining quite brightly. At first I thought that the moon must be behind it, but I knew that there was a full moon that night which would be further west. The bright area scudded across the sky, westwards, and I realized that it was a thin region. As it passed over the moon, it allowed just the top eighth to appear (the tip of the iceberg) as if through a window. It looked then as if it were actually a complete hole in the cloud, but after 20 seconds that section had passed by the moon, the sky went dark and the hole seemed to fill in.
As the last bit of the moon disappeared, God said to me, "Hello, I'm still here, just going behind the cloud." That was enough. My work still hadn't been done, my questions were still not answered, but God was there and he knew and he didn't want to talk about my problems then, but he also didn't want me to feel alone. And I didn't.
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