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I made a discovery last week which shook me. I realised that give or take a day or two, this was the fiftieth anniversary of an event I’ve never marked, rarely spoken of, and thought about very little, but in retrospect was probably pretty significant. It was the day I nearly died. It was a gloriously sunny morning on a beach in Jersey. I was on holiday with my elder brother. He was a natural swimmer with a string of certificates - and medals from the Abertillery Shiverers Life Saving Club, no less; I’d always struggled to keep afloat. Within minutes of splashing into the water, my feet began to sink, my legs were swept from beneath me, and however hard I fought, I kept going under. My brother reached me, but his rescue attempt resulted in him getting into difficulties too. Beneath that water, I sensed clearly and incredulously that this might really be The End. And then fortunately, a team of lifeguards arrived, and we were hauled out and deposited far from the waves, choking, spluttering, having experienced a very big fright. Not an anniversary we’d want to celebrate. But fifty years on, I’m sure I shouldn’t be forgetting it. The reminder should at very least make me a more grateful person. I know we thanked the lifeguards: I don’t recall ever saying thank you to the brother who tried to rescue me; and now it’s too late. Last year 168 people drowned around the coasts of Britain: why did I survive? At least three thousand, no less valuable or loved, have died in the Mediterranean this year, fleeing conflict, terror and acute poverty: why should I have been spared? Unanswerable questions. Yet images from every day’s news should prompt them. We look again at the dazed, bloodied face of Omran Daqneesh, the five-year-old pulled from his bombed home in Aleppo - heartbreaking in his seemingly dead-eyed lostness. Here’s a child who should be playing carefree with his friends, but many of his age have been killed, and he’s never known anything but war. O God, why? we might want to scream. But no easy answer comes back. With other Christians, I’m sustained by the trust that God is with us through the most terrible agonies, that he shows in the suffering Jesus the willingness to share the pain, and the desire to rescue from all that oppresses. But it doesn’t unlock all the mysteries. Yet many of us have survived assorted scrapes, near misses, failures which could have ended in total disaster. No lifeguards needed, maybe, but we’re sure we’ve been rescued. For what purpose? All I know is that now I’ve been saved - and it’s so in any context - I have to think, what for?; and make use of it.