Fflad y Brenin

Today we went to Fflad y Brenin, a Christian retreat centre in the heart of South Wales. It is so remote that it is astonishing that anyone would live there let alone have a retreat centre there. Yet not only is it a house of prayer it is also a ‘thin place’, a Celtic Christianity expression for a place where the presence of God is very close and real.

As we drove along increasingly narrow and windy roads, the rain lashed down in torrents and soon the road through the valley was running with water like a river. The directions were good and we found the signboard at the bottom of the very steep drive. At the top of the drive the views over the hills and down into the valleys are stunning. The rain continued to pour and we rushed into the safety of the room for day visitors and were given a cup of coffee. The views from here were just as stunning. 

Fflad y Brenin is the subject of a book by Roy Godwin called The Grace Outpouring and is a wonderful account of how God called people to build this house of prayer and of people meeting with God in this remote and beautiful place. The sense of God’s presence is real and yet understated. It is easy to find him if you reach out to him but I suspect it is also easy to ignore him if you choose to do so. The hungry heart is guaranteed an encounter though I found it was not what I expected. God has his own agenda to love and discipline as a loving Father does and he uses every opportunity that he can. I wanted to meet with God but God had some important business to conduct with me. Privately we dealt with some issues and chastened yet loved, I feel the better for it.

God’s plans for our lives and his love will never let us consistently persist in wrong attitudes. He loves us too much for that. Painful though it can be, His purpose is never to humiliate or discourage but to free us to climb to ever greater heights. He wants the best for his children and sometimes that means loving correction. To leave us to continue in our pride and presumption will merely mean greater pain and difficulty in the future that will hinder us and hurt others.

God always wants to do us good and his plans are so much bigger and better than ours. He does not want us stumbling over poor attitudes no matter what their source. He wants us to climb over our stumbling blocks blessing and honouring others even if they are not blessing and honouring us. If we are to fulfil God’s call for our lives then dealing with others in love and humility is essential.

The rain eased off sufficiently for us to walk down to the cross set high on a rocky outcrop on the edge of a steep hill overlooking the valley. People had laid stones and rocks there signifying laying down their burdens and there were notes and prayers to God disintegrating in the rain.

Ffald y Brenin is a very special place and even as we drove away after our short visit, the presence of God lingered on. Our lives had been touched and changed and at this place of blessing where it is so easy to meet with God, He had graciously blessed another hungry heart.