Christian writers

The Fear Factor

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Photo by Karl Paul Baldacchino on Unsplash

It was a beautiful summer day. My friend, Lynn, and I chatted as we strolled among groups of people heading for one of B.C.’s main tourist attractions. I had glanced at the brochure Lynn showed me the day before and had a moment of hesitation when I saw the picture. Since falling on the cliffs on the north shore of Lake Superior the year before, I had developed a fear of heights, but I listened as Lynn read the details in the brochure and was confident I would have no problem.

We rounded the bend in the path and there it was, The Capilano Suspension Bridge. I watched as a young boy ran out onto it and jumped up and down. The bridge bounced and swayed. I hesitated. Lynn stepped boldly out and was almost half way across before she realized I wasn’t behind her. She waved me on. I took a deep breath and stepped onto the creaking boards.

I made it about two meters. Then that same young boy ran onto the bridge from the opposite end and jumped up and down again. The bridge swayed and buckled. I froze. My hands seemed glued to the steel cable, my feet would not move and my eyes would not focus on anything but the roaring Capilano River, two hundred and fifty feet below. I had never had a panic attack before. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I knew I could not move, neither forward nor back. I heard Lynn calling from the far side of the gorge, but I could not turn my head away from the river below.

Then I felt Lynn’s hand on mine. She urged me to look at her, and I finally pulled my eyes away from the gorge. I allowed her to remove one of my hands from the steel cable. Then I shuffled my feet as she led me back toward the closest side of the gorge.

Fear. It can destroy all sense of logic and reason. I knew the statistics about the bridge – that the cables were encased in thirteen tons of concrete at both ends. I knew that thousands of people had walked across it safely. But fear blocked all reason and left me paralyzed.

When we are in a place of extreme stress, fear can be a powerful factor. Like that day on that bridge, it can keep us from moving forward. At such times it’s good to have a friend like Lynn, one who will gently guide and lead us back to a place where we feel safe. Jesus is standing beside us, ready to be that friend. Through the prophet Isaiah, He says –

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

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Happy to be a Winner

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True Faith Acknowledges True Love

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Photo by Chandan Chaurasia on Unsplash

Why is it we struggle to believe God loves us? The enemy of our souls keeps whispering, and sometimes screaming, that God does not even care that we exist. That’s how I felt when I was in high school, watching some of my teachers who seemed to have a strong connection to God. I tried to do all the things I was told would get me into his “good books” but none of it worked. I knew I was faking it and eventually became frustrated and angry, sure that God wanted nothing to do with me. So I walked away from the church and from God, telling myself He didn’t exist.

I think there is an underlying knowledge in our souls that we are part of the world that “lay in sin and error pining,” as that wonderful Christmas carol, Oh Holy Night, says. We are all too aware of our dark side, the side that is capable of horrific things. We cringe when we hear about those who commit them, because deep down inside we know we are no better.

There is a story about a Jewish man who was called to give testimony at the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War 2. The man had been a victim of the Holocaust, imprisoned in one of the camps where thousands were tortured to death. As he walked toward the witness box, he faced one of his torturers and collapsed. The judge assumed he was overwhelmed by the atrocities that had been committed by the Nazi on trial, but he said no, he was overwhelmed by the knowledge that he was capable of doing the same.

Yes, we know the depth of our darkness, if we are honest with ourselves. But that darkness has been overcome by the mercy and grace of God. To deny that truth is to deny what Christ’s death means – that we have been freed from the chains of our sin and made righteous. As the wonderful  O Holy Night, says, “He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.”

Henri Nouwen says it well – “When Jesus talks about faith he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining it.” We can live in the light of that truth by staying close to God, reading His word, following His commands, listening to the Holy Spirit who lives within us.

When we listen to His voice, the enemy has no power over us. We belong to Jesus. He knows us, loves us deeply and “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62:5)

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If you’d like to read more about the struggle to believe God loves you, send me an email to let me know and I’ll add you to the list to be informed when my memoir, Pond’rings is available.

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A Day at the Beach and a Few Links of Interest

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Photo by Storiès on Unsplash

The day couldn’t have been more perfect. The sky was clear, the sun dancing off the water. The beach slowly filled with parents and children, out to enjoy a day at the beach. After an overnight camp‑out, my friend and I had brought a few girls from our church’s Kids’ Club to have a swim and a picnic. We stretched out on the sand and chatted as we watched the children play. Little ones were busy making sandcastles. An older pair tossed a frisbee above their heads.

A little red-haired girl caught my attention. She had wandered in front of us a few times, as she dashed from the edge of the lake to her mother, sitting in a lawn chair not far away. I watched as she stood still, her small head bent studiously over something in her hand. She turned and started toward us, stopped and peered at her hand once more, took a few more steps and stopped again. Her progress was slow as this pattern was repeated. As she approached, I could see a moth cupped in her palm. She tilted her hand each time it moved, stopped when it crawled dangerously close to the edge and moved slowly forward when it was secure again. Eventually the little girl reached her parent, holding her hand out for her to admire the precious treasure.

My delight in watching that little girl deepened as I realized God had just given me a picture of Himself. His care for each one of us is no less complete than the careful protection she provided for that small moth. Isaiah 46:4(b) says ‑ “I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” God holds us in His hand and takes great care to keep us there. In John 17:12, as Jesus prays to His Father on our behalf, He says ‑ “I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost …”

Like that child who was so obviously pleased to show her mom the treasure in her hand, Jesus delights in presenting us to His Father, the God of the Universe. We are His precious ones. As He prayed in John 17, Jesus presented us to His Father and asked Him to protect us, to set us apart from the evil in the world and draw us into a complete relationship with Himself. He makes some startling statements in that passage, statements which reveal the depth of the concern and love God has for us. He says ‑ “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” How incredible to think God loves us as much as he does His own Son!

Are you aware of being cupped in God’s hand? Know his love and protection are sure. “None has been lost …”

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Healing in Laughter

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A gift from my daughter

My daughter made me laugh last night. Not just a chuckle or a short snort but an open-mouthed, body-shaking, tears-streaming guffaw. I needed it. Badly. I’ve been a bit under the cloud of cultural confusion and chaos that seems to be prevalent in our world right now, leaving me with a persistent frown in the face of wars and weather that erupts without warning, leaving death, destruction, and gut-wrenching sorrow behind. It all tends to take the joy away.

Meg’s laughter stunned me because she and her new husband have had nothing but a relentless breaking down lately. Appliances, vehicles, basement foundations, among others. They’ve met it all with humour that I’ve heard ringing in her voice as she talked with her dad. She’s always been a ‘daddy’s girl.’ They say caesarean babies bond best with their fathers. It makes sense since his were the first arms that cradled her, the first voice that welcomed her, while I lay under the lingering anaesthetic and then a haze of morphine. So I’ve always been on the sidelines, watching, not sad but a little wistful. But last night she drew me in and that has driven the gloom away. At least, most of it.

I’d been thinking about Wendy lately. One of my ‘wild women of the Yukon’ friends who has been gone for a while now. The hole she left is still here. She was my neighbour years ago, my mothering mentor. She’d had four when I had my first and found myself treading water in an ocean of rather big waves. She floated around me, showing me how to keep my head above water. It was Wendy I called when I found myself in labour 500 kilometres from home, alone in the Whitehorse hospital. It was her voice that steadied me, assured me the prayers wouldn’t fail, that Spence would get there in time. He did.

She was also the only other believer in that clutch of Yukon friends, the one who would make eye contact in a way the others never could. That made the hole she left deeper and harder to fathom in all the reunions since.

I got the call that she was gone from one of the other WWoY women, just after I’d hauled my suitcase up from the basement. I think I had already put a few things in it, anticipating our annual reunion which was supposed to happen that weekend in Wendy’s big warm welcoming farmhouse. The shock kept me from weeping for some time. She was ten years younger than me. She died alone, in her kitchen, which was her happy place. That has been a small comfort.

The first anniversary of her death came with a shock too – how had a whole year gone by without her? To ease the grief I wrote this –

On the Death of a Friend

When sorrow overwhelms

the heart, the soul, the mind,

slow their pacing

to take in the pain

let it seep slowly in

let it flow with the heart’s blood,

rest in the crucible of the soul

spark the synapses of the brain

with its own rhythm

until the one lost

to our reaching hands,

beyond our seeking eyes,

our yearning ears,

becomes one

instilled

inside

the heart the soul the mind

until our being

is gladdened at last

in the remembering.

I’d forgotten to be gladdened in the remembering, allowed the sadness to become a burden again, one that could only be banished by open-mouthed, body-shaking, tears-streaming laughter.

Thanks Meg. I so needed that.

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The Necessity of Water

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Photo by Sonika Agarwal on Unsplash

 “Is it hot enough for you?”

The director of the Pacific Orientation Course grinned at me. I’m sure he knew what my response would be. Like most Canadians, I prefer the temperatures to be a bit on the cool side. When we were preparing to leave for Papua New Guinea a few years ago, I was quite concerned because extreme heat tended to make me ill. I’d get raging headaches, sometimes migraines. The idea of living just a couple of degrees off the equator did not thrill me. But I was given some wise advice by someone in the know, just before we left. When I told him how anxious I was about being able to take the heat, he said, “Oh yes, you Canadians. I have one word for you. Water.”

“Water?” I asked.

“Yes, water,” he said. “Dehydration is probably the cause of the headaches. Drink as much as you can. Never be without a water bottle. I guarantee you won’t get headaches if you drink enough water.”

I was dubious, but I made sure I took a large water bottle along for each member of our family.

We had opportunity to test the theory immediately, since our first two weeks were spent at the Pacific Orientation Centre, also known as “jungle camp,” in the lowlands of PNG where the temperatures sometimes reached into the high thirties, coupled with a humidity of about ninety-five percent. The director of the camp kept after us all to drink water. We spent a lot of time under the tropical sun, or in a class-room environment, (without air conditioning). Our water bottles were never left behind. And it worked. I did not have many headaches in PNG. Water. Such a simple thing, such a vital thing. Without it, we become ill and quickly die.

Jesus once asked a woman for a drink of water. He tells her if she knew who he was, she would ask him for water. She mocks him, asking how he plans to give her water when he has nothing with which to draw it from the well. And Jesus answered – “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:11- 14, NIV).

Physically, human being can survive for only about three days without water. Spiritually, we won’t live long without the water of life Jesus speaks of. It is a simple thing, a necessary thing. Without it we become spiritually ill and eventually we will die. It is the water of His Spirit, the water of His forgiveness, the water of His grace, available for the asking. You don’t need a bucket to contain it, or even a cup. All you need is a longing heart waiting to be filled.

The exciting thing about the water Jesus gives is that it pours out again, like the spring he spoke of. His forgiveness, His grace, His Spirit pour out of the one who is indwelt by Him, flowing freely to others. And the spring never runs dry because it is connected to the source of all life.

Who would refuse such a gift?

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Remembering Mom

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I attended a play at the Rosebud Theatre some time ago. It was a comedy about death. The dead person was a mother and two of us sitting in the audience had just lost our mothers to that very real and ever-present scourge, cancer. You wouldn’t think we’d find anything about that play funny, but we did. We laughed uproariously as the “Last Supper Committee” prepared the lunch in the kitchen and the harried funeral director tried to manipulate everything so that there would be at least a few people attending the “viewing.” You see the mother in this play wasn’t someone you would remember fondly. But I laughed and I cried and I thought of my mom.

Mom’s life wasn’t always easy. She was an only child of a single mother, raised in a small town during the 20’s and 30’s. She started to work in a florist’s shop when she was only twelve, met my father when she was sixteen, married him when she was seventeen but didn’t tell anyone for a year due to “complications” in both families. They had two children and then she said good-bye to her husband for almost six years as the Second World War raged. She welcomed a stranger home at the end of that time, had two more children and followed him five hundred miles to a new community and a new risk as they opened their first family shoe store. They opened a second store just as a large department store opened across the street. They lost their businesses, their home, more than a few friends. My mom’s mother came to live with us all and more challenges came with her. My father developed bleeding ulcers and almost died. More than once.

Through it all, Mom clung to her faith in God and tried to put a positive spin on even the most difficult of circumstances. When she was eighty years old someone gave her a new purse. When I admired it she said, “Yes, it’s nice but it’s kind of an old lady’s purse, don’t you think?” When I reminded her of her age she looked surprised, then laughed at herself. “But I’m not that old, really,” she said. It was many more years before she finally did seem “that old.”

My mother would have liked the play we saw in Rosebud. She had a strong sense of irony and a deep vein of humour that often rose to the surface for all to see. She would have liked the honesty of it – the way the characters finally admit their true feelings, their fears and their flaws. She would have liked the healing of it too – the healing that happened in the play and the healing that happened in the audience. Because Mom knew you couldn’t take life or death too seriously. She knew there was something more for us all. Now she’s enjoying that “something more” firsthand. I miss her. But I smile when I think of her. And that’s a gift for which I am very grateful.

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Just for Writers

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The Man with a Broom in His Hands

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 The day had been hot and the walk through the gardens longer than I had anticipated. I was among the first few people to return to the tour bus that day and it was a relief to step into the air-conditioned environment. As we waited for the others to return, our driver called our attention to a man in the parking lot. “See that guy?” he asked. The man was dressed in over-alls, with a base-ball cap pulled down to shade his eyes as he pushed a long broom toward the gutter. He looked like any other maintenance man you might see in a park. The driver paused for effect. “He’s the owner of this place.” He let the words sink in. “In fact, he’s the one who created it.”

 I stared out the window again. I thought of all the beautiful flowers, shrubs and trees we had just seen, the landscaping that had been done with skill and attention to detail. The gardens were world-renowned for good reason. I was shocked that the man who was responsible for it all was sweeping the parking lot. As our bus rolled away, I watched a large crowd heading for the entrance. They flowed around the man in the over-alls like water around a rock. No-one spoke to him. No-one even seemed to notice him. I wondered what they’d do and say if they knew who he was.

How often do we do that to God?

Even if we acknowledge that He did create the world we live in, we think of Him as the executive who stays in his office and calls the shots from there. We don’t expect to find Him with a broom in His hands. But that’s exactly where God is. He is present with us in every circumstance. Even better, His Spirit is living in us and working through us. He has His hands on the same broom we do. He walks the same roads, drives the same highways. He’s here, waiting for us to see Him, waiting for us to acknowledge his presence.

I still wonder what those people would have said and done, had they known who that man with the broom was. I wonder if they would have thanked him for the treasure he created and opened for their pleasure. I wonder if they would have been in awe, or just a little bit intimidated. And I wonder why it was we who knew sat in our seats and did nothing. We didn’t rush out and shake his hand. We didn’t express our thankfulness for the beauty we’d just seen and experienced. We drove away, watching that crowd ignore him.

There are a lot of verses in scripture that can be used to praise God, to thank Him, to give Him glory. The Psalms are full of them. Perhaps we should all take a moment to read a few, not just out of obligation or habit, but with heart-felt emotion, to acknowledge Him.

For, “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise” (Ps.145:3).

An Easter Perspective on a Good Friday

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Mark 15:16-20

Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash

I moved slowly along the path laid out through the sanctuary, lit by tiny candles. Soft, rather mournful music set the tone. The stations of the cross were positioned along that path, each containing a passage of scripture and a piece of artwork. We had been encouraged to take our time, to let the visual depictions move our minds, our hearts and our souls as we focused on Jesus.

The very first image almost undid me. It was an impressionistic sketch of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Our Saviour, bowed to the ground, mourning. Each successive depiction was powerful in its own right but, it wasn’t until I came to one of the largest displays that I caught my breath.

A high bower held a stylized crown of thorns, its spears facing out toward me, seeming to stab the air. You had to look through them to read the scripture, (Mark 15:16-20, ESV): “And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters) and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!””

There was something powerful about that perspective, looking through that crown of thorns. The immensity of His humiliation left me stunned, my heart hurt by it, my mind trying to fathom it and my soul crying out because of it. The creator of the universe, enduring, indeed, allowing, such degradation, on my behalf. On your behalf.

I have seen many Easters over the 42 years since I became a believer. Many of them, to my shame, slipped by with barely any stirring in my heart, mind or soul. I pray it may not be so over the next span of however many years God allows me to sojourn on this earth. I pray I will always remember this perspective, peering through the crown of thorns, letting the words of scripture stab my soul. I pray I will never fail to take time to ponder the Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrow He endured willingly, in order to open the door to reconciliation with His Father.

I pray my face will always be wet with the tears I wept that day, in awe and thankfulness for so mighty, so merciful a Saviour.