Advent 2013, Week 2: Peace for the Waiting

He sat slumped in his chair in the corner, for the first time since I have known him unable to summon a smile. "It's been two years now," he said softly.

She sent me a note. The birth mother had changed her mind: 

Just a bit ago we got a call from [her] birth mom, and she's reconsidering, and wants to come pick [her] up tomorrow. Throughout this whole process I've guarded my heart so carefully, and I do feel like even last night The Lord reminded me that we only have any child for the days he numbers.. But this is really hard, and our hearts are a mess right now. We appreciate your prayers, and really long to be able to say that all the time The Lord is good. Thanks for interceding for us. It's really hard to right now.

Last month Dad spoke to a local congregation, a message he entitled Here and Now. (To hear the whole thing, click here and then scroll over until you see Dr. Allan Ironside 11-17-13; follow that link).

Here speaks to place; now speaks to time, Dad prefaced his sermon. We all live in a here and a now.

He turned our attention toward the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, to the story of an elderly couple whose names were Elisabeth and Zechariah. Their here and now was Jerusalem in the rule of one of the terrible despot Herods. It was an awful time to be living, and yet despite everything they carried on with their lives and their callings.

Dad broke it down quite simply as follows:

Their character: In spite of their surroundings and difficulties, both Elisabeth and Zechariah were righteous before God. Zechariah was actually a priest in the temple.

Their problem: 1) Elisabeth is unable to have a child; and 2) they are both old.

"Consider what Elisabeth experienced!" Dad exclaimed. Verse 25 speaks of her reproach - for all those years she lived under a cloud of shame and disgrace. Very often in eastern cultures, even today, a woman who fails to bear a child is almost a pariah. "Elisabeth lives with this, and Zechariah feels it," Dad reminded us. 

Zechariah had been praying for years that they would have a child, but to no avail. "Sometimes we have to face delays in our lives: this was no yellow light - it was a red light." There was a sense of failure, a cloud of sorrow and helplessness in their home. 

And yet, through it all, the two of them remained righteous and blameless before God. They carried on loving him and serving him despite the burden they bore ...

Dad then got us to turn to Isaiah 28:23-29, where the prophet is insistent that we pay attention to what God is saying. "Give ear!" he urges. "Hear my voice! Hearken! Hear my speech!" We are to listen carefully and with intelligence; we are to respond with obedience.

Then the prophet talks about the different stages of growing a crop. First the soil must be prepared - but that is not forever. The land must be tilled. Next the seed appropriate to the soil is planted - not all the same seed.  And when it comes time to harvest, the crop is not extracted the same way - it depends on the crop itself.

God is the one who instructs this farmer on how to proceed, on how to make the best decisions for the most abundant crop. God wants what is best for us and he is wonderful in his leading. We ourselves might not understand his purposes; we might be confused as to what it is he is doing in our lives; but we have to believe that he wants the very best for us.

These verses in Isaiah tell us that God knows the best PLACE and the best TIME and MEANS to attain his purpose in our lives. And because we are all different, he deals with us in the best way for us.

Back to Zechariah and Elisabeth: Zechariah is serving in the temple when the angel makes the announcement that the elderly Zechariah and Elisabeth will have a child.

Six months later, the angel comes to a teenage girl and tells her that she, too, will be having a child. "Your cousin Elisabeth is also pregnant," the angel assures her. "With God, nothing is impossible."

And Mary decides to go visit her cousin. It would have been a long journey for a sheltered, frightened girl. But suddenly, one day, she was at Elisabeth's house - what a wonderful surprise for Elisabeth!

What was even more amazing were the words that tumbled from Elisabeth's wise old mouth when she saw this young cousin of hers:

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. (Luke 1:42-45)

These words could never have been uttered by Elisabeth if she had not had to undergo all the pain, the disappointment, the waiting, the scorn, that she had spent decades of her life living with.

Listen to Zechariah when John, their son, was born:

68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
    for he has visited and redeemed his people
69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
    in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71 that we should be saved from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us;
72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers
    and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
74     that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75     in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
    in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
    whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:68-79)

Their extraordinary gift of a son, the one who would come to be known as John the Baptizer, the one who proclaimed the coming of the Messiah, his cousin and Lord, Jesus.

John had been born at the exact right time. If Elisabeth had had him when she was a young woman - if she had not had to wait for God's time and place - there would have been no special encouragement for Mary in her unique situation, no extra measure of understanding and joy from her cousin. The words "with God nothing is impossible" would not have been uttered - they would not have been appropriate if John's was an ordinary birth.

Elisabeth and Zechariah could look back at the barren years culminating in their deepest heart's desire being fulfilled and say, "We just wanted a child. But think of what God has given us - far more than we could have imagined or hoped for!" 

It was all worth it.

Think for a moment of the mighty King David who, after coming through an inordinate amount of suffering and danger, exclaimed joyfully, "As for God, His way is perfect ... and He makes my way perfect" (2 Samuel 22:31-33).

Elisabeth and Zechariah: two people living in a real world with real problems and unbearable heartache. We may not have their burdens exactly; we may not understand why - though we pray and pray and try to live upright lives - our burdens don't go away, why it seems like God is not answering our prayer.

The old southern funeral hymn starts with these lines:

I like to think my Father knows,

My Father knows it all ...

That's the here and the now. We don't necessarily see the breaking up of the soil, the harrowing,  the seeding, the harvesting, the threshing out in our lives. But when the day comes that all is revealed, we will say, "This is far more than I could have imagined!"

The stories of my two friends mentioned at the beginning continue - he was asked for a continuance into the new year.

And she - there is another sweet baby, a little one determined to keep her cracked heart open and tender. Her beautiful son - she will love him as long as God gives her strength, as long as He gives her him.

Like Elisabeth, she will never entirely forget the anticipation and the sorrow, the high hopes and the ensuing pain that went before. But she can say with the wise author of Ecclesiastes: "He has made everything beautiful in his time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

We just need to learn to rest, in peace, in Him.

Selah. 

Autumn Leaves

We were finishing lunch in the cafeteria on the ground floor of Carswell's head office. Suddenly my manager went outside to the patio and returned with the biggest leaf I'd ever seen.

"Here you are - an autumn leaf from Ontario for you," she announced.

This afternoon I thought of something my Dad had said at one time or another, something about how the autumn leaves don't have to be shaken or pulled off the tree; they will fall in their own good time, making way for the tender green buds to emerge in the spring. We can't force their hand or speed up the cycle of life in a tree by trying to strip off the old, dead leaves. We just have to wait.

Like a butterfly fighting to emerge from its chrysalis: if we were to try to cut open that fragile strongbox, the butterfly will not develop strength enough to enable it to spread its wings and finally flutter upward and away.

Like cracked ribs.

Like bananas. Sure you can pick them up in the grocery store, all golden and no black flecks, the result of careful heat-lamp ripening. But their flavour is negligible compared with the sweet, sun-ripened fruit we enjoy in Kerala. 

And that's sort of like the cycle of our own life too, isn't it? We might want to see something happen with all due despatch - after all, we know that the anticipated event will inevitably take place - but certain things cannot, must not, be rushed.

Like grief. It charts its course and commands us to come along. But grace comes along as well; and the two of them will come to an understanding if we only draw strength from what each has to teach us.

The great King Solomon's "journal," Ecclesiastes, reads in the third chapter and verse 11, "He has made every thing beautiful in his [its] time."

We just have to wait, thankful that there is a time and a season for everything.

And we can revel in the crisp chill of this vivid season as it ushers out the heat of summer and buffers us from the cold to come.

_____________________________________________________

(Here's one of my favourite versions of that old standard, "Autumn Leaves," sung by the incomparable Eva Cassidy. Eva and her music only became known outside her immediate circle five years after her death from cancer in 1996. She was 33.)

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Perhaps Patricia

At the beginning of 1959, just before my Dad was to set sail from Port Arthur, Texas, for Bombay, India, he stopped for a few days with his elder sister, Mary, who lived in Texas at the time.

And he got to meet and know Mary's eldest child, Patricia. Patty.

Dad forged a bond with Patty in that short time that remains to this day. As a matter of fact it's flitted through my mind, like a breeze through sheets hanging on a clothes line on a fragrant summer afternoon, that the warmth of Dad's affection for his little Patty predisposed him - a stranger in a strange land - to look toward a familiar name when he heard it, to look in the direction of another girl named Patricia, a girl with brown eyes and an enormous heart who would become his wife a couple of years later.

My eldest cousin, Patty stayed with Dad for the last few days and was with us yesterday, the sixth anniversary of Mum's death.

Eight yellow flowers growing on one stem ...

Both our Patricias know what it is to suffer. Like Mum, Patty has undergone brutal treatment for cancer - and, also like Mum, her indomitable spirit and her deep strength of character have carried her through.

Like Mum, Patty is warm and loving.

She's quick and funny.

She connects with people.

She came along with Dad to the Manor on Tuesday and to our Wednesday TH Bible study yesterday - the actual anniversary of Mum's death. 

Dad is guiding us through Paul's tiny letter to Philemon on Wednesday evenings - you'd think that it would take one study, right?! But Dad is revealing a wealth of meaning and such a source of challenge and comfort through this little book.

This Wednesday he addressed three topics: Prayer, Human Nature, and The Providence of God, all as seen in the letter to Philemon.

The providence of God has been defined by Henry C. Thiessen in his book Lectures in Systematic Theology:

Etymologically, the word “providence” means foreseeing. From this basic
idea has developed the meaning of providing for the future. But in theology
the word has received a more specialized meaning. In this field, “providence”
means that continuous activity of God whereby he makes all the events of
the physical, mental, and moral realms work out his purpose, and this
purpose is nothing short of the original design of God in creation. To be sure,
evil has entered the universe, but it is not allowed to thwart God’s original,
benevolent, wise, and holy purpose. [Emphasis added is the part Dad quoted.]

(1989: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 122 ff)


Dad asked the question "If God is not the author of sin, how do we explain the horrible acts of sin if God is ruling over all? How is God related to [humankind's] sinful acts?"

Providence, Dad went on to say, is manifest in four ways:

Preventative Providence, where God restrains a person from the sin he or she is intending to commit: Genesis chapter 20 verse 6 is an example of this.

Permissive Providence is where God sometimes permits sin to take its course: the book of Acts chapter 1 and verse 16, and Psalm 81 verse 12 is God telling how He let people go their own way.

Directive Providence is where God allows evil to occur, but He directs the way it goes in order to accomplish His will: John 13:21-27 is the tragic vignette where Jesus tells Judas Iscariot to "do quickly" what he intends to do.

Restrictive Providence reveals God determining the limits to which evil and its effects may go: the book of Job chapter 1 verse 12, and chapter 2 verse 6 shows God saying to Satan, "So far, but no further."

In the letter to Philemon Paul is pleading with his friend for mercy to be extended to the latter's runaway slave, Onesimus. In the 15th verse Paul says, with great gentleness and insight, Perhaps he left you for a while so that he would return to you forever ...

The word perhaps in Philemon opens the door to the doctrine of Providence, Dad commented.

The other notable occasion the sense of this word is used is in the little book telling the story of Queen Esther: Esther chapter 4 and verse 14 gives us Mordecai, Esther's uncle, speaking to her fairly sternly regarding her responsibility to her people. "Who knows whether [Perhaps] you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

There is more written in the Bible about the providence of God than about creation, Dad observed; and yet the word itself is never used. God cares about every aspect of our lives - if it's big enough for you to be concerned about, it's big enough for God to be concerned about. He has known us and cared about us from before we were born.

As I sat across the room from my beautiful cousin, who had no idea when she planned her itinerary that she would be here on such a significant date to our part of the family, I thought of her and my arms entwined as we shed tears and supported each other in remembering our mothers at Mum's graveside. I thought of the songs we sang, BA, Dad, Patty and I, into the sting of cold air that held no victory that day. 

For each one of us who has watched helplessly while a dream dies and we are left with a yawning hole stretched out before us, perhaps there is more to this story as we trace the providence of God working its mysterious way through our life? I think of my own life, of dreams that shattered or shifted last year and this one. Now, in hindsight, I can see the hand of God smoothing the way for me, guiding me in a new way, restoring my soul in ways I could not have imagined at the time.

And I thought to myself, Perhaps Patty was with us on this particularly hard anniversary, both for us and for her?

"Praise the Lord for the word perhaps ..." Dad ended.

  

This Time Last Year

At exactly this time last year I was standing at the foot of your bed, watching you. Your eyes were closed, and your breathing was belaboured again. I was just wondering if I should call the nurse to suction out your airwaves when she appeared. 

As she prepared to do what she had to do, you naturally became agitated. I slipped to the right side of your bed as she worked on the left, and I gripped one of your enormous hands with both of mine.

"Brian, it's okay. This will make you feel better. Try to relax ..."

Suddenly I felt your hand gripping back, the pressure increasing as the suction tube invaded your throat. Your eyes opened and you looked sidewards to your left at me. Our eyes locked and great drops of sweat broke out on your forehead. Your eyes mirrored the pain you were in, and my "encouraging words" faded into suddenly thin air. We just stared at each other, hanging on for dear life.

When it was over, you looked at me. Thank you, you said, softly but distinctively. Your eyes fluttered shut, exhausted. 

I got a cool, damp facecloth and gently wiped your forehead, allowing the refreshing cloth to rest on the top of your head as I had seen your beloved Char do countless times.

That was the last time I was to see your blue, blue eyes. 

Those were the last words you spoke, as far as we know.

It was just like you to express gratitude with your fading breath!

I had stopped by your room at about 10 pm on September 3, armed with my Daily Light and a soft pashmina shawl. I had arrived back from Calgary half an hour earlier and suddenly felt strongly that I needed to go to the hospital and spell Char off for a stretch.

Hesitantly I offered and gratefully she accepted. She was able to catch about four hours' sleep, which gave her the strength she needed to be beside you, watching you enter the gates of heaven the next morning.

The two nurses on duty during the night, Miriam and Karen, recognized my ignorance and incompetence while understanding my good intentions; they very kindly stopped by your room every single half hour to make sure everything was okay and to reassure both of us. 

I had been singing to you; praying for you and Char, and Rebecca and Bob; reading, both to you and silently; and just sitting at your side, wrapped in my pashmina, watching your face.

As you calmed and seemed to rest more easily, I sat back in the comfortable arm chair and became conscious of the comprehensive softness, the fluidity, of the shawl under which I was sheltering. And my mind flipped back to the previous Sunday, when Dad spoke from the book of Ruth. He focused on Boaz, the eventual husband of Ruth.

The story of Ruth from Moab is quite well known to many of us: she marries the handsome foreigner and is accepted by her mother-in-law; her husband, brother-in-law and father-in-law all die; her mother-in-law, Naomi, can't stand to be away from her home country any more so she tells her two daughters-in-law to go home and get on with their lives. They both demur, saying they'll stay with her. She insists; one goes back, but Ruth refuses to leave Naomi (isn't it interesting that one of the most romantic passages often used in weddings is actually spoken by a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law?! Go figure ...).

In extreme brief: Naomi settles back into her community; Ruth sets out to get food for them and - it being harvest time - starts gleaning the left-over and missed crop in the fields of a wealthy land owner, who turns out to be a distant relative of Naomi; several exciting plot turns; Ruth and the wealthy land owner, named Boaz, get married and have a son, Obed, who has a son named Jesse, who has a son named David - and David becomes the second king of Israel.

What was of great interest to me, however, was what Dad had to say about Boaz's lineage. Boaz's father's name was Salmon. Salmon is derived from the root word simla, meaning garment or raiment. The book of Genesis, chapter 9 and verse 23 uses the same word, where two of Noah's son's took a garment and covered up their drunk, naked father. The word cover takes the meaning assuming the shape of the object beneath. The book of Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 4 exhorts the children of Israel to remember that for 40 years their garments didn't grow old or tattered on them. A soft garment doesn't care what size or shape you are; it takes your shape and offers protection and cover for you.

What Dad did then in the little Hanna church was get his childhood friend, Doreen, up on the platform. Then he gently placed a soft pink shawl over her shoulders. The shawl immediately adjusted to her posture and the angle of her back - it took her shape. The same shawl would look quite different on someone else, Dad commented.

The shawl reminded Dad of what God did for us. The book of Romans chapter 8 and verse 3 tells us that God sent his own son, who took on the shape of sinful humankind - our own personal simla! - and became the offering for our sin. Jesus himself covers us, protecting us from the dreadful consequences of our own wrong doing, if we accept his offer of salvation. Just like Ruth in the fields of Boaz, there is nothing we can do to earn this covering; all we have to do is accept it.

I was thinking of all of this when I sat at the foot of your bed, Brian, after the nurse had left. And on impulse I rose, unwrapped my soft shawl from around me and placed it gently over your torso and legs. You were lying so still, the only sound in the room your stertorous breathing. The shawl settled into the hillocks and hollows of your shape under the covers - it took on your shape. I prayed then into the silence, asking God to cover you with his protection and peace and rest. I asked him to assure you of his covering as you walked through that last valley.

Your breathing eased and you slipped into sleep. I left the shawl where it lay and stood watch over you until it was time for me to leave. There was no need for lung clearing for the rest of my time with you.

And I realized that these hours with you and with God comprised one of the most holy, one of the most peaceful, nights I had ever spent. I had been given the inestimable privilege of standing at the foot of your bed, knowing I was standing on holy ground: God himself was covering that whole room. His protection never left your room until he took you with him the following morning...

Your dear Char crept back into the room somewhere between 3:00 and 3:30 and was with you for the rest of your journey here on earth.

Char's new toy!

She's doing okay, Brian. She is a woman of uncommon valour and courage. She is picking up the pieces of her life without you and is pressing on. The latest step on her journey is a camper she got in order to continue enjoying one aspect of life that you two enjoyed together for as long as you could. She helps out at the TH whenever I need her and she is taking on new academic and professional challenges. You would be so proud of her.


In many ways, you each - notable, independent people in your own separate right - had provided that soft, adaptable covering, that uncommonly delicate layer of protection, for each other. 

Her earthly covering has indeed been removed with your death; but she is finding solace, more and more, under her heavenly simla. She has always placed her confidence and trust in her heavenly Father; now she is claiming, from the yawning crevasse of her sorrow and loneliness, the promise from the 91st Psalm, "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings shall you trust ... because you have made the Lord your habitation."

As tenderly as God covered you in your hospital room, Brian, he is covering her in her life after you.  But you are never far from her thoughts and always in her heart.

And oh, how she misses you ...

At the Feet of the King

Last Tuesday Dad told us a story. It went something like this:

My upbringing was very difficult. My father was dead, and I had no family to speak of. As a young child I had suffered a dreadful injury, resulting in my becoming lame.

I lived in a desolate, desert area where we had to scrabble each day to make a living. I had nothing - no prospects, no miracle cure, no future.

I shouldn't say I had nothing, though. I had one thing, one constant companion in my life that had joined me in my childhood and refused to leave. It accompanied me on every halting, agonizing step of my life.

Fear.

I lived in fear, fear of one man who could effectively end my pathetic life, such as it was. If he found me, I was convinced that he would bring me down, would destroy the tiny existence I had cobbled together for myself. 

Time went by. I found a girl who would marry me and we had a child. My fear subsided gradually, to be replaced by a certain emptiness. As days drifted into months morphed into years yawned into apathy, even my dreams dried up like the desert in which I was interred. I had no hope. I had no expectation of anything good coming into or out of my life. I just was.

Until the day the men came to my door. "He knows about you. He's demanding that you come and meet with him."

My nemesis, the cause of my fear, had somehow tracked me down. I don't remember much about that terrifying journey, but I do remember this: I remember hugging my son, wondering if I should leave him behind for his own safety. Then my subconscious reminded me of what it was like to be separated from your father and I decided that, live or die, we would be together.

We traveled under armed escort, finally arriving at the city. I wanted to clean up, to compose myself, but my guards told me the order was that I be taken immediately into his presence.

With rough kindness they supported me part way across the room and then unceremoniously left me to half hobble, half drag my crippled self the last few steps to where he sat, motionless.

My trembling was not due to my infirmity alone. I glanced for one petrified moment at his face. His eyes were burning into me. Dropping my gaze, I fell prostrate at his feet, wordless, the terror pounding in my ears like demon drums.

And then he spoke only one word.

My name.

"Mephibosheth."

I must have misheard: the yearning, aching note in those four syllables! No one had spoken to me with that tone since -

I had to respond. "I am your servant," my teeth managed to chatter, while I braced myself for the sword swishing past my ears on the way to my neck or, at the very least, for a swift kick to my kidneys.

"Fear not," his voice replied. "I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan, and I will restore the land that belonged to your grandfather, Saul."

I couldn't believe it. I must not believe it. This was clearly a trap and I dared not fall into it, not with Micah my son also here.

"What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

As I asked my question, I glanced up at him. He had not taken his eyes off me. And as I looked with more courage, now, I realized that even though he was speaking to the steward about arrangements which had already been made for my comfort and Micah's, he saw me.

But it seemed to me that as he gazed at me, he saw more than just me. He was seeing my father, his closest friend, who had been killed by the Philistines in battle along with my grandfather, Saul. My grandfather's death had put him on the throne. 

My grandfather's death had changed my life. It was when he and my father died that my nanny panicked and fled into hiding, carrying me, a 5-year-old, in her arms. But in her haste she dropped me and the bones in my legs were shattered, never to be reset properly.

My nanny had told me stories of David, the shepherd boy who had wormed his way into the lives and hearts of my family, only to turn on them. She told me of how he split the family because my own father, Jonathan, refused to abandon David and actually worked on his side against my grandfather.

Now David was king and he would hunt me down and kill me if he found me. That's what rulers did in those days - they killed off the entire family of the previous ruler to ensure that there would be no insurrection.

Insurrection from a crippled 5-year-old? Ha.

And that is how I came to live in fear my whole life.

I was taken to my new living quarters and - most incredibly of all - was assigned a place at the king's sons' table for my meals.

I was treated like David's own son. And as the servitors gently laid the richly woven covers over each of our legs as we reclined at table, I felt just like all the others. All our legs were covered exactly the same way.

By the way, my name, Mephibosheth? It means "scatters shame." Who would have named me that? It could not have been my father, who had loved me deeply. It was the echo of his voice I heard when King David spoke my name ...

It must have been my grandfather Saul, who had said that my father had brought shame to him and the family by taking on David's cause. 

There are other ways than literally broken legs that a person can be crippled. There are broken spirits and broken hearts. There are shattered dreams. There are crushed expectations. A person can be crippled by disappointment, by fear of failure, by rejection. By shame. 

A person can be crippled by fear itself. The very person I thought would destroy me was - unbeknownst to me - thinking about me, planning for me. Even my lameness was covered by David's provision for me at the table. I had lived in Lodebar, "no pasture," the desert. And completely without my seeking, planning or even hoping, I was brought to a place of plenty.

****************

Dad went on: This restoration of Mephibosheth was not something he was entitled to, sought, worked for, or thought about. It was all of grace, for the sake of someone else. It was all for Jonathan.

Mephibosheth had to change his own attitude to be able to enter into the king's comforts fully. He had viewed himself as a crippled boy and man with no hope of any great advancement; as a "dead dog."

In today's society, Dad mused, we are so much about self-esteem. And of course we shouldn't think poorly of ourselves. But our intrinsic self-confidence should come from our confidence in God, and not be dependent on our own accomplishments.

"Take hope today," Dad urged us. "God can, may, will and does work when we are not conscious of it, when we are not even thinking about it. He has a plan and a purpose. And He will fulfill his plan and purpose for us, for the sake of His Son. "Christ horizons God's grace," he quoted. God's grace is found in Christ, and He wants us to experience it. We may have many limitations, hurts, things that cannot be changed in our life. Early experiences often have marked us for the rest of our lives, just like Mephibosheth. 

"God has good things planned for and in store for us. Let us not measure God's work on our behalf according to our understanding and our thoughts. God is greater than our highest thought of Him. His plans and thoughts are far greater than ours. In the silence, God can and does work," Dad reminded us.

In closing, Dad told the story of my brother Ed Chelli, now the president of the Bible College. As a child, Ed was laid low with meningitis of the brain. He was dying.

A doctor, a Hindu, came by to see Ed in the Chellis' home. After careful examination and evaluation, he told Ed's grief-stricken parents," There's nothing more I can do. But remember, there is God."

That night both Ed's parents got down on their knees beside their inert son's bed, earnestly pleading with God for Ed to make it. Then Ed's mother, Merah, told her husband, "You go to bed now. Edwin will be healed by morning."

Sure enough, the next morning found Ed sitting up, asking for warm milk. God had once again worked in the night ...

As Dad finished speaking, I saw myself right there next to Mephibosheth, prostrate at the feet of my king. I - crippled by past experiences, by fears, by the forced relinquishment of dreams, someone who deserved nothing - was at the feet of the One who loves me, who had actually gone out of his way to search me out.

And now, as I lay there trembling, scared to so much as look up at Him, He said one word.

"Karyn."

As I dared to peek up at Him, He was looking steadily back at me with eyes that showed nothing but love. But He was seeing more than me. And it came to me with fresh new impact that His grace that extends to me is none of my own doing. It is because of His Son that I now experience such grace. As He looks at me - helpless, a broken person who sins and can do nothing on my own - He doesn't see any of that. He sees Jesus and He accepts and cares for me because of His son.

And the grace extended toward me also brings to me hope. I will never forget that I am crippled; but I will also be partaking at the king's own table because I accepted His awe-inspiring gift of salvation. I am His.

Nilgiris' Tenth Anniversary Week: "Banking Can Be This Comfortable"

The Green Chair is in town!

I'll admit to falling for the grumpy old men each time I see the TD Canada Trust TV commercials; but what I admire even more is how my branch in Three Hills cares for me.

This week marks ten years since Nilgiris Tea House opened its doors. 

It was absolutely awful.

We were swarmed that first day; and - woefully unprepared - we served chicken pot pies, too many different types of labour-intensive sandwiches, a couple of pots of soup, orange muffins, and coconut cream pie.

ONE coconut cream pie ...

At the end of that nightmarish 13 hours, we wanted to shut the doors for good.

We did indeed close the TH at the end of June 2006: we needed to regroup, to adjust to new normals, to evaluate where all of this was going. We tried to sell the place, but nothing worked out. I felt stranded, immobilized.

Then the bank who had financed our mortgage in the beginning bailed on us; even though I had not missed a single mortgage payment, I was now deemed too great of a risk for the bank named after our province.

In despair I talked to the manager of the Three Hills TD Canada Trust branch, where I did my personal banking.

Shane looked at the numbers, calculated various scenarios, and came up with a mortgage that would be manageable if I lived upstairs, kept my job at Carswell and opened the TH on weekends - exactly what Mum and I had been talking about together for a little while as we pondered why God had not allowed this sweet place to find a new person to love it and take it over.

This was August 2007. We planned to open on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, which falls in October.

But in the beginning of September, my family's entire universe changed as my Mum was hospitalized for the last time. She exchanged this world for her heavenly home on the 18th.

One of the first people I called was Shane. "Focus on your Mum; focus on your family right now," he urged. "Don't worry about anything else. It'll all work out."

I reopened at the end of November. Shane and the TD staff were some of my first guests.

When Shane moved on to another branch, Russ became the new branch manager, and he continued to support the TH in whatever way he could - including eating as much carrot cake as I would allow him to purchase ...

Russ eventually found a new branch home, and Diana recently took his place as Branch Manager. She too has shown us nothing but enthusiasm and encouragement.

I had an appointment with Mary Lynne on
my birthday - and she decorated her
office for our meeting!

And through it all - through all the branch managers and the changes that perforce come to all major institutions these days - has been the corps of loyal, devoted, dedicated employees at the Branch. In alphabetical order they are BethAnne, Cammy, Denise, Emmy, Mary Lynne. Each of them has helped me over the last eight years, and each of them has exemplified consistently outstanding customer service.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these women, and now Diana too, have my back. They appreciate my strengths and assist me with my weaknesses. They are interested in me as a person and in the goings-on of the TH. 

And I'm not an exception - when the conversation in the dining room turns to banks, TD Canada Trust Three Hills branch customers invariably tell me of the high level of customer service they receive and how the staff at our little branch truly cares for them and endeavours to find the best solutions for their needs.

So it came as no surprise to me that The Green Chair landed in the Three Hills branch, a reward for being the best customer-focused team in their division. Of course, the team in the branch are well aware that I am enthralled with The Chair, so they let me know I was welcome to get my picture taken with it.

Recognizing an Occasion, I rose to it, and so did they, of course ...

Branch Manager Diane Sheeler, Financial Advisor Mary Lynne Penner, Financial Services
Representative BethAnne Ironside, Manager of Customer Service Emmy McDonald -
my own tea party in the comfy Green Chair!

To all of you I want to take this occasion to say a heartfelt thank you. You always go above and beyond the call of duty. I am grateful and proud to be a member of the TD Canada Trust family. I literally could not do it without you.

Banking is this comfortable!

It's the Thought that Counts

Are you "ready for Christmas," whatever that means? Me, I've barely had the chance to step into a shop this year. I know that my family will forgive me: "It's the thought that counts," they will say with great kindness, knowing that buying presents at Christmastime is not my strong suit. I need a long time to think and to plan and shop for exactly what it is I feel the person might like ... and with the crazy schedule at the TH plus Carswell, time is the greatest gift I can be given at this point of my year.

Isn't it very special, then, to receive some gift or service, knowing how much time, thought and effort has gone into its preparation or selection?

For example, the first time I met Kent Wong he didn't say much at all. He sat me in his chair and silently measured my head with his fingers; he tugged on my hair and weighed it in his hands; he put gold and silver fabric swatches around my neck to see which provided a better complement to my skin tone. He sat back on his stool and stared fixedly at my head. All of this took the better part of half an hour.

He was not to be hurried as he washed and conditioned and cut and styled.

When I left there I had experienced the best haircut of my life.

And all this thought and care was delivered by someone who didn't even know me!

On Tuesday at the Robertson Manor weekly meeting, Dad spoke for just a few minutes on the birth of Jesus. Actually, he entitled his meditation "Behind the Birth of Jesus." We read the familiar story in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2. Luke was a physician, Dad commented, and he recorded details that we would never have known if it weren't for his acute attention to those details.

But for "the Christmas story summarized," Dad went on, look at the little book of Philippians chapter 2 and verses 5 - 8:

⁵ Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

⁷ But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

⁸ And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.(King James Version)

A newer translation, the English Standard Version, puts it this way:

⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus as the very Son of God - as very God - took on the form (meaning the essence) of a servant. He became a servant by being born in the likeness of human kind. And then He humbled Himself further, even to death on the cross, so that He could offer Himself as the sacrifice that would take away the sins of the world.

Long before Jesus came to earth, He was thinking of us. Psalm 139 verses 17 and 18 are David's exclamation of wonder that God was thinking of him:

¹⁷ How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

¹⁸ If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

The word thoughts has the idea of something that has been planned and contrived to bring to fruition.

Psalm 40 verse 5 says this:

⁵ Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

Dad told the story of how, back in August 2007, Mum gave one of my sisters as quilt for her birthday. The back story is that some time later, Dad read Mum's note in her book for that day. She said that she had been up all night and had completed the quilt at 5:30 that morning. She was so happy.

Exactly one month later, she was dead. "Knowing what went on behind the scenes made the quilt even more precious," Dad said softly.

The value of something is often not understood unless you know what is behind the action.

Dad quoted the familiar line of a song: Long before time began you were part of His plan ...

"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life ..." I hear and say the words of John chapter 3 and verse 16 often, galloping over the first part to get to the promise of eternal life. But what about the first part? The gift is of course important; but what if it had not been given in love?

In this Christmas season, as we reflect on how much we are thinking about our loved ones, let's keep in the back of our minds how much God had been thinking about us before Jesus was ever born that first Christmas night. And we can rejoice in the knowledge that He continues to think of us and want only what is best for us. 

Here are the rest of the lyrics for that old song - how appropriate for today!

Tenderly He watches over you, 
Every step, every mile of the way; 
Like a mother watching over her baby, 
He is near you every hour of the day. 

When you're weak, when you're strong, 
When you're right, when you're wrong, 
In your joy and your pain, When you lose and when you gain: 
tenderly He watches over you, 
every step, every mile of the way. 

Long before time began you were part of His plan; 
Let no fear cloud your brow, He will not forsake you now: 
Tenderly He watches over you every step, every mile of the way 

These are days when the world is uncertain, and the power of the atom unknown; 
But a far greater power up yonder 
Ever watches and cares for His own.

How much indeed the thought counts ...