A PERSONAL ADVENT

 

A PERSONAL ADVENT                             December, 2013

Golden angels, gifts under the tree and children’s nativity pageants all shout that Christmas is the season in which we celebrate the advent of Jesus Christ to this world.  This year, I would like to share about His advent into my own life. 

At age four I am sitting beside Mother on the bed, looking at the beautiful illustrations in the Bible Story Book and waiting with mounting excitement for the climax of my favourite story: the moment when the little boy Samuel hears his name called and thinks it is Eli the priest, whom he serves, summoning him.  (1 Samuel 3).

“Samuel!  Samuel!”

The boy runs to Eli and says, “Here I am, you called me.”

But Eli has not called, and tells Samuel to go back to bed.

Again, the voice calls,

 “Samuel!  Samuel!”

“It is not Eli.  And a third time: 

“Samuel!  Samuel!”

This time, the old priest realizes that Samuel has heard the voice of God, and directs him to answer,

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

When God calls the fourth time, Samuel answers and, though a mere boy, receives a prophetic word about the house of Eli.

Like every child, I anticipate the highlight of the story, knowing every familiar word before it is read.  I am not aware that hidden deep in my heart is a desire to hear God speak personally to me and the question:

            WOULD GOD REALLY TALK TO ME?

 

 

I am eight years old, a quiet, creative child who likes nothing better than to draw with coloured chalk on her blackboard, make things out of paper and paste and play ‘house’ and ‘school.’  I have written my first poem – a gift for my baby sister’s first birthday.  I long for music lessons, but we do not have a piano.  I want to marry and have children some day, and have pretty china in a cabinet, just like my mother.  I dream of being a Kindergarten teacher when I grow up, and of doing something to help people, such as joining the Peace Corps or being a missionary.

            DOES GOD CARE ABOUT OUR DREAMS?

 

I sit on the edge of my bed with both fists clenched and tears streaming down my face.  There are two reasons for the tears:  anguish from the daily arguments, put-downs, misunderstanding, neglect and hurt stemming from my father’s alcoholism, and eyestrain from trying to read the fine grey print of the black, gilt-edged King James Bible, the only Bible in our home.  I am fifteen, and unable to take any more.  I try to get some comfort from the Old Testament book I am reading, but I cannot understand one word of it.  I desperately want to hear from God, but He is silent.

            DOES GOD CARE ABOUT OUR PAIN?

 

This is a happy evening for me.  I am twenty, nearing the end of my second year of university.  I have been taking Confirmation classes with the chaplain of the Anglican college I attend.  Tonight I will join the church.  For two years I have been actively seeking answers about God.  A study of C. S. Lewis’ book Mere Christianity has helped me understand such abstract concepts as eternity: my life as a time line and eternity as the page around the line. From books lent to me by the chaplain, I have learned the rudiments of Christian doctrine:  the Trinity, God as three people yet one God; and the Atonement, which I understand to be the reconciliation of God’s justice and His mercy, necessitating the death of His Son Jesus on the cross for our sins.  I have been able to overcome such intellectual barriers as the Virgin Birth and miracles by taking a step of faith without understanding everything first. 

I am happy to be joining the church.  Yet many things worry me.  I read the words of Jesus that “Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment”, and “Anyone who says ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of Hell” (Matthew 5:22 NIV) and “for many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14 NIV).   I see that no one I know is measuring up to this high standard, and I wonder who the few are who will make it to Heaven.  Will I be among them?

AM I GOOD ENOUGH FOR HEAVEN?

 

            Now twenty-six, I am working as a Current Account teller in a large downtown bank in Hamilton, Ontario.  My earlier experience with God does not seem to be enough to help me.  I am desperately seeking the meaning of life, which seems as bleak and grey as the city skyscrapers.  I am seeking God by every means possible:  listening to radio broadcasts, attending pre-Easter services and taking out books from the religion section of the library only to toss them aside and try again the next day.

            I am sure it is God who has placed two Christian believers on my path at this time:  my friend Sue in the next teller’s cage, who chatters about her faith, and Ralph, the new messenger, who exudes a peace I cannot understand and certainly do not have myself, as pressures of my job and life are mounting.

            Once they mention having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  From that day on, I yearn for such a relationship.  Is it really possible?  One day, I cannot seem to wait another day to get it, and telephone Ralph who comes in on his day off to share a tract with me. 

            I learn that since God is holy and man is sinful, the only way for us to go to Heaven is through God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, Who willingly paid the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross.

 …Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved…(Acts 16:31 NIV).

 I learn that I must ask forgiveness for my own wrongdoing and receive Christ as my personal Saviour and Friend, and then I can know that I will live eternally with God in Heaven.

…to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…(John 1:12 NIV).

 In John 5:24 Jesus says:

 I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

            I joyfully receive the Lord Jesus Christ to reign in my heart forever and be my personal friend.  He is my new reason for living.  It is the happiest day of my life.

            I have had this personal relationship with Jesus for over forty-five years.  Although I have been through many difficult experiences, He has always been there with me.  In giving Him control of my life, an ordered plan has become apparent.  I have learned that salvation entails so much more than merely escaping Hell:  in my ever-deepening relationship with Him ,I have learned that He cherishes me, protects me, heals me, teaches me, forgives me over and over again, and seeks  a relationship with me exclusive of others, much like a marriage partnership.  Even when I let Him down, He keeps His covenant with me.

 

            Looking back at the scenes from my life of which I have written here, I sense that God saw a little girl’s desire to know Him.  I have learned that prayer is a two-way street and that, yes, we CAN hear His voice.  Every childhood dream I have written about here has been fulfilled.  I have taught Kindergarten, studied music, married, had children, done Christian voluntary service on two reserves, had my writing published.  God always picks strategic times for everything:  the coveted violin lessons were an outlet during a time of healing of my relationship with my father;  the frilly blue china came to me later in life during a period  of depression and hardship to show that God cares for ME,  not only my service to others.  As I look back at the time when I was fifteen and God seemed so silent in my pain, I see that He DID answer.  He removed me from the turbulent home scene and placed me in an Anglican boarding school.  Here I learned all the beautiful hymns of the church, which comforted my hurting heart and drew me closer to Him.  He took me one step at a time to a meaningful relationship with Him.  And later He brought emotional healing and healing of family relationships. He is so gentle and good.

            I am writing this to you, dear reader, because I care about you and because the Gospel message is so important.

            There are many religions, but only Jesus Christ claims to be the Son of God

 and the only door to Heaven.

            Some may question the existence of the God of the Bible, and to them I would say: use the scientific method and pray, “God, if You exist, show me.”  Read the Bible.  Many have read the New Testament intending to disprove it, and have ended up believing.  God will be right there helping.

            Some may feel they are not good enough for Heaven.  They feel that God could never forgive their secrets of the past or present.  They are in good company.  The Bible says that none of us is good enough.

 Isaiah64:6 says that…all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…

If we have to measure up to the standards of the Sermon on the Mount, with not only perfect actions but perfect motivation, not one of us will make it.  That is the whole point of the Gospel, and the reason God sent His Son to willingly die on the cross.  God accepts us the way we are.  The only criterion is acceptance of His Son.

            And some may feel that their church membership, good deeds, nice personality, or favourable comparison to evildoers entitles them to Heaven.  Or they just assume that God is a nice God Who will let nice people , or, perhaps, all people into Heaven.  Nowhere are universalism or salvation by good works taught in the Bible. 

John 6:28 asks, What must we do to do the works God requires?  In verse 29 Jesus answers, The work of God is to believe in the one he has sent.

And this does not merely refer to passive assent to church doctrine, because Jesus called his disciples  to leave everything to follow Him.To believe is to trust, to lean one’s whole weight upon.  Ask yourself:

Do I really KNOW Jesus Christ?  Do I have an intimate relationship with Him based on faith?  Otherwise, He will say,

 Depart from Me; I never knew you.

            Some may be quite content with their lives the way they are.  They may have a good career, money, family and fulfillment, and prefer to keep control of their own lives without answering to God.  But we cannot so much as take our next breath by ourselves.

Psalm 19:1-3 (NIV) states:

            The heavens declare the glory of God;

            The skies proclaim the work of his hands.

            Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge,

There is no speech or language

Where their voice is not heard.

It is obvious that there is a God Who has made an ordered universe and that we are accountable to Him.  He has found a way to save the lost world He made and loves, and that way is through receiving His Son.  Because Jesus willingly laid down His life in obedience, God has exalted Him to the highest place.  One day we will stand before God whether we like it or not and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

            …that at the name of Jesus

Every knee should bow

In heaven and on earth and

Under the earth. and every tongue confess

That Jesus Christ is Lord

To the glory of the father.(Philippians 2:10, 11NIV)

Will it be joyfully, as one who knows Him intimately? Or despairingly, as one condemned to a lost eternity?

            I pray that each of you will come to know God and have assurance of Heaven through simply receiving His Son Jesus into your life. Who wouldn’t want to serve a God who is great enough to create a mountain yet intimate enough to know my need for blue(not green) china, and your secret desires too?

            I simply had a desire to share some of my personal story with you at this Christmas season. 

            I hope that this Christmas you will not only sing of the advent of the Christ-child long ago, but also allow His advent into your own life.

           

 

 

IF ONLY YOU KNEW (To a Wasp)

 

                                                 IF ONLY YOU KNEW

                                                       (To a Wasp)

            O Wasp on my kitchen window, you struggle to get out.  You see the sky, the clouds piled high like fluffy meringue, and press hard against the window, thinking your own wasp-logic best.  I stand nearby, trying to guide you into a jar of flowers so that I may free you.

            Our thoughts are not on the same plane.  If you do not regard me as an enemy, you certainly are not aware that all I want to do is to help you.  Nor do you like the idea of entering a suffocating jar.  If only you knew that after only a few seconds on that jar you would be released out the front door into the fresh air and sunshine again.  But you have no idea that I am thinking about you.  On you struggle, all alone, futilely, thinking your own way best.  I so want to help you.  If only you knew.

            O Reader, you struggle on, trapped in some area of life.  I, the Lord, stand nearby, oh so near, longing to help you take the shortest and best route to freedom.  I know what that is, since I made you.  How I wish you would trust Me, instead of your own futile ways.  I love you, and am constantly thinking about you.  If only you knew.

“ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jer. 29:11, NIV)

 

 

 

               

                        DISCOUNTED BY MAN, A TOOL IN GOD’S HAND

            It was not your usual audience.  To my right, an elderly man sat crumpled in a wheelchair, his eyes closed and his head drooped over one shoulder.  Towards the front, a lady sat wringing her hands, and softly moaning, “Where am I?  Please help me.”  Others sat smiling vacantly, lost in their own thoughts.

            A group of us were visiting a chronic care residence.  I was leading the sing-song.  We had already done “Daisy, Daisy”, “Frere Jacques” and several others.

            A group member whispered to me,” See that lady over there?  Her name is Violet*(not her real name).  She‘s been the soloist in the town choir for years.  You should ask her to do a number.”

            I considered.  It seemed to me that Violet was in the chronic care residence for a reason.  Most people there had severe mental and/or physical disabilities, and quite often Alzheimer’s disease.

            Against my better judgment, I asked her if she would like to sing.

            “I don’t have my teeth!” she stated with a scowl, and slumped back into her chair.

            Well, that was certainly that!

            Thrum-mm!  I strummed the beginning chord of the old song “I Believe”.

I remembered this song from my childhood, and thought it would be familiar to the residents.  I had practised it over and over in my chosen key. 

            Why, then, was I getting stuck on the line, “Ev’ry time I hear a new-born baby cry, or touch a leaf, or see the sky”?  I could not seem to find the ending to the song.  I was trapped, like the man who had to keep riding the subway around and around forever.

            Right then, a clear, if quavery, soprano voice floated through the air:

“Ev’ry time I hear a new-born baby cry

                 Or touch a leaf, or see the sky –

 

Then I know why I believe”.

Oh, yes, now I remember! The tune goes up there, and leads into the ending.

The singer was Violet.  She slumped back into her chair with the familiar scowl. 

She never sang again. 

But oh, what a moment of glory!

 

DISCOUNTED BY MAN, A TOOL IN GOD'S HAND

A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON FAILURE

 



     Sometimes we let our failures from long ago hang over our lives like a shroud, a suffocating web which, although we are barely conscious of it, lessens our enjoyment of life.

     I am in awe at how deftly the Lord can pierce this web in an instant, to bring joy and freedom, even after fifty years.

     For someone considered academically promising enough to skip two elementary school grades, and labelled “definitely university material” after high school testing, I experienced two huge failures, damaging  to my self-esteem.  I spent two years in grade twelve, my only two years at an elite private boarding school.  Later, I left university the day before my second year final exams began, after barely scraping through first year in Modern Languages and Literatures.

     There were lots of reasons to fail grade twelve.  Academically, the course was so much superior to that of public high school as to be on a university level.  Then there was the emotional adjustment to the ingrown world of boarding school.  It did not help that I was a year younger than the other students, unathletic, and required to fit in with a lot of team captains and athletes.  I was also dealing with my father’s alcoholism, at its peak at home.  My mother told me years later that she had put me into the private school, her old alma mater, because she thought that I might have a nervous breakdown at home.

     The second year was a happy one, in which I made many new friends.  However, I decided to take grade thirteen at my old public high school, to achieve university entrance.  The superior private school English course stood me in good stead, as I managed to get the highest mark in English composition of our two local high schools by comparing Thomas Hardy with E.M. Forster, an author of whom the public school students had never heard.

     Then came the broadening world of university.  I loved the world of new ideas, the atmosphere and many of the courses, but I was in no way ready academically or emotionally to succeed. I was on a search for emotional healing, as well as a search for the truth about God.  I spent many hours in the offices of the chaplain and the university psychiatrist, who treated me for depression.  Having a need to be needed, I invested time in helping friends with problems.

     I had never done actual research in my life.  Thinking that it would be plagiarism to write the thoughts of the reference authors we were given, I wrote my own thoughts in English essays.  Years later, I realized that we were supposed to prove that we had read and understood the authors’ theses by summarizing them in our work.  (That would have been much easier than trying to be brilliant myself!)  I later helped my sister with her correspondence courses, understanding this now, and realized how enjoyable the work was, and that I could really ace it…now…too late.

     The thought of having wasted so much of my parents’ money at both schools was enough to cause me to beat myself up, inwardly, for years.  The assessment of others about my character and ability filtered into my self-image. 

     Until the Lord surprised me, after all those years, by saying to me:

     “Frances, no one can take that wonderful English away from you.”

     I smiled as I thought of Miss Stewart, her gray hair in a French roll, taking us to the elegant parlour of the private school to listen to Dylan Thomas reading his own poetry.  I thought about my life-long love of the poetry of T. S. Eliot and Gerard Manley Hopkins, acquired there. 

 “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”(from The Love- Song  of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot)

“I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon…”(from THE WINDHOVER: to Christ our Lord  by Gerard Manley Hopkins

     And what fun I had had at university with Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

   “ A Knicht there was…”(O.K., some of the fun was in having our friend Ann, who had no idea how to pronounce Chaucerian English, read it…)

   Deep within my soul remain the American novels we studied:  Moby Dick, The Sun Also Rises, Portrait of a Lady, Huckleberry Finn and so many more. 

     It is, after all, the learning that matters.

     Yes -  my Lord, my God, my best Friend, knows me, and knows how to speak in a positive and healing way.

…He restoreth my soul.{Psalm 23:3)

 

DANCING SHADOWS

 

                                DANCING SHADOWS

I was taking an art class.  I had found a photo which inspired me to try my first oil painting of scenery: dark brown water, wheat-coloured fall grasses with a backdrop of birch trees and sky.  A trick of the camera had placed some deep blue marks in the foreground, in front of the dark water.  These inspired me to paint a phantom blue bird and matching blue bulrushes  in deep Prussian blue.  How I loved the colours!

I had just finished doing the grasses with a palette knife.  Now, before doing the many tall trees in the background, I was painting the sky and shadows between the trees,  I swirled Prussian blue and white around and around for a mottled sky, and did the tree shadows with the  deepest tone of Prussian blue. 

Just as I loaded the brush with white for the actual trees, our teacher came by to check on my progress.

“STOP! Your painting is finished!” she shouted.

“Wha…but….” I yelped.

She held it up and started explaining to me and to the group of classmates who had gathered around my desk.

“Look at it artistically. It doesn’t have to be logical. Those mysterious shapes have movement-they MIGHT be trees or not.  The composition is excellent.  Perspective doesn’t matter in this piece.”

Suddenly, I could see that the painting worked.  The dark, dancing shadows were the highlight.  

The painting had been changed from mundane realism to art. It was not what I had intended, but much better.  It took the master’s eye of a veteran artist to recognize this and halt me in time.. 

In life, Jesus is the One Who takes me from the mediocre and makes me soar. I kinda think He put that blue bird there, too.

 

 

 

                                 

BOTTLED WISDOM   by Frances K. Van Mil

Spring had arrived.  At Cape Croker Reserve that meant, among other things, eager foraging in ditches for wild leeks and…beer bottles.  Beer bottles, plentiful and redeemable for cash, were the mainstay of the economy in some households.

This spring, Cape Croker was to be the host of the AA Roundup—the annual regional conference of Alcoholics Anonymous.

            I have great respect for AA.  From friends involved in it, I have absorbed much Biblical teaching expressed in practical terms.  Such slogans as “One Day at a Time”, “First Things First”, and “Let Go and Let God”, as well as the well-known Serenity Prayer have been useful in my own life—God’s big guns for those tearing-out-my-hair crises.

Although the local AA group consisted of only a few members—none too anonymous on such a small reserve—the Roundup was a community event and community pride was at stake.  True native hospitality must be shown.  The best cooks on the reserve had been asked to help with the fundraising banquet which was open to all.  Verna, our seventy-five- year-old landlady, took the responsibility so seriously that she brought both her microwave and her freezer to the Community Hall for the grand occasion.

           

My husband and I planned to attend the banquet.  As voluntary workers with the Mennonite Central Committee we had a dual role.  The first was to help with the economic development project—a cow-calf and commercial garden training venture which would provide employment, increase self-esteem and bring resources to the reserve.  The second was to live with our two young children on the reserve, being a Christian witness and forming relationships with the people in our own way.

Even at fifteen dollars a ticket, the banquet was a sellout.  Father McGee was there, anticipating a sumptuous feast instead of his usual bachelor fare of liver and onions or a boiled egg, all in the name of an upright cause.  Irene came prepared to cover the event for her weekly column in the Wiarton Echo.  The Chief and Council had been invited.  When the elders had been served, we all sat down to enjoy a feast:  corn soup, bannock, wild rice, turkey and venison.

After the meal, we settled back to listen to speeches on the theme of attaining and maintaining sobriety.

“My name is Tom.  I am an alcoholic.”

 The solemnity was shattered as two children ran through the open door to the left of the platform, shouting excitedly.  Suddenly I realized that they were my children, and that they were pulling a wagon loaded with empty beer bottles.  A ripple of laughter spread through the room. 

“Look, Mom, a whole wagon full.”  We’ll be rich!” shouted Stephen.

My face was as red as the cranberry punch.

“Don’t worry, dear”, said the lady beside me, patting my arm reassuringly.  “It never hurts us to “Remember When.”

                         MIRAGE IN THE LUMBER-YARD?

           We had no money.  Our family of four were living in an old, faded shell of a house, originally built for emergency wartime housing, but now used for storage by the Brokenhead First Nations, owners of the Wa WaTaik lumber-yard in Scanterbury, Manitoba, about an hour north of Winnipeg.  The Chief had offered it to us as the only housing available for our term as volunteers with Mennonite Central Committee for an agricultural economic development project.  Now the project was over, and we were still there, with little income.
     It tickled my funny bone to live in a lumber-yard, locked in every night.  A sense of humour usually helps in missionary projects.  And we had had many a glowing night at the weekly Bible study held at our home - oops!  Don't forget to unlock the gate! - with our dear friends from the Scanterbury House of Prayer Gospel Church which we attended on the reserve.  No one cared about the décor or the peeling paint.  Nor was it an embarrassment to our children at that point, as most of the reserve children lived in humble surroundings.
     I did not realize just how much it was all getting to me: the outdated orange shag rug, the hideous lamps, the weathered brown sofa, the hopelessness, the tedium, the lack of money.
     My husband Rien and I had begun ministering at a street mission on Main Street north, the roughest area in Winnipeg. We buttered buns, made soup, prepared sandwiches, washed dishes, led music, preached and loved the people.  We became friends with Mrs. Whyte, the "Mother Theresa of Main Street", who ran the mission.  She was a tireless worker and generous giver with a heart full of love for the needy.  One day, she asked us to drive with her to help her daughter, who was moving.
     And that is when God showered us with blessings, and gave me a personal gift to lift my spirits and show me His intimate love for me.
     Mrs. Whyte's daughter was, apparently, a clone of her mother.  She gave us a television set, some household items, and - oh, was it really before my eyes, or  just a mirage? - a pretty table with four matching chairs.
     Oh, my excitement!  The hexagonal glass and wood table with its four chairs was not expensive. It might not have attracted notice in a lavish furniture store.  But to me it represented God's very personal caring.  He  knew my lifelong interest in décor and love of pretty things.  He knew the contrast between our present circumstances and my girlhood dreams of a home with pretty furniture.  More than anything, it was a gift of hope, a sign of God's ability to do the impossible.  It was His personal love-gift to me in His perfect timing.
     The table attracted people immediately.  Polished and given a centerpiece of a frilly pink African violet, it first drew the ladies at the Bible study, then the children playing board games.  When my Dutch in-laws came to visit, they sat at an elegant dining table in the front room by the window, rather than at our tiny kitchen table which would seat only four.
     Rien never really liked the table, because it wobbled and sometimes spilled his coffee.  HE would never have made a table which wobbled.
     But the gift wasn't really for him.

Psalm 23: The Lord is my Shepherd.
                       I shall not want.
  

Which Husband Just Called My Name?

“Curly.”

I heard it quietly, yet distinctly.  Only one person on the planet called me by that name, and he had passed away several months before. 

The pet name had begun as a translation of a Dutch term of endearment meaning “Girly”, but had evolved into “Curly”,  and sometimes “ Mine Curly-cop”   (My Curly-head), accompanied by a ruffling of my hair by my sweet and very Dutch husband.

He might say, “Curly, what do you t’ink about dis colour shirt?”

Or “How about we go out for a coffee, Curly?”

Or simply a loving “Curly, mine Curly.”

Just the fact that it was his private name for me, shared by no other, made me feel cherished.  It was intimate, a special secret between the two of us.

Yet now he was gone.

Who, then, had just called me by that name?

It could only be Jesus.

 His calling me “Curly” reminded me that I still have a husband: One Who says to me  “I know you,

            I cherish you,

                        you belong to Me alone

NOT till death do us part… but forever.”

Isaiah 54:5 NIV: For your Maker is your husband…

Hebrews 13:5 NIV: Never will I leave you

Never will I forsake you.