Tag: inspiration

Grace Victorious: The Story of William Wilberforce

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Have you ever wondered how you could accomplish something considering your weaknesses and limitations? If so, then you have something in common with the key figure of this story. 

Let’s go back to 1807 in England. That year, Parliament chose to take a stand against one of the greatest evils of the day. In fact, Parliament voted to make that evil illegal even though some people really wanted to keep it going and giving it up meant losing both power and wealth.

That evil was the trafficking of human beings known then as the slave trade.

Through the radio theater drama Grace Victorious: The Story of William Wilberforce, you can meet William Wilberforce. As a young member of Parliament, he has what many people long for – wealth, popularity and position. He chooses to risk it all when careful study brings him from skepticism to personal faith in Jesus Christ. 

Soon he is confronted with the realities of the slave trade – a trade that greatly benefits his country economically and is considered unchangeable. Others are speaking up, but Wilberforce’s gifts and position make him the obvious choice to lead the cause in Parliament. 

After prayer and seeing God work, Wilberforce becomes convinced that taking on the slave trade is something he must do in spite of the cost…

While William has position and a penchant for public speaking, one thing he does not have is good health. Throughout his life, he is plagued by poor eyesight and what may have been ulcerative colitis. (Note: Information on his exact ailments seems to vary.) But he presses on.

Grace Victorious leaves you with the story unfinished, a reality to which we can all relate. After all, that is how our stories are (for anyone reading this blog) – unfinished. We may be facing challenges, questions, unknowns….Just like William Wilberforce when he began his campaign against the slave trade. 

One of William’s last statements in Grace Victorious is,

“I expect a long and arduous fight. But as I lie here, I wonder how I will fight – how this frail and feeble body will ever rise against a mountain of hatred, cruelty and greed.” [1]

The response?

“The only way such things are ever done, William – by the grace of God.”

If we choose to live like William Wilberforce, we may live to see challenges met, questions answered, unknowns discovered. And we may be used in ways we never expected.

After all, it’s unlikely Wilberforce thought someone would be writing about a radio theater drama featuring his story 210 years after the abolition of the British slave trade, much less that the writing would go on a blog accessible to the world at the push of a button. 

[1] Paul McCusker, Grace Victorious: The Story of William Wilberforce, audio CD disc 2, track 8, 6:28.

A Story to Share

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As the seasons begin to change, my family is stepping into another sort of new season.

The simple truth? We have too much “stuff”. Instead of helping us do what we love (or what we’re called to do) better, our possessions are holding us back. So. Not. Good.

There’s been a fair amount of organizing and sorting going at our house lately, inspired by the above realization. Why have we been holding onto all these unnecessary items? There could be a dozen reasons, but someone in my family recently made an interesting observation: We may have been keeping things because we liked the idea that they had a story behind them.

Ah, yes, a story behind them. Ok, some items definitely could (even should) be kept because of the story behind them. I’m all for that! But other things…Well, it’s time to tell them “thank you” and let them go to a new home. It’s not that we don’t value the objects’ stories anymore; we’ve simply come to value other stories more.

Maybe  we’ve realized that while our “treasures” have tales to tell, we have our own stories to share. Stories about Guatemala. Stories of how we’ve seen God work. Stories of our family. The story God is writing around us. The kinds of stories the above painting helps us tell. 

Those are the stories we’d like to be sharing more. And if this “stuff” is holding us back, we’ve (finally) admitted it’s high time to say “adiós”. Even if that includes the books on the bookshelves…(gasp).

Another confession: It’s actually freeing to live a little lighter! (Not to mention cleaning is easier!) Who knew? We’ll see how it goes from here. If you have any tips of 1) how to whittle down your stuff or 2) how to keep from accumulating excess again, I’m all ears! 

Stepping into the Story – Madeline Island & As Waters Gone By

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Madeline Island. 

Sophia smiled as she tweaked the sun-shimmer on a wave with her brush. The oil paint, the canvas, the brush in her hand – she had loved them ever since they first came into her life when she was thirteen years old.

It wasn’t until a month ago that she loved the subject of this painting: Madeline Island rising out of the Superior waves.

As-Waters-Gone-ByOn the coffee table nearby sat the book that started it all. Sophia had won the book in a silent-auction gift basket. When she finally cracked the cover, she was delighted. By the end, she knew she had to do one thing. She simply had to visit this place called Madeline Island. 

So that’s what she did.

She sat in her car on the ferry – the closest her car would ever get to driving on water – with her bike stashed on the rack. Once on land, she drove past the historic homes and all around the fourteen-mile-long island. She noted the itty-bitty library, the school, and the School of the Arts with its red and white buildings. She biked where she could see sparkling Superior. She snapped photos for later use. Then she returned to LaPoint for ice cream, meandered in and out of shops and even sketched. The sun came and went with the clouds.

Now back at home with her easel and brushes and the island captured on canvas, Sophia smiled. What was it about the book that made her so want to be there – to step into the story? The whimsical, relatable characters? The descriptions of the natural beauty? The heartwarming sayings that she wanted to paint on the walls of her dining room? The meals the characters enjoyed that made her tastebuds dance? Those all had something to do with with it, but…

It had to be the hope that flickered on like the flame of her candle (purchased on the island). Maybe it was also the refreshing reminder that God uses peculiar people to do His work – people who are willing to do the works He has prepared for them. 

Yes.

That’s why she was here, doing this peculiar business of spreading color on canvas. Her work was to capture the beauty of the Master Artist, to inspire others to pause and wonder, to share what she saw so that others might see Whom she sought.

Or something like that. She was a painter after all, not a writer. 

 “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;  Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”  ~I Peter 2:9-10 (KJV)

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” ~Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)

 

Seeing Grace

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They said, “It takes quite a guy to see the things he’s seen and to be the way he is.” 

In a way, that was true. Nobody would pay to see some of the things he’d seen – except for maybe on a movie screen with a happy ending thrown in.

They said he was the kind of guy they were glad to know – “a good guy”,

In a way, that was true. After all, he’d done okay in life if that’s what you call living honest, raising a family, leaving a legacy.

But, when it came down to brass tacks, he knew they were missing the point. It wasn’t about him being “quite a guy” or anything about him being “good”. 

It was about grace. A grace that had sought him and that he had sought. God’s grace.

But they didn’t see it.

How often do we miss the grace in our lives? Maybe we don’t see it because we don’t see it in the rocky places – we miss the cactus blooms among the wilderness. Maybe we either attribute it to something else or choose to be blind to it like the aforementioned observers. 

Instead of being like them, may we be like Lace Harper in Come Rain or Come Shine… 

“And now, all this – the wedding, the farm, everyone being together like family. A lot of times it seems like a dream, but I know what it is. It’s grace. Totally.” [1]

Yes, Lace Harper is a bride-to-be with a bouquet of joy, but that same bride-to-be is the girl who watched her mother die, stayed as far away as she could from her abusive father, struggled with the emotions of being adopted, studied to be an artist yet struggled to find a job because of “the economy”, found out that she would never have her children of her own…. Perhaps if anyone has a reason to miss grace, she does. Yet she sees dreams-come-true as other than the product of wishing on a star. She sees grace. 

Ok. So she’s a fictitious character. I’ve learned a lot from people who live only within the covers of a book, haven’t you? 

O Lord, give us eyes to see the gifts and dreams-come-true in our lives as Your work. May we not be blind. Come Rain or Come Shine, may we see grace.

[1] Come Rain or Come Shine: A Mitford Novel by Jan Karon, narrated by John McDonough (Penguin Audio, 2015) CD 2, track 4, 3:04.

Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen (Revisited)

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Ten minutes was all they had. Ten minutes to share a kind word and some home-cooking. Ten minutes to send off the American boys who might never come home.

So out came the sandwiches, out came the angel food cakes, on came the jukebox and on went the coffee. After all, ten minutes was all they had.

Can you picture it? The troop train clangs to a stop and young soldiers pour off. Mothers and daughters hand out plates of food as if serving their own sons and brothers. What would the hospitality and kind words mean to you if you were heading off to war? How would angel food cake taste when you knew it would be the last you would have in a long time or when you’d been eating military food? What would you do with the pen-pal address hidden in your popcorn ball?

This is the story of the North Platte Canteen. During WWII, the North Platte Canteen was a hopping place as troop trains stopped in that small Nebraska town on their way across the country. North Platte’s people saw this as an opportunity. Why not seize those ten-minute stops to encourage those American soldiers?

So the homemakers got together. Soon the husbands and children joined in to whisk egg whites with forks, serve sandwiches, form sticky popcorn balls, and chip in their pocket money. My own Grandpa Dan who grew up in Nebraska remembers that his mother sent money to support the Canteen. I’ve wondered if my Grandpa Ken who served in the Air Force during WWII ever stopped in North Platte.

A special thank-you to my Grandpa Dan and Grandma Ruth for sharing Once Upon a Town with me and for Grandpa's service in the US Navy.

A special thank-you to my Grandpa Dan and Grandma Ruth for sharing Once Upon a Town with me and for Grandpa’s service in the US Navy.

And what was the impact of those ten minutes? Well, within the pages of Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by journalist Bob Greene, I discovered that North Platte became famous among American soldiers, families pulled together to serve, a little boy sold his shirt to raise money, a lifelong marriage began with a popcorn-ball connection, and decades later many of those involved teared up as they shared their Canteen stories. One soldier even took his children on a post-war road trip to show them the Canteen where they found his name in the guest book. These are the true stories of sacrifice, community, hard work and love that capture life on the homefront and show how mere minutes of kindness can leave a permanent impression and change many lives.

I found myself intrigued by the fact that serving especially scrumptious homemade food out of the Canteen to the soldiers was a private idea. It wasn’t a government project. It didn’t take a bureaucratic committee. It did take a host of volunteering homemakers, farmers and country children. What a great example of charity that is “relational, local and voluntary”!

While I don’t endorse the entire book – please read with discretion/some sections are not suitable for children – particular stories are definitely worthwhile. For me, Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen was a productive read and a challenge. Could we be as dedicated as Mr. Greene to collecting the stories of those who have gone before us but with a focus on God’s glory? Would we be willing to give of our time and resources with such gusto if given an opportunity like the women, children and men at North Platte? Could they have used those ten-minute intervals more fruitfully for Christ’s Kingdom? Are similar opportunities waiting for us today? Hmmm. Food for thought.

May you all have a very blessed Memorial Day weekend. As we take time to relax with family and friends and eat something yummy like angel food cake, may we also take time to remember and be grateful for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and for those who sacrifice in small and big ways on a daily basis to defend liberty for us. 

Woven

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A Schmuck Redefined: The Story of Mrs. Schmuck

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Someone once asked, “What’s in a name?” I don’t know if anyone definitively answered that question, but I do know names play an important part in who we are. Authors sometimes struggle to find the just-right name for a character. A name can tell a lot about the bearer of it. However, sometimes this can go too far. Sometimes a name simply doesn’t fit at all.

That was the story of Mrs. Schmuck. 

Schmuck! Imagine that as a last name. “Schmuck” can even be found in the dictionary with its definition of “a foolish or contemptible person”. 

But in this particular case, the New Oxford American Dictionary got it all wrong.

Mrs. Sandy Schmuck was the best English teacher I could have asked for in high school. Even if you hated grammar in your school years, I think you could have liked it if you had had a teacher like her. Day after day, she walked with us through American literature. From the journals of John Smith, John Winthrop and Sarah Knight, through the tales of Twain, Crane, Hawthorne, and Melville to the works of Elizabeth Eliot and Ray Bradbury. She also shared with us the poetry of Bradstreet, Wheatley, Longfellow, Bryant, and Dickinson to name a few. It was as if she took down the tapestry of America’s literary heritage and let us marvel at the masterpiece while also acknowledging the snags and threadbare patches. She knew her subject and made sure we got to know it, too!

Then there was the grammar, spelling and vocabulary. If you didn’t learn how to write well under her tutelage, it was your own fault. At least, that’s how it was for my class – even if no one else slept with their Handbook of Grammar & Composition under their pillow or read it at five o’clock in the morning like I did. 

Yet Mrs. Schmuck didn’t just dump knowledge into our heads. Sure, she kept her class moving right along, but she still took time to laugh with us at funny things that happened. I also remember her tearing up when we read Longfellow’s “Auf Wiedersehen” and she told us about someone dear to her who had passed away. Moments like that became the building blocks that created a sense of camaraderie. 

What Mrs. Schmuck did might seem basic. She taught literature, spelling, grammar and composition – subjects some people don’t care much about these days! Yet the spirit with which she did it was anything but basic. Just like she wasn’t defined by her name, she can’t be defined by only what she did. 

All of these things mixed together made me love Mrs. Schmuck. At the end of our last class, I cried. 

Yes, if you looked up “Schmuck” in Kristen’s Dictionary of the English Language the definition would read something like this…

Schmuck: noun; a master teacher; a person who reflects the character of Christ through orderliness, care for others and pursuit of excellence and who inspires others to do the same 

May the world have more Mrs. Schmucks, I say! 

For Someone Else

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A Living Word

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I’ve thought that if I had lived during the era of the War for Independence and could have picked my husband’s profession, I’d choose printing. Laying out rows of type (backwards so that the text would appear left-to-right on the printed page) seems fascinating, and I’d like to think that I wouldn’t mind at all if Mr. Printer’s hands and apron were all ink-stained. What would that matter compared to the joy of promulgated news, knowledge and noteworthy notions? Besides, I figured I would be able to manage the print shop nicely (all right, with some help) if my hero joined the ranks of the American militia. After all, we would surely strive to practice what we printed!

Yes, if my last name were Gutenberg itself I’d be rather thrilled (though I admit to true partiality to my real last name as is…It’s rather a handy title, you see.) But why Gutenberg, you ask? Ah, well, it was back in the 1400s that Johannes Gutenberg invented the first movable type printing press. This invention made possible faster and economical printing of all kinds, especially books. 

Thanks to movable type, phrases like these haven been printed and distributed around the world:

“Humility makes great men twice honorable.” ~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac

“If I can stop one Heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain…”  ~Emily Dickinson 

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” ~Charles Dickens

“Elementary, my dear Watson.” Sherlock Holmes, via Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The writers behind these words wrote them for various reasons, I’m sure, but, I think, they all understood that what someone reads affects him. Whether their goal was to instruct, encourage, inspire, or amuse, they counted on the power of the printed word. If what people read only goes in their eyes and out the back of their heads and doesn’t change how they live at all – even for moments – I think most writers would scurry off to a different profession. The world certainly knows that writers don’t write for the money involved!

Yes, words have power. Yet books fall apart, ink fades and paper decays. Words really cannot live on their own. They are like marionettes, sitting motionless unless someone gives them action.

There is, however, one Living Word. It is of this Word that a German – who demonstrated that he believed in the power of words by nailing a parchment to a chapel door in Wittenberg on this day 498 years ago – wrote the following lines.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;

Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:

Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;

Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,

And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,

One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;

The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;

The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,

His kingdom is forever. 

~”A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”, Martin Luther

And it is of this Word that it was written first by hand and then printed for all the world to read: 

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. ~John 1:14, ESV

Now that’s a Living Word. 

And what became of Martin Luther’s words nailed to the Wittenberg Chapel on October 31, 1517? Those Ninety-Five Theses sparked a movement that took Europe by storm and, arguably, changed the course of history: the Reformation. Whatever your view of that event, it does show that words (especially when they are brought to life by actions) have power. Let’s remember that on this Reformation Day.

Worth the Tears: The Story of a Struggling Reader

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 As Katie stared at the bold black letters on the page, tears dripped down her cheeks. Her teacher wasn’t surprised. This was the daily routine.

Every day they worked on reading together. It seemed like it was never going to get easier. Katie wondered why her teacher couldn’t just read to her; she liked listening to stories! Learning to read on her own, however, seemed just painful. 

It wasn’t that Katie’s teacher hadn’t laid a good foundation. They had gone over phonics thoroughly.  Still, only three-letter words seemed hard. Katie’s dramatic emotions didn’t help. She even declared that she didn’t want to read. And every day the tears came.

Thankfully, Katie’s teacher could see beyond the surface. Katie’s conflict ran deeper than letters and sounds. Unlike some children, Katie’s greater struggle to read wasn’t brought on by letters moving backwards in her head or a non-verbal bent. A big part of Katie’s struggle was that she couldn’t see. The letters blurred together, not just because of her tears and even with the best glasses she could get. Along with that, Katie was learning a lesson even harder than reading: Because of her vision issues, she was different from other kids her age. While they might fight to remember when an e is silent, she might fight to simply see that it was an e and not a c. That realization hurt. Of course, the fact that she could see at all was something to be thankful for, but a six-year-old’s life isn’t always governed by logic. (Actually, no one’s is…)

Knowing all that, her teacher did battle with her and those BOB books. Sure, she probably pulled out her hair a few times and even shed a few frustrated tears of her own, but she wanted Katie to read normal print books if she ever could.

Mercifully, the teacher got a little help. A gentleman read to Katie on a regular basis. She had been read to before – that’s how she knew she liked hearing stories –  but as the days went by she slowly discovered that books were her ticket to adventures and the places and people she wanted to learn about. She just had to take hold of it.

Months of tedium and tears continued. Then one day, all the pieces came together. Katie decided she wanted to take hold of her ticket to adventure and board the train herself. There were so many people and places she wanted to learn about! She also figured out that if she could get up early and snuggle into her favorite blue chair, she had the perfect place to read. There was no one to mind that she held the book two inches away from her nose. She read books like the Little House series that she had loved listening to and new mysteries She felt rather satisfied when she read a biography of Daniel Boone that had hundreds of pages. Lessons in Braille fed her new-found love for letters, even though she continued to read mostly with her eyes

And she kept reading. Through two international moves, junior high, high school, and right on through college when she gained her BA. By this time Katie knew that she relished stories. Even more than that, she knew that she loved God’s story.

You see, Katie had been given a key to not only escapades and faraway places but also to God’s Word, another book she read for herself. Within those pages, she learned that God doesn’t make mistakes and that even if we don’t understand why He gives us certain circumstances and life may be just plain hard, He is worthy of our trust. Stories from history that she read gave her hope that God can use even the challenges in our lives for good purposes.

Now Katie still reads – though not as much as she might like – and contacts help her see better, but she also seeks to share stories with others to give them at least a glimpse of the hope she’s been given. 

Maybe not every struggling reader will be like Katie. Maybe God has other stories to tell in some of their lives. But, for all of you who are or will be traipsing through tedium and tears this school year, I hope it’s an encouragement. Teaching a child to read – to whatever extent he or she is able – is a great gift. You never know what God might have in store for your student. I think Katie and her teacher decided it was worth the tears, don’t you?

And just who was Katie’s teacher? Of all the people in the whole wide world, it was her mom. And the gentleman who read to her? He was her dad. 

I should know because I am Katie. Funny how a girl by any other name can be-one-and-the-same, isn’t it? And, yes, I’d say it was worth the tears. I’m thankful Mom and Dad thought so, too.