Page 29 - Presbyterian Connection Newspaper

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WINTER 2018
Be Still
shaken.
We need to stop and be still. Our
strongest resource during a personal crisis is the bended knee. Our hands folded in sincere prayer. I remember the early days after I lost my son. The cloud of pain and tears of my loss all around me. I was so focused on that. Until one day I was standing in my dining room. I heard or sensed the words: Be still. My pacing stopped and I got down on the floor. It wasn’t enough to be on bended knee. My loss and grief had me splayed out on the floor. Screaming and weeping out my grief over the loss of my son. This went on for a few minutes. Then I was still and quiet on the floor. Giv- ing all my hurt and pain over to God.
A peace came over me. The faith that I had forgotten during my crisis was coming back to me.
During a personal crisis we need to remember our faith walk and not just the physical tools of our walk. The physical tools may not always be there for us. We need to be still and know that He is with us.
to me personally. I started to laugh. God has such a sense of humour at times. I whispered a “thank you” and turned away from the window... My lethargy had lifted, and I knew that God had great plans for me, I just had to take a deep breath and go for it.
By Vivian Ketchum, originating
from Wauzhushk Onigum Nation of Northern Ontario and now a member of Place of Hope Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg, Man.
I went out do to my regular errands on a Sunday morning with my bank card in my pocket to pick up a few items. Inside the store I wandered about, casually tossing items into my basket. I have done this routine so many times. Buy the required items and head to the cashier. She gives the amount I owe and then I take my bank card to pay. Again, all in my reg- ular routine on a weekend. I use the tap feature on my bank card. I was about to pick up my bag and leave the store. Then a message came up on the debit machine. Decline. I tap my card again. It was declined again. My first reaction was embar-
rassment and then as I left the store without my purchases, I began to get worried. Thoughts that someone had accessed my bank account. I rushed home to check my bank account on- line. I couldn’t access my online ac- count. Unavailable.
I had no ready cash on hand. What if my account was emptied? What if I had no way to buy groceries or pay bills for the next while until this was sorted out? It felt weird being in a financial crisis. I had relied on my card to get me my required items. If I needed cash, all I needed to do was go to the ATM. Now that was gone. My financial security blanket.
My situation with my bank card was similar to when our faith hits a crisis in our lives. We go to church every Sunday and pay our tithes. At- tend Bible studies and be prayerful. All just actions until our faith is truly
tested. A death in the family. Job loss or something major that tests us. We head to the church to pray, but the doors are locked. We call our friends to be supportive, but they are not available. Our community security blanket is gone.
We head home to pace back and forth. Pondering the “what ifs” in the
crisis. What if I got him to the hospi- tal sooner? What if I spent more time with my spouse than being at work? There is more time spent thinking about the crisis than about our faith. All the actions of being godly, like our church attendance and Bible studies, are forgotten in the midst of our cri- sis. Our faith is forgotten. Our faith is
Connection
REFLECTIONS
Faith That God Will Be with Us
By Patricia Schneider, elder at Forbes Presbyterian Church in Grande Prairie, Alta.
I was tired, dead tired, and all I could do was look out the window of the hotel. Six hours of driving, two of them within the city, had just taken the stuffing out of me.
I was deeply grateful that I was but a passenger, but it has been three years since I had left the confines of my own hometown and I was there- fore three years older...not quite as up to it as I used to be.
Of course, there were some posi- tives to anticipate...three days visit- ing with the great-grandchildren and a much-loved grandson and his wife. That was the icing on the cake. The children were adorable (of course) and noisy, which really didn’t bother me a bit. At the Grade One, Two and Three levels, I communicated pretty well. The two-year-old was too busy trying to run the whole house to bother with me. I could see myself in one of the girls who didn’t hesitate to
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jump on a bike, helmet on her head, and tear up the sidewalk. Oh yes, his- tory does repeat itself.
But my most special memory will be the afternoon we went for ice- creams. I stood at the counter and asked each child personally what they would like. They didn’t hesitate to tell me, and the staff person just kept punching in the orders. “Sorry if that was confusing,” I explained. “These are all members of my family and I am the great-grandma.”
She insisted I did not look old enough and it took the edge off the cost of the ice cream, which came to nearly forty dollars.
I watched as they sat at a corner booth, a smile on every face and sheer delight from the two-year-old child as she dipped deeply into her little dish of ice cream. The joy of watching them all gulping and grin- ning will be a much treasured mem- ory.
I wonder if God feels like that when seeing us enjoy the blessings laid on us...family, food, fellowship and best of all faith... Faith that God will be with us always.
God had spoken to me earlier in the day, when I had gazed out the hotel window, wondering if I could gather enough get-up-and-go to handle the next few days. I looked out, and like a small message, a lone goose glided by the window. I shook my head, but if God wanted to remind me that He cares about the sparrows that fall,
I guess God could send a Canada goose to remind me... Then a few seconds later a plane showed up in what had previously been an empty sky. I love planes—they remind me of me and my late husband’s 10 years in the air force. God knows
that. I started to smile as I felt my tiredness lift, and then a large truck came down the street. Across its side, my maiden name was printed out. It is not a name you see often and certainly not printed on the side of a truck. Wow! God was speaking
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