Paul and I have just returned home from the funeral of a most precious little girl. Lydia's smile could have lit a room. Now it reflects the glory of God the Savior for all eternity. Perhaps you've noticed the sparsity of my entries here these last two weeks. We've been struggling and praying for appropriate ways to handle what we're dealing with, and when and whether to speak about it. Up until now, for reasons which will become obvious, I've only shared this with a very few trusted friends. Paul made reference to it on his blog several days ago, but with no specifics. I think it may be time for me to fill in the gaps. What we're dealing with is horrible and ugly - about as ugly as it gets. This all happens on the heels of my mother's death, and has now somehow managed to even overshadow that. Mother's death, as difficult as it was...well...it made sense. She was 87 years old, and hadn't been well in many years. This, on the other hand, is a m...
It's been a couple of weeks since I reached the end of Through Gates of Splendor , by Elisabeth Elliot. I was tremendously moved by the story, but perhaps even more so by the second Epilogue, written in honor of the 40th anniversary of the martyrdom of Elisabeth's husband, Jim. Four decades later her reflections are helpful, her wisdom profound. Until reading this book the version of these events which I carried about in my head were along these lines: Jim and his fellow missionaries went to Ecuador with a passion for a certain tribe. They went; they landed; they were massacred; their widows bravely ventured back toward the murderous tribe and when the killers saw the forgiveness of these women they repented and turned to Christ. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" is a maxim proven yet again. I liked that version. It was clean and it made a certain sense. But the actual events were not so neat and tidy, not in the events leading up to the massacre, ...
Perhaps you'll recall from a previous post that I'm currently reading Elisabeth Elliot's book, Through Gates of Splendor , the story of the mission and martyrdom of her husband Jim and his co-workers in Ecuador in 1956. In that entry I shared a quote from Jim Elliot. Today I'd like to share some thoughts from his fellow missionary, pilot Nate Saint. At the age of thirteen, during the forced inactivity of a bout of osteomyelitis, the young Christian first wondered if perhaps God was calling him to be a missionary. Upon recovery and renewed vitality, however, it appears that notion fell by the wayside as he pursued his other passion - flight, eventually becoming an Air Force cadet. Nate was on course to be an Air Force pilot until, on the eve of his first day of flight instruction, once again his osteomyelitis grounded him. His dream of becoming a military pilot would never be realized. His new position was that of maintenance crew chief. In his de...
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