His Beloved by Gloria Guest

“You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” Luke 3:22

I have always been awestruck over this particular piece of scriptural information given when Jesus was baptized and have wondered why it seems to be so often overlooked when the narrative is told.
Seriously. A voice…GOD’S voice was audibly heard from Heaven for all to hear saying just how pleased He was with His Son. And it was before Jesus even began His earthly ministry. That’s validation.
This portion of scripture stands out so clearly to me, likely in large part, because I never received validation in my life from my earthly father. It’s ironic then that this blog post topic has come up the week before Father’s Day. I’ve struggled to write it.  I have written quite a lot over the years about my mother but I have never shared publicly about my father.
Until now.
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  The photo depicts a little girl of less than two years old sitting on a tricycle. Her feet fumble to touch the pedals and her little hands grasp for the handle bars.  She is far too young to be able to ride it, but that doesn’t seem to matter. You see, her father’s large hands are also shown in the picture. With a firm grip over her hands on the handle bars he is guiding the bike for the child. All will be well. With her father’s help she will be okay.

That little girl in the picture is me and the large hands belong to my father. If only life had gone on to be as simple and loving as it appears to be in that picture. However that was not the case. My father, unhealed from years of abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his own father, was not able to give me the love, guidance or validation I so longed to receive as his daughter. In fact it was quite often the opposite; abusive, demeaning words were hurled my way whenever I displeased him or even when I hadn’t. This is only the bare bones of what life was like in my home when I was growing up. Not only was I not validated but I cannot remember a time when I was not afraid of my father.
I was always a creative child but to my father it didn’t matter. There were no words of praise or acknowledgement. I came upon my ability to write by placing in a national writing contest when I was in high school. This piqued my interest and over the years I’ve sporadically pursued it; including a stint as a reporter. It has all been a challenge for me and at times I have felt my confidence in my craft grow while at other times, usually during times of stress, I have felt weak and incompetent and wished God had never given me this gift.

Have I ever felt God’s pleasure when I write?  Any time I’ve stepped forward in my writing in spite of great fear I have felt His presence.  Is His presence the same as feeling His pleasure though? It certainly wasn’t with my earthly father. In fact I used to try to avoid my father’s presence as much as possible.     

This is the dis-connect that unfortunately occurs for those of us who were abused by our father’s. It’s hard to then go on and see our heavenly Father in a loving light; that He would actually be pleased with us. Most of the time it seems far too good to be true.

And so for me; I must go by faith. I believe I do feel growing glimmers of God’s pleasure but just as assuredly I still also push them uncomfortably away. Most of the time I simply choose to believe that He is pleased with me. A favorite bible verse when I attended bible school became Ephesians 1:6 “to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.”

God called Jesus His Beloved and feels pleasure with Him. Through Jesus I have become accepted in the Beloved. I am God’s Beloved. Therefore He is pleased with me.

If I’ve learned even one thing through all I’ve been through it is that ultimately my relationship with God is not based on feelings or what I can necessarily always observe in my circumstances.  It is based on faith.  “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” II Corinthians 5:7

 I  look to God with  confidence that His strong hands will guide me. All will be well. With my Father’s help I will be okay.

 He might even be pleased ;)

*scripture verses from NKJV

A WALK WITH DAD — Lynda Schultz

Traditionally, Christmas Eve in my hometown was C.O.L.D. The first breath taken once I was out the front door just about produced lung-sicles. It was painful. The snow crunched underfoot and almost always there were a few flakes of the white stuff gently falling. My dad and I always walked the four and a half blocks between our place and the church together. He put his car up on blocks in the garage during the winter, which probably explains why a second-hand ’54 Ford lasted twenty years! But I digress.

My father wasn’t a talkative man so the walk to the Christmas Eve service was a quiet one. But that was part of its charm. The snow crunched underfoot. The air was cold and crisp. The snow was gentle and sparkled under the streetlights. Cars passed almost silently. In those days the city didn’t spread a lot of sand and salt around and turn the snow in noisy, messy slush. Then the streets were packed snow that created a great noise buffer. A lot of people put up lights on their houses and an equal number had wood stoves and I could smell the scent of wood burning and see the smoke hanging in the cold air—something I love to this day. Chimes ringing out Christmas music could be heard coming from several churches. And Dad and I would crunch along in companionable silence. I loved to walk to church with him on Christmas Eve.

I spent a lot of Christmases away from my family while I was overseas, a lot of green and hot Christmases. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if Dad and I had been crunching along snowy streets listening to church bells and smelling wood smoke, or if we had been shuffling through sand on a beach listening to waves rushing in and smelling night-blooming flowers. I have a feeling that with or without the winter wonderland, the walk to church with Dad would have always been special. There’s nothing like the quiet companionship of the father you love, and who loves you, whatever the circumstances.

There are lots of Biblical characters about whom we know very little. One of those is a man named Enoch. We know he lived a long time and had lots of kids. But those circumstances aren’t what made Enoch significant in God’s story as recorded for us in the Bible. Genesis 5:24 (NIV) says: “Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, because God took him away.”

“Enoch walked with God.”

Can you picture it? God is Spirit but His presence to Enoch was so palpable that it seemed as though they were companions together as Enoch walked through life. The idea of walking with God in quiet companionship is not so improbable. Now that I am living in my hometown again, and despite the fact that my father has gone on to glory, I can still feel him crunching along beside me on the way to church on Christmas Eve.

I have a prayer for 2012. I pray that I will be more conscious of the quiet companionship of God walking beside me in this coming year than I have ever been before. Someday, someone might say of me: “Lynda walked with God, then she was no more, because God took her away.”

Now wouldn’t that be a great epitaph? And isn’t that a great aspiration?

Two Minutes Before Dawn

posted by Lynda Schultz

My father's birthday was this month. I remember him with love. This story I wrote several years ago in his memory.

"We all knew it was only a matter of time before night fell. The signs were unmistakable.

'His arteries are like lead pipes,' said the doctor. I had never seen the inside of a well-used lead pipe, so I could only imagine.

Everyone slows down with age, but the first time I noticed life was taking an irrevocable twist was when I caught him staring at me as though I were a perfect stranger.

Who are you, and what are you doing in my living room? He didn’t say it, but I could read it in his eyes, distant and puzzled.

In the beginning, the changes were subtle, causing concern but not panic. Later those changes would become more marked, sometimes frightening. Moments of madness when hours twisted. Morning became night. Night turned into afternoon. Anger and aggression kindled in his eyes. Some other person had taken possession of a man once irritatingly mild and meek. He would not have recognized himself, known himself. He would not have liked what he saw. I was glad he didn’t know.

In the early days and later, in those moments when dad returned to visit himself, he appreciated the humour of the situation. One afternoon he came home from his walk with his face all battered and bruised.

'What happened to you?' is a silly question to ask a man who doesn’t remember those seconds when the mind turns off. We asked anyway, to which he replied with the classic: 'You should see the other guy!' He didn’t always collapse from those mini-strokes. Usually he’d simply stand there, a blank look on his face as though he were far, far, away. Perhaps he was.

One Sunday, still dressed in his Sunday best, dad left the dinner table to go to the bathroom. He hadn’t been there long when we heard a loud thump and crash. I jumped up and ran. Dad was sitting sideways, rear in the bathtub, head resting against the wall, and feet waving in the air. He was laughing uproariously. He’d missed every sharp and potentially damaging object in our small bathroom—certainly a miracle in anyone’s book.

Public Health sent nurses in regularly to check on seniors still living alone in their own homes. I was visiting on one such occasion when the nurse came in to check blood pressures and to cut dad’s toenails. It was summer. The light was much better in the porch so they went out there. I followed. Something clicked in dad’s mind as the nurse worked on those yellowed, thickened, nails. He turned to me and smiled that impish smile that was a characteristic precursor to some quip.

'I’m tough,' he said proudly.

Yes you are, dad, I thought.

When he was growing up, everyone had to be tough. He’d had to leave school before finishing the eighth grade to help out on the family farm. He’d worked in an asbestos mine, fixed cars, and looked after his now growing family on the meager income of a unlicensed mechanic. There were no extras. We wore hand-me-downs, and didn’t have a car until dad managed to pick a cheap one up at a police auction—one he drove for the next twenty years. He loved us in his own quiet way, provided for us, disciplined us when we needed it, and was a faithful husband. For a man who had worked all his life, retirement was punishment. He soon returned to work, pumping gas in freezing cold weather until he was seventy-five years old.

However, it was back to his roots that dad returned during his last years. When it was no longer possible to look after him at home, he went to live in a nursing home. By then the lights of his mind were very dim, like the kerosene lamps of his childhood.

I found him fingering the hospital bracelet that he carried on his wrist.

'What’s that, Dad?' I asked.

He looked up with that same quirky smile that time never seemed to fade.

'Pa made it for me,' he said, fondness and pride lifting his voice. He was back on the homestead, surrounded by brothers and sister, mom and dad, rather than doctors, nurses, and strangers. He smelled freshly cut hay, not the odor of disinfectant and stale age. His mind was free even though it was confined to another time and another place.

It was twilight, the grayness before the night, and only two moments before eternal dawn."

On Daddies - Lynda Schultz

I had a friend who refused to go to church on Mother’s Day. Her mother was dead. She had never been a mom and somehow she couldn’t bring herself to “rejoice with those who rejoice” (Romans 12:15).

That experience gives me pause for thought when Father’s Day rolls around. Many people have had “daddy damage” and Father’s Day must be clouded with pain and bitterness for those who haven’t been able to deal with those issues.

As much as we’d like people to focus on the qualities of God the Father rather than on Daddy the Dastardly, it’s often hard to take the leap from the physical to the spiritual. When you need a hug from dad you need, well, a hug from dad.

My father was not abusive. He was simply not demonstrative. I don’t remember a lot of hugs or words of affirmation from him. But I am thankful for other signs that remind me of who he was behind that wall of detachment.

He worked hard to provide for his family.

He only spanked as a last resort and never raised his voice except in defense of his family.

He made sure we got safely off the train when our sleeper car was set on fire by a careless smoker.

He played Crokinole with me.

He never complained about mom’s cooking (He never complimented it either—much to mom’s disgust!) but he ate everything on his plate.

He went to church every Sunday and people say he had the best handshake of any of the ushers.

He cried when I graduated from Seminary, but not in front of me!

No “biggies” but a lot of little things that add up to a good dad for whom I have always been grateful to God, especially since there once existed a possibility that he wouldn’t be my dad at all. Before mom began to get serious about dad, she dated his brother. I’m sure Uncle Eddie’s daughters thought he was wonderful—but I’m glad I wasn’t one of them. If I had been, this story would have been a whole lot different.

Sometimes God my Father is like Dad my father. He goes quietly about the business of looking after me without my being necessarily aware that He’s there. It’s not up to Him to make me aware of that presence; it’s up to me to count on Him being present and to remember that His thoughts about me are a numberless as the sands of a thousand beaches (Psalm 139:18).

I’m grateful for both of them.