She sighed. “Mom, are you bringing dead animals home again?”

The family has never allowed me to forget that decades ago, I once picked up road kill Arriving home, I called, “Guess what I’ve got in the trunk?” Family came running. No one answered.

“A dead body,” I whispered. The Preacher almost swooned—likely more from the stench than the shock. But I used the quills I harvested from that dead porcupine for years.

They also insist on bringing up the half-dead squirrel I dragged home from a picnic. (The children insisted, but that part seems long forgotten.) We cleared the food from the cooler and put the squirrel in, hoping to doctor it at home, or at least let it die in peace. Somehow it got loose in the car. I’d rather not talk about the lesson I learned that day—but the policeman who pulled me over may still be cackling.

“I wanted to show it to the beans,” I said, of the strip. Amanda rolled her eyes, likely remembering the brown bat in Neighbour Ed’s yard. I thought it would make a good nature lesson, with its carefully designed wings and soft fur—and I didn’t stop her when she picked it up. It seemed cute—until it bit her palm.

In retrospect, the bat taught us mostly about the science of medicine. Five of us, including the neighbour and his son, needed a month-long course of rabies vaccinations. (The Preacher didn’t touch the creature—he mentions that often.)

“This time it’s only a wee bit of the animal,” I said of the fur. She seemed not overly relieved.

A few hours earlier I and a pair of friends, out cross-country skiing, had found that piece of deer draped over a sturdy, though short, tree branch, about eight feet up. Using my ski pole, I dragged it down for inspection, wondering how it got there. It reminded me of the pair of antlers the Preacher had spotted hanging about thirty feet up in another tree. That mystery on Yorkton’s Hjertas Nature Trail puzzled us each time our family hiked there.

“That likely happened during the night,” my friend said. “The deer was probably trying to escape a predator.” The visual images of those frenzied minutes made me shudder—but clearly the animal had escaped.

I’ve kept the hide. It reminds me how crucial it is to flee from the enemy of our souls—even at the risk of leaving a strip of skin behind—whatever form that skin takes.

Got an attractive temptation, an unhealthy relationship or habit? Considering an unethical deal? Take a lesson from the deer—leave it behind. A strip of skin is a small price to pay for your spiritual survival.

Even Amanda agrees—that’s a lesson worth bringing home.

Parliament Hill’s bronze tableau of Canada’s Famour Five. Nellie McClung is standing with declaration in her hand.

“A person is a person, no matter how small!” Horton the elephant keeps insisting in Dr. Zeuss’s classic children’s book, Horton Hears a Who. Horton believes something others don’t: that a world full of people live on a miniscule speck he found. He believes that because he heard their mayor, calling for help. Horton takes on the rescue challenge, because in his eyes, “a person is a person, no matter how small.”

Horton would have gotten on well with early 20th Century author and activist Nellie McClung. Women couldn’t vote in Canada—until Nellie. Nor could they own property or have a bank account. Canadian law didn’t consider them persons.

That changed in 1929, thanks to Nellie and four other women. Canada’s Famous Five, as they’re now known, lobbied relentlessly to see women established in law as persons. Today on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill you’ll find a sculpture of the women—a larger than life-sized tableau. They’re sipping tea, wondering perhaps, what next.

While visiting the Hill recently, I touched Nellie’s sun-warmed bronze coat, grateful for the reminder of how she lived out her unflinching convictions. “Never retreat. Never explain. Never apologize,” she said often. And in the face of jeers and opposition, Nellie and her companions kept their face to the truth. In doing so, they earned themselves a permanent place on the Hill and in history.

People remember Nellie as a women’s rights activist. I peg her as an advocate for human life—deep respect for life was foundational to her work and writing. Were she still living, I suspect she’d march again on Parliament Hill every year, just before Mother’s Day. Striving, this time, to bring attention to the personhood of another segment of society; the smallest among us—our children, still in the womb.

Perhaps she’d speak loudly: Current Canadian law has no restriction against abortion at any stage. Government refuses to condemn even the specific targeting of female babies for sex-selective abortion. Furthermore, it doesn’t officially recognize a child in the womb as a person.

Nellie can’t attend, but on May 9th, thousands of others met on the Hill at this year’s annual March for Life. In 2012, twenty thousand people gathered there to remind Canada’s lawmakers that all human life is sacred; that political correctness must be cast aside in deference to truth, and that our pre-born children must be defended.

From conception to death, human life is a gift from God. Beautiful. Worthy. Intrinsically valuable. In coffee shops, letters, pulpits and on social media let’s remind each other that we must do what we can to value and protect it. Nellie would do that. Horton would too.

(By the way…Horton Hears a Who is now also a kids’ movie—one of the Beans’ and my favourite.)

Hear more in this interview with one of the organizers:

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/marching-for-life/2367494232001

 I’ve reserved a few statements of last resort, but since they’re forecasting snow as I write this, I’m saving them. If I have to drag out the snow shovel once more, and I likely will, I’ll need the positive words I’ve squirreled away under my cerebral mattress.

 It doesn’t help that I’m typing this week’s column in my basement, where the sun doesn’t shine.

 Over my years of exploring the sunny side of life in these columns, I’ve only had a few times like this. Days when I sit in the shadow of some sort of corporate dishevelment of spirit. We are mere weeks past the Boston Marathon bombings, closely followed by news of a foiled terrorism plot within Canada. Entire nations and communities have been stunned by these acts of senseless terror and profound stupidity—tragedy far too close to home. To anywhere.

 In times like these, I, like most of you, need words of reassurance and comfort, hope and strength. A reminder that, no, God hasn’t given this terrestrial ball a flick of his divine finger and sent us spinning into oblivion.

 What we need is a faith-lift. A little reminder to hope.

 “Dad,” I said, careless of the fact that my old father doesn’t need more to worry about, now that his own health is failing badly. “Dad, I hate what’s happening in the world. In our country. It keeps me awake at night.”

 He almost choked. “Kathleen! Don’t you think God knows about all that bad stuff? You know everything will work out in the end. Just keep on trusting him and doing what’s right.”

 He didn’t stop with that mini-sermon. He went on to quote the Bible—book, chapter, and verse. He can’t name the fruit on his plate sometimes, but he remembers what his favourite book says. And so he should. For ninety years, the author has held him steady.

 Then, last night, our son called. I love his calls. This one was particularly upbeat. Full of joy. Lots of new in his life. We talked a long time. Then, with one sentence, I changed the entire tone of the conversation. “Hey, there’s a lot of awful stuff going on in the world right now, isn’t there?”

 Long pause. “Yeah, but Mom, there’s still a lot of wonderful stuff going on, too. Don’t forget that.”

 I pray. Read my bible. Love it, trust its author, like Dad. But sometimes, just sometimes, we all need someone with skin on to give us a nudge to look past the winter. Past the endemic bad news and the fear of more, all the way to hope—which is where the Christ-follower must always land. 

 That’s what I got. Two comments. Two oars. My faith-lift. My reminder to hope in God. I pray to keep it. One small decision may help me do that— humming “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” just before falling asleep.

 After I finish reading the news on my tablet.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Between the time I wrote this column and the time it was published in the papers and here, we did, indeed have another snowstorm. April 30th, can you believe that? ) It dumped about 9 inches. Five days later, our temperatures have soared all the way to…well above zero. Prediction today: 20 degrees C.

“No. Where?”

“Near the bridge.”

I drive that highway often. “There’s no bridge on the highway to our place.”

He looked at me funny. “What d’ya mean? There sure is a bridge. Right by that…” He stopped short of naming the landmark, no doubt realizing the circular thrust of his argument. (Perhaps remembering that he’d chosen to marry a blonde.) “Well, anyway, look for it next time.”

On my next trip to town I felt justified for not noticing the bridge. It bears no resemblance to the aesthetically pleasing structures I grew up crossing in my Vancouver-area childhood—or many others that have made it possible for me to cross the otherwise un-crossable:

The Bridges of Sighs and Rialto in Venice. Ponto Vecchio, in Florence. Tower Bridge in London. Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  A few others in Europe and Asia, as well as some great Canadian and American bridges. Big things. Hard to miss. When you cross those, you KNOW you’re on a bridge.

Our little road-level bridge, like thousands of other prairie bridges, sits over a narrow river. Its cement sides don’t even come up to the car windows. It has no gentle rise toward the center, no overhead spans or decorative columns. Nothing unique sets it apart, not even a name. If you sneeze while driving, you miss it entirely. Still, it gets me where I’m going.

My friend Glenda’s home sits near the other side of the bridge. This morning I made two trips there. Crossed the still-frozen river four times. Ordinarily it takes six minutes to get from my door to hers. Today, it took twelve on the first trip, nine on the way back, thirteen on the second trip, and seven on my final leg. The bridge is to blame for that—or rather, the lack thereof. The Highways Department, ahead of spring runoff, is rebuilding it.

Diggers have carved out a short detour and an alternating stop-light leads waiting vehicles in a slow, one way procession over a temporary bridge. The entire area looks like a heavy equipment parking lot. A crane sits in the middle of the highway, ready to place new concrete spans.

A missing bridge snarls things up. Messes with people’s schedules. Today, I left for work a full half hour early. Nevertheless, we who travel that road know—if we want to get where we need to go—safely—we must simply sit back and let the road construction crew do their work.

Have you ever encountered an obstacle, just when you feel life is taking you in a great direction? Be still. God, who sent his Son as a bridge between heaven and earth, may be building another sort of bridge. Perhaps beautiful, perhaps merely serviceable, but if you let him guide, you’ll land where you need to be.

Trust the Way-Maker.

In my childhood, when our parents went out in the evening, they almost always took us with them too. We attended showers, weddings and funerals. Church services, reunions and gatherings at friends’ homes. When we started yawning, my parents found a relatively flat spot near them, threw some coats down and said, “There! Now you can go to sleep.”

In church, as the grown-ups sat listening to long sermons with long words and long pauses, we stretched out on long pews, our heads on their laps. Sometimes, at friends’ homes, we curled up on chenille-covered double beds in tidy master bedrooms. Those strange places didn’t feel like home, but we trusted Mom and Dad to stay nearby. To keep us safe and take us home at the proper time.

On the way back, we slept in the car, leaning on each other. In our station wagon years, two of us swaddled under a pile of car blankets in the wagon’s “very back.” (Life was easier before car seats and mandatory seatbelts.)

We trusted Dad to get us home safe, and he always did. But the best part of those evenings came at the end. My sister Beverly reminded me about that the other day. “I remember being carried into the house,” she said. “I loved feeling Dad’s arms around me, lifting me out of the car so easily. I felt so…so…secure.”

Dad did that until we grew too big to carry. When those strong lifted us, swept us out of the car, we knew it meant we’d arrived home.

I attended a friend’s funeral today. In the months before she died, her body devastated by disease, she too slept in places other than her own bed. She leaned on those who loved her. Some of us sang to her—sometimes she sang along. She smiled sometimes. And all the while, she trusted her Heavenly Father to stay near and take her home safely.

One recent night he gently lifted her out of the body that confined her. I’m told she died with peace in her heart.

“I go to prepare a place for you…and will take you there…” Jesus said in John 14. When life has knocked you flat, and death stares you in the face, that’s  a secure promise to which every believer can cling.

Carried safely home—in Father’s arms–because Jesus loves his little children..

“Heaven, heaven, heaven!” she spilled. “That’s all I hear. One day, our troubles will end—in heaven. We’ll find blessing—in heaven. Things will make sense—in heaven. But I live here on earth! Why not now? I just can’t….” She didn’t need to finish her sentence. I knew it. “I just can’t do it anymore.”

With the sea in the distance, and spring busting out all over, the setting alone was worth my long trip from my still-wintering prairie home. But I hadn`t come to ogle the scenery. I’d been flown in to talk. To spend five hour-long sessions discussing what it means to be Christian when life’s circumstances—pirates, monsters, madmen and beasts, I call them—assault us. To share a biblical perspective on pain and loss. To talk about how my husband and I have encountered God on our own journey through some very difficult years.

“Life is hard, but God is good,” I began, at the opening of the first session. “If you come away from this weekend remembering nothing else, take that home with you.” Pretty heavy stuff, for a group of mostly young women who had escaped their busy lives for a relaxing weekend by the sea. Not your usual “come away and be pampered” retreat menu. But they were gracious. As I spoke, I saw in their eyes a hunger to know that faith makes a difference. That God meets us on our hard journeys—and that he longs to make of our broken pieces an exquisite mosaic.

But when? She wanted to know. Is there no beauty here and now? And if so, why can’t I find it?

I understood completely. I too would rather God just left out life`s hard stuff. It messes with my longing for clear sailing. But I’m inspired by past and current believers whose faith not only remained intact, but considerably deepened during the worst of times. They speak of finding, in those times, a deep and abiding relationship with God—one they`d never experienced in better days.

Mere hours later, the Preacher presented expert testimony at the final of those five sessions. Sitting on his trusty walker seat, he spoke of the disease that disabled him five years ago. “No, I`m not completely healed. But that’s okay. Our circumstances are never about us.” Then he talked about the beautiful things God has done—is still doing—in others` lives through his pirates.

Got brokenness—and faith? Surrender your terms. Trust the evidence. Trust the God who proves every spring that he works miracles in the dark. In his time—perhaps well before heaven—you’ll see: life is indeed hard, but God IS supremely good.

Spring is trying to spring. The calendar says it should, and we, the people, agree. But even as we wish winter away, we dread what follows.

Alps have risen in our front yards. Some walkways sport newly sculpted tunnels. Snow still lurks in local forecasts. But so does spring flooding. Water. Everywhere. On our roads. In our fields. Overflowing the culverts. Washing into our homes. Dire predictions abound. “Worst flood in recent memory,” some predict.

A few communities have tried to prepare. Most, including my own, just wait, hoping the experts are wrong. Hoping we’ll be among the fortunate ones who come up dry. Wishing for an ark, like Noah’s. Remember him?

For several hundred years, a thoroughly corrupt citizenry mocked the old man’s forecasts. “Flood’s comin.’ God’s mad. Really. You guys are incorrigible. So bad, he wishes he’d skipped day six. Think I’m kidding? Just watch.”

Yawn. Perhaps they found it humourous, then tiresome, watching that six-century-old man and his family. Sawing, sweating, heating, warning, pressing, preaching, sweating some more, then finally completing that cypress wood ship known as the ark.

Perhaps some reconsidered when the animals started appearing, unbidden. Lions, boarding the ark, docile as kittens. Maybe they stopped mocking when the first drops appeared. But then it was too late. Genesis 7 records that only Noah, his family and enough animals to begin the process of replenishing  the earth survived the flood.

Our grandbeans love the large Noah’s ark set in our living room. On evening I began paying attention to their role-playing right at the part of the first blinding, driving rain. The ark pitched and tossed in the gale. Untold casualties surrounded it (figures from a long-ago Wild West set), each plastic sinner swept by the flood into the cavern under the piano bench.

I waited for the usual outcome. Dove. Rainbow. Animals busting out. Instead, as the rain came down and the flood came up, one small ladybean darted under the piano bench. Plucked one of the drowning figures from the water, and swiftly landed it atop the ark.

This provoked a severe reaction from the sibling who insists on all things as usual.

“NO, NO! He can’t come! He doesn’t belong to the family of Noah.”

The tender-hearted rescuer thought a moment. Then, spying another toy from the Wild West set, her eyes lit up. “OK,” she said, “then he’s going in the canoe.”

A small personal flood nearly overtook me just then.

History brings evidence of the truth of Bible prophecies—that God’s judgment hovers over those who ignore his laws—nations, governments, societies and individuals. But every Easter reminds us of God’s loving offer of an ark of rescue: forgiveness through His Son, Jesus Christ. Heaven mourned his death, those who know him celebrate his resurrection, and one day every knee will bow.

Don’t settle for a canoe. Get in the ark—it’s going to rain.

***

It’s Good Friday as I post this here…many blessingsto all  my reading  friends. If you can, make time to listen to Gary Chapman’s version  of this largely unfamiliar hymn written by the prolific 19th century hymnwriter Fanny Crosby. I have never heard this before, but it’s most beautiful:

Margaret was John’s mother. She died three years ago, scant hours after John emailed me a gracious invitation to pass a message to his mom before she slipped beyond reach. I frantically returned a note of love and gratitude, and I know John delivered it. But his email shook me.  

The last time I saw Margaret in her Campbell River home, I found her as vibrant and vivacious as most Scotswomen half her age. She wore a flaming red sweater that complemented her raven hair. In her cozily cluttered kitchen, she served up five-inch thick lasagna. She spoke of spring blooms, and she sent me packing with gifts; hand-knitted slippers for the Beans, and a rock she’d painted to resemble a thatched cottage. Carrying it home stretched my arm by a good half-inch, I swear. It holds our bedroom door back today.

Life only gives you one Margaret, I thought, when John told me she’d gone.  And now it’s over. I felt bereft, as though someone has snipped off a corner of me.

In my email today, I told Carol that I was glad God put Margaret on this earth while we could share it with her. I said I’m looking forward to meeting her again at some wonderful nook in heaven, where we’ll have MUCH catching up to do.

Carol’s response, which I never expected, told me that just yesterday her family travelled to Margaret’s old home to visit her ocean-front memorial on the seaside walk, where she and her grandson shared precious time watching Alaska-bound ships glide by. John planted heather there, she said, in honor of his mom’s beloved childhood Scotland home. Their son placed a piece of driftwood beside it. Smooth old ocean-battered wood, like the pieces he often collected on walks with his Nan. They hope, Carol said, that “as the heather grows it will cover the driftwood, wrapping itself around it.” 

I’m not sure why I’m writing about Margaret today. Perhaps I have on my mind people like the Preacher, who in the last two months has lost two siblings in their fifties. And many of you, whose recent losses have shaved your souls thin. The valley of the shadow, while you’re walking it, feels often as though God himself has vanished.

Being intentional about remembering our departed loved ones is vital to the healing of the soul. Though it hurts, do it, even if it takes you to a sea wall to plant heather. But believers in Christ can also hold close Carol’s last words. “Someday there will be a large reunion and that knowledge does give strength to face losses or challenges. Our Redeemer lives and gives life to our hope.”

 Amen.

The passage between fifty and sixty, they say, is a woman’s best decade. Health is still strong. Children have flown. Some women stop working and take time, blessed time, to enjoy our spouses and grandchildren, and pursue personal interests.

I had all that to anticipate, on the afternoon of my surprise fiftieth birthday party. At Glenda’s house, in the company of my daughter, my seven-week old first granddaughter and several other precious friends, I ate far too much. Didn’t try to resist the chocolate fountain, the pinwheel sandwiches, the dips and dippers—or the magnificent carrot cake. Laughed more than I’d laughed for weeks.

I don’t deserve my girlfriends. They blessed me with gifts that afternoon. This one, I’ll never forget: Circling me, they placed their hands on my shoulders and one by one, began praying. One prayed a blessing. Another asked for strength for whatever the year ahead would hold. Someone else expressed hopes for a deeper, closer walk with God in the days to come.

If you’ve never been prayed for—aloud—by precious friends, you’ve missed a holy and humbling experience.  As I sat, warmth flooded my flesh and spirit.

I never got that decade so many women revel in. Before I turned fifty-one, a West Nile virus-carrying mosquito disabled the Preacher. Our life turned inside out. His long ministry career ended, and so did my casual approach to writing and speaking.

Of necessity, we switched places. Instead of coasting toward retirement alongside a strong husband, I began making decisions I’d never made before, because he could not. At fifty-one I bought a car and took a job as a magazine editor. When I lost that job, I published a book. Then another. Then sought and bought a house.

The dream of gradually easing into retirement became a thing of the past. At fifty-five God shifted me to another job, well-suited to the communication skills he had already developed in me. Increasingly I depended on Jesus for wisdom, provision, strength, affirmation, protection. At fifty-six, life became even more complicated when we added cancer to the list of my husband’s health challenges. As I write, he’s (happily) finishing chemotherapy treatments.

Normal is so far behind us I’ve forgotten its meaning. Nevertheless, occasionally I catch myself reflecting on what might have been—but only until I review nearly seven years of remarkable gifts carried on the platter of adversity. Deeper faith and greater opportunities to share it. Boldness. True friends. Increased gratitude. Laughter. Appreciation of life’s priceless simple things. Greater compassion for others.

I recall my fiftieth birthday with gratitude. God orchestrated it perfectly. My best present—the prayers of my girlfriends—swirled directly into his ears. His answers have girded and guided me in every hard year, week, day and moment since.

This year, don’t let a close friend’s birthday pass without giving the best gift of all: your prayers. Even if you have to write them in a card, send them.

Six wide eyes, and three disapproving looks followed my hands as I set the small bowl of beet sticks on the table. One mouth howled for them all. “But we don’t LIKE beets!” The others fell in, like a pack of coyotes when the moon rises.

“Oh. That’s too bad,” I said, and thought a moment. “But how do you know you don’t like beets? Have you ever tried them?”

The howling stopped as they considered, then gave way to three nays.

“Well, then. You can’t really say you don’t like them, can you? How do you know that if you’ve never given them a chance?”

They pondered that a moment. One agreed they couldn’t really know, but refused to take the risk. Another took a snip of a beet—and found it confirmed her instincts. But another opened his mouth, took a chunk, chewed a bit, then opened his eyes wide. “Nana, I guess I DO like beets!”

Thinking to make the humble vegetable more intriguing to my all-things-pink-and-princessy granddaughters, I said, “Girls, did you know that if you eat enough beets, your pee turns pink?”

Little sister, who had tried (licked) a piece of beet (about the size of a fingernail clipping) set her fork down and resumed howling. “But I don’t WANT my pee to turn pink!” Big sister simply sat, shocked and alarmed.

The biggest bean, (who I should consider not writing about, now that he can read) perked up his ears and reached for a beet stick. “How many beets would I have to eat, Nana?”

All of them left happy—the girls because they DIDN’T have to eat the beets, and their brother because he DID.

“You shouldn’t have told them that about their pee,” the Preacher said later. I was still laughing too hard to feel apologetic. And I won’t stop encouraging those girls to eat beets.

Sharing my faith reminds me of sharing those beets. Some people listen. Some howl like wolves after blood. “But we don’t LIKE Jesus!” they protest. “Nor his religion.” Some host anti-faith blogs. Others initiate law suits. Many cry rights violations. Most just shrug and turn away.

Granted—some beets are rotten or badly prepared. The same is true of the not-so-faithful.

Nevertheless—the question I asked the Beans applies: How do you know you don’t like Jesus Christ, if you’ve never tried to know him? Never given genuine people of faith a chance?

Some do. And many of us are tickled pink for joy—because we did.