In 1558 when twenty-five year old Princess Elizabeth Tudor was confined to house arrest by her half sister Mary, Elizabeth was sitting one day out doors reading a book when she was approached by a group of riders who were men of importance at court in London. She didn’t know if they would require her to return to the Tower of London as a prisoner, or if they had a more peaceful reason to be visiting. In fact, they dismounted and told Elizabeth that Mary had died, and that she, Elizabeth, was now the Queen of England.

Elizabeth’s response was, “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:23) The whole verse reads, The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes; Let us rejoice and be glad. She had moved from being a rejected prisoner whose life was in the balance, to being the Queen of England in the space of a few anxious moments.

Elizabeth saw the events of her life in the context of scripture, and those events made sense only in that context. She lived in the center of political and religious upheaval. As the daughter of Henry VIII she grew up a “reject” in her father’s march through the lives and deaths of six women in his effort to acquire a male heir.

While Henry was on his quest , one of England’s greatest future monarch’s was growing up in his own household and under his own direction, but he could not see the great queen she would be.

In the process the king wrenched his nation out of the only official church it had known, and sent England on a see-saw of religious instability between Catholicism and Protestantism.

The times were ripe for a young princess to abandon her faith altogether when Henry died and first his Protestant son, then his Catholic older daughter reigned. The stakes were high, as each side felt compelled to annihilate its opposition.

It would seem only natural that a young person in such an environment would become cynical and reject scriptural faith altogether, but it was the scripture itself that Elizabeth read (in Greek) and that gave order out of the chaos of warring religious factors, all claiming to be “Christian.”

Knowing that the living God was at work in her life (“This is the Lord’s doing”), and that His word was accessible to her, enabled Elizabeth I to become the cornerstone of England’s “Golden Age.”

Love in Him, Prue

Gone Fishing

Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling is the story of Harvey Cheyne, the spoiled fifteen year old son of a railroad baron. The boy falls overboard from an ocean liner on his way to Europe with his mother. Unknown to anyone on the liner, Harvey is picked up alive by a nearby fishing boat which will not return to port for at least five months. Thus begins the saga of Harvey’s “coming of age”, as he must earn his keep on the “We’re Here” fishing boat for those months at sea.

Near the end of the story Kipling introduces the boy’s father, Harvey Cheyne senior, as he grieves for the loss of his son: “ Of his own sorrow he spoke little—hardly realized the depth of it till he caught himself asking the calendar on his writing desk, ‘ What’s the use of going on?’” The senior Cheyne’s trip to self understanding and change is less dramatic than his son’s, but equally great.

A fishing boat was Peter’s first recourse as he mulled the death and resurrection of his friend Jesus. Peter, too, may have wondered, “What’s the use of going on?” When he said, I’m going out to fish. (John 21:3). When Jesus died Peter knew that he had not been the friend he had wanted to be.

When his son disappeared, the fictional Harvey Cheyne realized that he had not been the father he had wanted to be. The father who thought he had lost a son, and Peter, who thought he had lost Jesus, are both infused with hope and purpose when they finally have a one-on-one encounter with their “lost” one.

I believe that God seeks a one-on-one reunion with every soul. The power of the real knowledge of resurrection can work slowly at first, but it becomes the deepest , most abiding change in Peter. That personal contact with the risen friend was required for Peter’s transformation, enabling him to fulfill Jesus’ promise that Peter would be the rock on which Jesus would build his church. ( Matt. 16:18). Throughout all time the ways of God are still deeply personal, and they still supply the hope, joy, and purpose that we need.

Love in Him,

Prue

My sister Nancy has a buoyant and friendly personality. Until recently she also had bright red hair so that she stood out in a group. When she was first married she taught second grade in the public school.

One day in October while she was teaching, her principal entered the room with a red-headed second grade boy. The principal handed Nancy the boy’s file and said, “You have a new student, Warren Tichman.” Nancy glanced at the transfer paper and saw that Warren had been transferred twice already, both times for “personality conflict” with the teachers.

Nancy placed the student desk face to face with her own desk and told Warren that that was his desk. A month later when his mother came for her first conference Nancy showed her Warren’s work and that it was quite satisfactory. “Yes,” said his mother, “but how is he really doing in the class?” Nancy told me that she decided to be honest. “How do you think a little red-haired boy would do in my class?” she asked.

When the mom left, there were tears in her eyes. Her son had found wholly unmerited favor. When Nancy looked at Warren, she saw the future son she hoped for. She and Warren had a very good year that year.

When God looks at us and sees His son in us, there is favor. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.. . . I have told you this so that my Joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete (John 15:11). Peter affirms God’s favor toward His people: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession. (1Peter2:9)

For the time he was in Nancy’s class, Warren was her “special possession.” She confessed that at least some of the children probably thought that he was her son and she never denied it. The children took for granted that he would be favored.

The Bible is full of “chosen” ones who were “favored”. When Saul is told about a young son of Jesse who can play the lyre and who is both brave and a warrior, he is also told , “And the Lord is with him” (1Samuel 16:18), clearly a sign of “favor” before David has even met Saul or heard of Goliath.

Since we are all made in God’s image, it’s safe to say that in a funny way, we are all red-headed believers who are loved and favored by a red-headed God.

Love in Him,

Prue

In the spring of Stephanie’s junior year in high school when she was a villager in “Brigadoon”, a few senior football players were also villagers. They didn’t have lines to speak, but they sang and danced.

One day Stephanie told me that back stage, before the “villagers” went on, she heard Brad, a senior varsity player, say, “If I had known how much fun this is, I’d have done this instead of playing football.”

I asked if he was joking and she replied, “Not at all! He meant it!” I marveled and continue to marvel at that tiny incident with such a big window of possible implications.

Jesus “marveled only twice in the New Testament; once in Nazareth when neighbors he knew and loved didn’t recognize him as holy,( Mark 6:6) and once in Capernaum when a Roman centurion did. (Matthew 8:10).

I was surprised to read that Jesus, who “did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.” (John 2:25) was himself surprised at the Centurion who recognized God in His son: The Centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one ‘Go’, and he goes, and that one ‘come’, and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this’, and he does it.

When Jesus heard this he was amazed and said to those following him, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith!’ (Matthew 8:8-10)

I was surprised that the centurion’s schooling in obedience was the vehicle by which he recognized God’s son. I was surprised that the centurion so easily identified with Jesus, and I envied him for being able to surprise Jesus.

I believe that if Jesus has given himself to us as fully as we know he has, even this tiny thing, being able to surprise him, has not been withheld. For him to find an opening in our spirits today that wasn’t there yesterday, for him to hear us say, “If I had known how it would be with him before, I would have come sooner,” could surprise him even today.

The fruit of that surprise for Brad was a great time in his senior year before graduation, and for the centurion, an eagerly sought healing for his servant.

Love in Him,

Prue

On the walls of the cafeteria in the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, hang a collection of mosaics taken from a church or churches in Syria. They were made in about the year 400, the same year that Saint Augustine was alive and preaching in Carthage. I like the lunches at the Kimbell, but even more I like to see the mosaics and marvel that they were preserved before the great destruction of almost everything in Syria.

The images in the mosaics are colorful and beautiful images of birds and animals. The parrot, according to its label, was a symbol of the Virgin Mary, and the lovely peacock a symbol of eternal life. For a mostly illiterate congregation, assigning symbols to Christian persons or concepts must have been a helpful device, but, personally, I never think of Mary when I see the parrot, or eternal life when I see the peacock.

However, I do think of St. Augustine every time I visit the Kimbell cafeteria. I think with awe that I am sitting near some objects that were whole and complete at the same time that Augustine lived, even though his eyes almost certainly never rested on them.

St. Augustine, like almost all the early saints, has come in for controversy, but his “confessions” are still absorbing reading as he plumbs his conscience and his spirit on his trip to becoming a Christian. He describes how one by one his objections to Christianity disappear, until the last one with which he struggles the most, is finally dissolved as he sits in a friend’s garden and hears the sin-song voice of a child chanting, “Take it and read; take it and read.”

In response Augustine randomly opens the book of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans and reads: Not in reveling or drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels or rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature or nature’s appetites. (Romans 13:13)

For the first time Augustine saw that what he was reluctant to give up as lost (natures’ appetites), was in fact not loss, but an exchange, an exchange for the friendship and companionship of one who loved him, Jesus the Christ.

It takes a long time for most of us to come to see and embrace that exchange, but in the Kimbell cafeteria the sight of those mosaics always reminds me that the exchange is real and belongs to me as well as to St. Augustine.

Love in Him,

Prue

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