short stories
|
poetry
|
short stories
|
poetry
|
CAUGHT IN THE STREAM IF LIFE Guest Writer: Laurel Neil, Burra, S.A Faith for me is something that I have never been without. I was born in 1920 into a Christian family. My father, a Lutheran, was first generation Australian of German stock. My mother was a Methodist. I was therefore baptized as a Lutheran but went to the local Methodist Sunday School. Later in life, when I began teaching and boarded with local families, I attended whatever church they attended, so I guess you’d say I was part of the ecumenical movement before such a thing was fashionable! As a small child, it was my mother who led my sister and I in our evening prayers. As we knelt beside our beds we would pray “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child…” FAITH BASED LIFE By the age of eight, my faith was firmly based on the words of another well known children’s hymn. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”. As a teenager my faith had grown some more and I now understood that God could be depended on, and when I needed to say sorry, He was always listening. In those days, Sunday School continued on into our teens, though it became more of a Bible Study. I had some good teachers. It was good training for later life. I had my first encounter with death when my grandmother died when I was nine. TURNING POINT Though it was unusual for children to be taken to funerals then, I went with my mother. There were lots of people I didn’t know there. The funeral cortege left from Manoora and travelled to the cemetery at Burra, at fifteen miles an hour. I had not been to a cemetery before and didn’t know much about them. I was not afraid of death though, as Mum told me Grandma was just sleeping. But standing by the graveside, I was a bit scared of falling in! The arrival of the Depression in my teens was a turning point in my life. Had work been available, I would have been expected to leave school, however, now there was no thought of it. I needed to be gainfully occupied, so I was enrolled in Riverton High, travelling daily by train. God is good. MY DREAM It had been my dream to be a teacher, and He saw to it that I got my heart’s desire. At the end of year 12, I became a junior teacher at Langman's Creek, before attending teachers college in Adelaide for two years. Life picked me up in its busy stream then. I married and before long had young children to raise. My focus shifted then to my everyday duties and to passing on the faith to my children. When they hit their teens a neighbour and I started 'The Wesley Guild'. There we taught the kids the skills needed to run a committee as well as to lead devotions. I met a lady just recently who thanked me for that training, saying she was still using her “treasurer” skills today. They were good years. One of the activities the children really enjoyed was held at Christmas when, seated on the back of a pick up truck, they would sing Christmas Carols accompanied by an old pedal organ while driving slowly around the local farming community. In order to have a place for the guild to meet we acquired an old transportable to put alongside the church. It needed a lot of work, but was an ideal way of teaching the young ones the skills needed to bring it up to scratch and make it their own. When we were up and running we always had great suppers, and whatever was left over was shared with families in need. It’s amazing you know. In 1988 I went into a shop and was served by a lady who asked where I came from. When I told her, I discovered that she was one of the children to whom the food was taken all those years ago. LOOKING AHEAD Over the years, I’ve had my share of sadness. My brother died in 1934 and then my Dad in 1958. He was just fifty nine. At the same age, years later, my husband also died. I have been asked if I was ever angry with God for that. Though I couldn’t understand why they were taken so young, I never blamed God. He knew what lay ahead for them. And so “Thy will be done”. To my sons I said. “Get on with your lives. Others need you. You are the best memorials to your father. Be good ones.” Has my faith changed since I was eight? Yes and no. It is immeasurably deeper now as is my understanding of Him. Yet even at 89, the child that was me, still sings my two favourite hymns “Jesus loves me this I know” and “What a friend we have in Jesus.” Before I finish this article there is one more thing I’d like to say. “Thank you Lord, for such good parents.” The foundations they built into my life have held me in good stead all these years and I am very grateful. Good parents are a real gift.
Comments
|
Details
Author: "You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page" - Jodi Picoult
|