PATHWAYS

Our neighborhood quail--before the snow

Often when shoveling freshly-fallen snow, I encounter the dainty footprints (claw-prints?) of local California quail, identified by their gray coats and the lone forehead tear-drop feather, like the turban on an oriental potentate. Because female quail typically lay between 8 and 16 eggs, I'm guessing the “tribe” that hangs out under our hedge rose (with its abundance of edible rose hips and buried bugs) is a mom, dad and lots of juvenile quail.

Constantly they cluck “rebekah” as they strut beneath branches. The slightest disturbance—like passersby or our front door opening--sends them into their low-flying escape behavior. Then it's back to rebekah, rebekah, rebekah—their trademark cluck. Sometimes they walk along the top of our backyard fence, their bulky bodies teetering on the narrow fence boards. Though they aren't high fliers like other birds, their wings do provide enough motion to give them soft landings back on earth.

So? Well, having such a beautiful display of God's creation moving through our yard gets me thinking about times in my younger life when I wasn't quite out on my own and still learning from my parents or parent figures in my life. The latter group was particularly important to me because my own parents died when I was a very young adult. Thus I looked for godly adult models to lead me into fuller adulthood. Like a poult (young quail) following close behind a parent, I kept their example in sight.

Of that time in my life, this verse took on personal meaning:

Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way, walk in in it.'” (Isaiah 30:20-21)

The context, of course, was the prophet Isaiah's warning for Israel to return to God. But he wanted them to realize there could be a better ending to the story being written by conquering nations if they turned from their immature, immoral ways. For me, during my times of adversity and affliction after my parents' death, I became especially tuned in to the character of good people God placed in my life.

Another encouraging passage from that difficult time in my life was Psalm 37:23-24:

The Lord delights in the way of the man whose steps he has made firm; though he stumble, he will not fail, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

When life got scary—in job and location changes when I didn't know where I'd live, my finances were thin, and I hadn't connected with a spiritual family (okay, are you hearing Mama and Papa Quail clucking me to stay close?)-- I prayed in trust that God would firm up my faltering steps because I believed He was utterly trustworthy. And He did, often in surprising, last-minute ways.

When quail wander over the snow covering our driveway, their claws leave delightful patterns. They circle around a few times, then go off in a different direction. And sometimes my life was like that, too. Not a straight-forward race, but one with detours. But God was keeping His eye on me and—like those parent quails—knew when to signal my need to come back closer to His safe place.

BOUNDLESS, FREE

 A monthly column on a well-known hymn.

At some point you've probably sung the hymn whose music reminds you of powerful, rolling ocean waves. It fits the lyrics that include these about God's love:

O, the deep, deep love of Jesus,/Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

Rolling as a mighty ocean/In its fullness over me!

Surprisingly, these stout words of affirmation came from the pen of someone who, as a young man, nearly committed suicide. His name was Samuel Trevor Francis, and one cold, rainy winter night in 1853, at about age 19, he halted as he crossed the Hungerford Bridge of London's River Thames. Discouraged, sickly, he was about to fall over the railings to death. Instead of yielding to the inner voice that said, “End all this misery,” he reportedly heard another message, “You do believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Instead of jumping to his death, he affirmed, “I do believe, and I put my whole trust in Him as my Savior.” He ran across the bridge repeating the words, “Then I am saved, then I am saved!”

Born in northern suburb of London, his family moved about 200 miles north to the port city of Hull, near relatives who taught him Bible truths. At age nine, along with his brother and father, he joined the local church choir. By that time he was also writing poetry. When the family moved back to London, where he briefly apprenticed with a doctor, he encountered a group of Plymouth Brethren believers. Finding new hope after that dark night on the bridge, becoming a successful merchant, he found his spiritual passion in hymn-writing and open-air preaching through the Plymouth Brethren. His ministry included helping with music for the Dwight Moody/Ira Sankey London crusades of 1873-74.

Despite failing eyesight, he preached for 73 years around the world, having the unusual privilege of hearing some of his hymns sung. At age 92 he went into a nursing home where he soon died.

Of course, the other half of the story of his best known hymn is the dramatic music later matched to it. For that, credit Welsh musician Thomas John Williams, who brought the tune to Welsh hymnals in 1897. The tune became known as “Ebenezer” for the South Wales chapel that Williams once attended.. The name comes from the “stone of help” mentioned in 1 Samuel 7:12, commemorating the Israelites' thunder-assisted victory over the Philistines. As a footnote, another “Williams,” famed English musician and music historian Ralph Vaughan Williams, called “Ebenezer” one of history's greatest hymn tunes.

This stunning hymn video pairs a violinist and vocalist performing at a beach—appropriate for the hymn's phrase “rolling as a mighty ocean”:

Oh,The Deep Love of Jesus - Epic Version! - Bing video

NAILED IT!

My plate was full, as the saying goes. My husband was in the hospital, and I was trying hard to “hold life together.” I’d stopped at the grocery store for some essentials, pulling quickly into an empty spot. I didn’t straighten the wheels, which meant when I came out, the angled tire of the front driver’s side was exposed at just the right place to show the head of a huge nail. I was surprised the tire wasn’t flat.

Changing tires is not on my list of “know-how-to-do.” We don’t have “road service” insurance. But now, what to do was up to me. I decided to risk the mile drive to the local tire dealer, praying the whole way! Arriving safe (with a big Thank you, Lord), I was told I’d have an hour or more wait to have it fixed. It was a hot summer day and I had milk in the trunk. When I mentioned that need, they showed extraordinary customer TLC by “parking” the milk temporarily in their employee refrigerator. (Thank you, Lord!)

An hour-plus later, tire fixed, the employee who came with my keys remarked, “That nail went all the way through. It’s amazing your tire wasn’t flat.” (Another arrow “Thank you, Lord!”)

Twice we’ve been in wrecks that others caused, and which destroyed our car. Both incidents were stark reminders of our vulnerabilities in travel. Post-wreck, I often thought of Psalm 91, which speaks of God’s trustworthiness in dangerous situations. But I’ve learned I can’t apply that like an all-purpose bandage to every danger I encounter. Sometimes, in His sovereign will, God allows the frustration, the difficulties, even the life-endangerment.

And sometimes it’s obvious He intervenes when that might increase my faith. I needed such spiritual-boosting as my husband recovered in the hospital. Driving home with that fixed tire, I remembered the psalmist’s observation that “he will command his angels concerning you” (v. 11).

The truth is, that would have applied to my frustrations if I had come out with bags of groceries (and cold milk!) to a truly flat tire in a skinny parking place in a busy supermarket shopping center, and was stuck. Somehow, someone would have helped me in that inconvenient time and place. But I’m glad it turned out the way it did, and maybe God just needed to remind me that, as Psalm 33:18 says, that “the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him” (v. 33). Whether road hazards or the health of a loved one, He can handle it.

By the way, I later expressed my thanks to the tire crew, taking in a note with a big plate of cookies. It was the least I could do.

REMINDED TO PRAY

If your “New Year Resolutions” include something about your prayer life, you might resonate with this idea: a home-made personalized prayer notebook. I wrote about this simple tool in my blog a dozen years ago. When I shared about it at subsequent women’s retreats, the half-dozen or so “prayer notebooks” I’d assembled (from thrift store finds) quickly disappeared from my speaker’s “book table.”

That experience suggested that this very simple, homemade plan for “remembering to pray” seemed to hit a felt need. Nothing fancy, truly homemade, my “prayer notebook” consists of a small six-ring planner (4 1/2x7”) with homemade dividers for each day of the week. It’s small enough to fit in the pocket of my Bible cover. 

Thanks to an era when purse-size planners (or more) were trendy for the organized woman, these little "planners" are now often found in thrift stores. My “version” had tabs for each day of the week, with pages (and photos) for folks I pray for, and a sticky note to update their prayer needs. On the tabbed divider facing the first page on that section I wrote down other reminders, like character qualities to pray to grow in my children and grandchildren. In the back are two more tabs. One, to help with private worship, is a growing alphabetical list of the praise-worthy names and character of God. The other is a list I call my “Jordan stones,” to remember times of extraordinary help and comfort from God.

My blog columns about the “prayer notebook” are all back there in the online “blog history”—accessible via the list at the right of this.  Go to the 2010 tab and find Sept. 27, 2010 (here’s the link: Jeanne Zornes: September 2010 ), then scroll up (that’s how they place the subsequent blogs). The blogs suggest things that may or may not work for you. But if something does help you in your prayer life, I will be grateful.

These days, when I sit down for my “quiet time,” I often find the lyrics or tunes to hymns running through my heart. One that frequently comes to me is “My Jesus, I love thee, I know Thou art mine.” If you have hymns in your spiritual heritage, the rest of this hymn’s words may come to you. You may not realize that the words—which include “for Thee all the follies of sin I resign”-- came from the heart of a teenager. Oh, that more of us, whatever our age, would be challenged by his example of expressing love to Jesus!  I wrote about  the young poet and the hymn here: Jeanne Zornes: JUST PTL (Psalm 146). His attitude of humility and expectation is what I desire, too, in seeking to love and trust Jesus.

Anything here helpful to you? I’d love feedback in the comments section below. Scripture tells us to “encourage one another” and this is one way that can happen.