In Edith Schaeffer’s book called The Tapestry, she describes a summer when her husband Francis was away in Europe for 3 months. During that time of missing him greatly, Edith and her sister Janet took their children to live in a former schoolhouse on Cape Cod. On a shoestring budget they shared the rent, lived without a car, and created daily adventures for the five young children.
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Ground squirrels hibernate near our home during the winter, and they reappear when the snow melts in the spring. My wife Carolyn and I enjoy watching them scurry back and forth from one hole to another, while others stand like tiny sentries watching for predators.
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Bread has come to be regarded as something less than what it was in Bible times. We don’t usually think of it as a symbol of life’s necessities. In Jesus’ day, however, bread represented nourishment in all its many forms.
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My father (Richard De Haan) had been battling a debilitating disease for many years. We asked the Lord to take him home. But as I knelt by his bed and watched him take that last breath, the tears I had choked back on other occasions came out like a flood. As my brothers and my mother hugged and prayed, the finality was overwhelming.
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A man who was suffering from poor health decided to move to a warmer climate. Wanting to make sure he would choose the area best suited to his needs, he visited several locations. While in Arizona, he asked, “What’s the average temperature?” “What about the humidity?” “How many days of sunshine are there?” When he asked, “What’s the death rate?” he received this answer: “Same as where you come from, friend—one death for every birth.”
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After one of my relatives had a stroke, she needed help to get around and could no longer remember recent events. One day, my wife Ginny suggested that we take her out to dinner. I wondered if we should, because afterward she wouldn’t even remember what we had done. Ginny responded, “While we are with her she will know we love her.” How true!
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The prophet Hosea used the tribe of Ephraim as a poetic representation of the northern kingdom of Israel. In a colorful admonition, he wrote that Ephraim had become “a cake unturned” (Hosea 7:8).
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Her brief note to me spoke volumes. “I am a handicapped person in a wheelchair,” she wrote. “I am very lonely even though I know I’m never alone. God is always there. I don’t have a lot of people to talk to.”
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Eighty years ago, Eric Liddell electrified the world by capturing an Olympic gold medal in the 400 meters—a race he was not expected to win. Liddell was the favorite at 100 meters, but he had withdrawn from that race after learning the qualifying heats would be on Sunday, a day he observed as one of worship and rest. Instead of lamenting his lost chance in the 100, he spent the next 6 months training for the 400—and set a new Olympic record.
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I once overheard this comment about a person who was always critical: “The trouble with him is that he’s forgotten what it’s like to be human!” How easily we forget our past struggles and become unsympathetic toward those who are struggling today. But there’s one who hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be human—Jesus.
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