Tag: history

Forgotten

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Have you ever revisited a story you read as a child and found parts you didn’t remember?

One example might be Felicity Learns a Lesson: A School Story by Valerie Tripp. Within the pages of this short chapter book, the reader finds reminders that even if the land in which we live is ruled by an earthly king we also live in God’s kingdom.

This truth is easy to forget – just like it may be easy to forget the five-pointed star hidden within an apple (a little wonder used to illustrate a point for Felicity). But sometimes these forgotten things can have huge impacts on our lives.

This week much of the world is thinking of Halloween or its variations like Día de los muertos. However, October 31 marks the 500th anniversary of an event that has had a profound impact on human history. 

That event was the start of the Protestant Reformation. 

It certainly hasn’t been a perfect movement. No movements made up of imperfect people will get it all right. But at its core, it gave light to a few powerful thoughts:

  • No one can be saved from the penalty of sin (death) by their works…and definitely not by the indulgences that some were trying to sell at the time! (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8-9)
  • We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for us through His death on the cross and Who conquered death in His resurrection.
  • The Bible should be available to the people to read for themselves.
  • “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” (I Timothy 2:5, ESV).

These truths – like the points of the star hidden within an apple – are easy to forget. But what impact would they have on our lives if we remembered them?

  • What if we lived remembering that we can’t earn our salvation?
  • What if we lived remembering that the price has been paid for us – that eternal life is a gift to us – and lived in the reality of this grace? This saving grace is free to us, and yet it changes everything of who we are, doesn’t it?
  • What if we lived remembering that the Bible is the Word of God and read it for ourselves often?
  • What if we lived remembering that Jesus is our advocate and that we have direct access to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

Grace Victorious: The Story of William Wilberforce

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Have you ever wondered how you could accomplish something considering your weaknesses and limitations? If so, then you have something in common with the key figure of this story. 

Let’s go back to 1807 in England. That year, Parliament chose to take a stand against one of the greatest evils of the day. In fact, Parliament voted to make that evil illegal even though some people really wanted to keep it going and giving it up meant losing both power and wealth.

That evil was the trafficking of human beings known then as the slave trade.

Through the radio theater drama Grace Victorious: The Story of William Wilberforce, you can meet William Wilberforce. As a young member of Parliament, he has what many people long for – wealth, popularity and position. He chooses to risk it all when careful study brings him from skepticism to personal faith in Jesus Christ. 

Soon he is confronted with the realities of the slave trade – a trade that greatly benefits his country economically and is considered unchangeable. Others are speaking up, but Wilberforce’s gifts and position make him the obvious choice to lead the cause in Parliament. 

After prayer and seeing God work, Wilberforce becomes convinced that taking on the slave trade is something he must do in spite of the cost…

While William has position and a penchant for public speaking, one thing he does not have is good health. Throughout his life, he is plagued by poor eyesight and what may have been ulcerative colitis. (Note: Information on his exact ailments seems to vary.) But he presses on.

Grace Victorious leaves you with the story unfinished, a reality to which we can all relate. After all, that is how our stories are (for anyone reading this blog) – unfinished. We may be facing challenges, questions, unknowns….Just like William Wilberforce when he began his campaign against the slave trade. 

One of William’s last statements in Grace Victorious is,

“I expect a long and arduous fight. But as I lie here, I wonder how I will fight – how this frail and feeble body will ever rise against a mountain of hatred, cruelty and greed.” [1]

The response?

“The only way such things are ever done, William – by the grace of God.”

If we choose to live like William Wilberforce, we may live to see challenges met, questions answered, unknowns discovered. And we may be used in ways we never expected.

After all, it’s unlikely Wilberforce thought someone would be writing about a radio theater drama featuring his story 210 years after the abolition of the British slave trade, much less that the writing would go on a blog accessible to the world at the push of a button. 

[1] Paul McCusker, Grace Victorious: The Story of William Wilberforce, audio CD disc 2, track 8, 6:28.

Aspire to The Heavens: Mount Vernon Love Story

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Their love story begins simply but has the makings of a fairy tale. She is a widow with two young children. He is somewhat of a military legend. She shows interest in what is dear to his heart, his home Mount Vernon. He wins the hearts of her son and daughter.

A fairy tale would end there with a “happily ever after”. But their story isn’t make believe.

This is just a taste of Mount Vernon Love Story – A Novel of George and Martha Washington. Within its pages, Mary Higgins Clark presents a personal view of America’s first President and first First Lady. She shares their struggles and heartaches. Whether the story strictly follows the record of history is a subject for further study, but if you read it, you will have the chance to get to know these more distant figures as well as you might know close friends.

You’ll also find that their story illustrates two interesting points.

1) No matter how much two people love each other, they can never love each other perfectly. No matter how well suited two mortals are to each other, they will never be able to meet all the other’s needs nor fulfill all their dreams. 

See, loving perfectly and meeting every desire are God-sized jobs. And, well, God-sized jobs are just too big for mere men and women. Even if those men and women stand among the “greats” of history.

2) As life goes through seasons, so does love, and growing love through those seasons can take intentional effort. For George and Martha in Mount Vernon Love Story, the War for Independence and a personal grief could tear them apart, but they each come to heart-deep realizations and take action. That season gives them the depth they need to lead a nation. 

In I Corinthians 13, we find God’s standard for love. Just like George and Martha, we can’t obtain it for ourselves. But we can look to Jesus, the One Who seeks to lavish it on us, and, as the motto of George’s mother’s family said, “Aspire to the heavens”. 

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (ESV)

Note: This book doesn’t make it onto the “favorites” list for a reason or two, but was worth sharing because of the above points. 

A Story for Christmas: The Candle in the Window

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 Pour yourself a glass of eggnog (or a cup of hot cocoa) and imagine yourself in the Star City Hotel on a snowy Christmas Eve in Kansas. Then listen with me to a story called “The Candle in the Window”[1].

This story takes place in the Smoky – there’s no “e”, honest! – Hill area of Kansas in 1917. (You’ll remember that the world was engulfed in WWI then.) There you will meet characters like a mailman named Tod Witherspoon, a boy named Tully Gabel and a one-room school teacher named Ruth Ravenstow.  

Tod Witherspoon is what we might all wish for in a mailman – helpful, conscientious, and personable. As he says, “Well, there never was a postal regulation against bein’ human ever reached as far as my route.”[2] 

Tully Gabel is inquisitive and intuitive. His nickname “P-like” comes from “play like”, his version of pretending.

And Miss Ruth Ravenstow? Mysterious might be the right word. Not in a bad way exactly. In some ways, she’s normal. Her students love her and learn from her. The enigma of Miss Ravenstow, you see, is that she keeps to herself and never ever smiles. Beyond that, Tod Witherspoon doesn’t get to deliver a single, real letter to her.

When Tod tries to reach out to Miss Ravenstow and shares with her both his favorite childhood Christmas memory of putting a candle in the window on Christmas Eve and a candle for her own window, her response is telling: 

“What will it mean to the world the twenty-fifth of December 1917 The world was never so full of hate before. And who would see my candle if I happened to light one?” [3]

Have you ever felt like Miss Ravenstow or known someone like her? Sometimes the dark scenes of life overwhelm us so much that we may feel that any good we try to do – or even our very selves – go unnoticed.

That is when we need someone like Tod to shed a little truth into our gloomy hearts.

“Well, you can call me an old-style codger, Miss Ravenstow, but may I say that there’s One who always sees. And in a world full of hate, He came to love. He loved us so much He came as a babe and then He gave up His life for us…That’s the love I remember whenever I see a candle in the window.” [4]

Ah, yes, we are never unseen by this God of love. Depending on where you are in life, that may be the most comforting truth in the whole wide world. 

If you continue with the story, you’ll find that Miss Ravenstow does put her candle in the window and that more than the One Someone see it. But how does it all play out and why does Miss Ravenstow never smile? Now what do you think I’m going to say? That’s right…You might just have to listen to the story yourself.  No worries, you’re guaranteed a happy ending; it is a Christmas story after all!

I think the candle in the window represents love and hope. And that’s what I’m wishing and praying for you this Christmas season and New Year – love and hope! Not because life is so good – it isn’t always, is it? – but because God is good. Not because we have everything we want – we don’t always, do we? – but because God gave us His love and grace wrapped up in Baby Jesus. Not because things work out how we want – they don’t always, do they? – but because Jesus is reigning over all and yet knows and shares in the smallest details of our lives. Not because life is without tears – how can it be? – but because as we celebrate Jesus’ first coming to earth, we can also look ahead to when He will wipe away the tears from our eyes.

May the love of Jesus and the hope of Christmas glow in your hearts and reach out to those around you like a candle in the window.

1 Note: The book The Candle in the Window by Margaret Hill McCarter has been adapted into a radio theatre production of the same title by John Fornof. I have enjoyed both versions and have taken quotes from both. 

2 Margaret Hill McCarter, The Candle in the Window (Lamplighter Publishing, 2013), pg. 21.

3 Ibid., pg. 44

4 John Fornof, “The Candle in the Window” (Lamplighter Radio Theatre, 2013)

A Bookshelf Full of Thanksgiving

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Amy stood in Scrooby, England, in the very chapel where 400 years ago many of the men, women and children who sailed on the Mayflower met to worship God. She saw Scrooby Manor where they planned their journey to Holland. She understood that the little band knew the venture risked both their lives and their fortunes and  yet would allow them to keep their sacred honor.

From childhood, stories of the Pilgrims flitted through Amy’s imagination. She dreamt of what it would be like to talk with William Bradford or Squanto. She admired their courage, she learned from their sacrifice, and she wanted their faith. 

Then here she stood where their feet once trod, sat in the pew where (supposedly) William Bradford once sat, and sang a Psalm that the Scrooby congregation may have sung all those years ago. 

Her Plymouth day was over all too soon. 

How did these people whose lives are so distant from Amy’s become real to her? Through stories, of course. Historical fiction, radio drama and even video may play a role in giving personality to names like Bradford, Brewster and Squanto. 

Here are several of my favorite stories. Many of them are for younger readers (not that older readers aren’t allowed to enjoy them!), but there in one tome on the list sure to satisfy the most sophisticated bookworm.

Problems in Plymouth (AIO Imagination Station Books) by Marianne Hering and Marshal Younger: Fueled by a mystery, this chapter book may be just the thing to get a young reader interested in these people called Pilgrims. 

The Mayflower Adventure (The American Adventure Series #1) by Colleen L. Reese: This was perhaps the first historical fiction book I read about the Pilgrims’ journey to America. You can time-travel all the way through WWII if you read the entire series.

“Stepping Stones – Parts I&II” by Paul McCusker: A pull-you-into-the-story audio drama for children that shares the story behind the Pilgrims coming to America and what it took for them to get here – a story many schoolchildren may miss out on today.

The Legend of Squanto (Radio Theatre) by Paul McCusker: Take a different look at the story of the First Thanksgiving as you step into the life of Tesquantum (or Squanto) narrated by Massasoit. If heroes are measured by how they respond to challenges, Squanto could be among the greatest.

Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford: I haven’t actually read all three-hundred-plus pages of this book, but I’ve read some and am rather fond of it because Grandma liked it. I believe she actually said it was “fascinating”. Beyond that, as any student of history knows, primary sources are the best if you want to get the real picture.

I hope you enjoy these stories and that you have a richly blessed Thanksgiving full of sweet times with those you love. However, as a recent conversation reminded me, sometimes we get so caught up in the “doing” of holidays, we can forget the point. For this holiday, the main thing is Thanksgiving.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! – Psalm 118:1 (ESV)

 

A School of Her Own: Bringing History and Heart Together

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I gazed around the room one more time. The teacher’s bell, the hooks for hanging lunch pails, the well-used desks and the well-loved McGuffeys. Even though I was heading toward new adventures, it was hard to say goodbye.

We had shared quite a bit of history, this room and I. Once I was a little girl who sat at a little desk and used a slate pencil. Back then, I thought it would be pretty awesome to be a teacher with a school just like this. Why not? I had read about it in books like the Little House series or the Boxcar Children’s Schoolhouse Mystery. But there was a problem: I was in a century that wasn’t very one-room school friendly.

Then, in a snap and a whirl, I grew up and found myself behind the teacher’s desk of that place of childhood dreams. And a roomful of students gazed back at me!

Yes, I had become the one-room school teacher at the living history museum. Children came by the busload to learn about life in bygone days. You can imagine the fun of ringing the bell as various-sized students propelled themselves in my direction. 

However, there would be no running into my school “like a herd of pigs headed for the trough.”[1] At my instruction, the students lined up with girls on one side and boys on the other. Then they walked in, took their seats,
and we began our lessons. IMG_9295

Looking back, I felt quite a bit like Mabel O’Dell welcoming students in A School of Her Own. At eighteen, Mabel finds herself teaching in a one-room school in Michigan, dodging a vicious goat, grading papers, getting lost in a blizzard, dealing with the challenges that come with a classroom and a small town, and learning about the Lord. Inspired by the life of and stories from the author’s grandmother, this book brings history and heart together.

What is the point of bringing history and heart together? It’s about making history alive with real people who faced real problems and had real stories. It takes the facts (which are important) and goes beyond them to the relationships. I think that sums up what I hoped to share with my students in my one-room school. With the groups, I had only fifteen minutes (or less) to do it. Talk about a challenge! My history manual and older folks who had attended one-room schools or taught in them were my best resources for true stories to put a sparkle on the facts. Sometimes I think I may have shared more of the fun stories – like the skiing to school and the recess games – and given a somewhat sunshiny picture of life back then. However, I know I tried to communicate facts like how school children really had to work hard to help their families. A School of Her Own  balances the fun with the realities that people were still sinners and life definitely had its hard moments in the 19th century just like in the 21st. 

So there I stood in my school, admiring all the familiar details. To think I had come so very close to being a real one-room school teacher! While I hadn’t faced life-changing decisions with surprising answers quite like Mabel, I had learned, as I suppose many teachers do, as much as I had taught in that room. It was now part of my history, and it was definitely part of my heart. I hope sharing the story brings it to others’ hearts as well, maybe even yours. 

If you’d like to read all about Mabel O’Dell’s escapades and learn about life for a one-room school teacher, check out A School of Her Own by Arleta Richardson. Perhaps you’ll even decide to visit a one-room school! Whether you read or visit, I’d love to hear your thoughts on bringing history and heart together. Note: As I mentioned, the book does touch on some of the more complicated issues of life. Parents may want to check it over before handing it to young readers. 

Special thanks to my childhood friends Katie and Ann S. who, I think, introduced me to Arleta Richardson’s books. I guess you never know what a book recommendation might bring about! 

1 Arleta Richardson, A School of Her Own, Grandma’s Attic Novels (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, 1986), 49. 

The Book My Grandma Gave Me

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Everybody else had gone to town, but she was happy she had stayed home. She glanced around the farmhouse. The floor was swept, the breakfast dishes done, the house tidied. Now her own fun could begin! 

She went to the one bookshelf in the house. Built into the writing desk, this shelf held all the books her family owned. Of course, it wasn’t hard to find the one book she wanted – the one with the light grey cover. 

After wiping her hands on her skirt to make sure they were clean, she slid the book from the shelf, and, carrying it in two hands, went outside. 

A smokey-grey farm cat scuttled in front of her as she stepped out the door. Many days she would have followed the cat, but not this time.

She settled in the sun-warmed grass near a scraggly tree. Here enough of a breeze blew to keep her comfortable even in the summer weather.

She opened the book. She knew just where she wanted to start reading…

This is how I imagine my grandmother as a girl, enjoying the book she passed down to me. What book was that? The Best Loved Poems of the American People.

There’s something special about poetry. As Betty Stam put it,

“Don’t you love the common words

     In usage all the time:

Words that paint a master-piece,

     Words that beat a rhyme,

Words that sing a melody,

     Words that leap and run,

Words that sway a multitude,

     Or stir the heart of one?…”[1]

Some of the best loved poems of not only the American people but of people the world over are poems that tell a story. Here are a few that you might enjoy whether you are 9 years old or 99.

  • The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Longfellow
  • The Children’s Hour by Longfellow
  • Rain in Summer by Longfellow
  • The Touch of the Master’s Hand by Myra Brooks Welch
  • The Wedding Gift by Minna Irving
  • The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell
  • Snow-Bound by Whittier

Yes, I do love “Words that paint a master-piece/Words that beat a rhyme”. and, Grandma, I’m glad you do, too. Thank you for sharing not only your book of poems with me but also the book-worth of stories from your life. Happy Birthday with love!

Stepping into the Story – Madeline Island & As Waters Gone By

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Madeline Island. 

Sophia smiled as she tweaked the sun-shimmer on a wave with her brush. The oil paint, the canvas, the brush in her hand – she had loved them ever since they first came into her life when she was thirteen years old.

It wasn’t until a month ago that she loved the subject of this painting: Madeline Island rising out of the Superior waves.

As-Waters-Gone-ByOn the coffee table nearby sat the book that started it all. Sophia had won the book in a silent-auction gift basket. When she finally cracked the cover, she was delighted. By the end, she knew she had to do one thing. She simply had to visit this place called Madeline Island. 

So that’s what she did.

She sat in her car on the ferry – the closest her car would ever get to driving on water – with her bike stashed on the rack. Once on land, she drove past the historic homes and all around the fourteen-mile-long island. She noted the itty-bitty library, the school, and the School of the Arts with its red and white buildings. She biked where she could see sparkling Superior. She snapped photos for later use. Then she returned to LaPoint for ice cream, meandered in and out of shops and even sketched. The sun came and went with the clouds.

Now back at home with her easel and brushes and the island captured on canvas, Sophia smiled. What was it about the book that made her so want to be there – to step into the story? The whimsical, relatable characters? The descriptions of the natural beauty? The heartwarming sayings that she wanted to paint on the walls of her dining room? The meals the characters enjoyed that made her tastebuds dance? Those all had something to do with with it, but…

It had to be the hope that flickered on like the flame of her candle (purchased on the island). Maybe it was also the refreshing reminder that God uses peculiar people to do His work – people who are willing to do the works He has prepared for them. 

Yes.

That’s why she was here, doing this peculiar business of spreading color on canvas. Her work was to capture the beauty of the Master Artist, to inspire others to pause and wonder, to share what she saw so that others might see Whom she sought.

Or something like that. She was a painter after all, not a writer. 

 “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;  Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”  ~I Peter 2:9-10 (KJV)

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” ~Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)

 

A Visit to Raspberry Island Lighthouse

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Lynn sat on the shore of Lake Superior, musing over her visit to the Raspberry Island Lighthouse. 

Built in 1863, this lighthouse guided sailors along the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. Lynn had soaked in the stories along with the sun and Superior breezes. She could have gone without the biting flies. Must bring insect repellant next time.

Nasty insects aside, it had been a lovely excursion. The lively guide had given her several nuggets to think about, but at this moment she wondered what the lighthouse would say if it could speak for itself. Inhabited by light keepers (during the shipping season) and often their families and guests for over eighty years, surely the walls could share quite the history lesson. Perhaps a dramatic comedy. Also, Lynn realized, a tragedy or two. What were the breakfast conversations? Did the light keeper grumble when his assistants didn’t hold up to his own work ethic? How did the children spend their time on an island that was practically their own world? Did they wake during the night to make sure the light was still shining like their father did? 

Maybe she could find a book of the stories to take home.

Lynn watched the soft waves come in to shore, their lapping the backdrop to her thoughts. What scenes of life would the walls of her own home share if given the opportunity? They are always watching after all.

Lynn closed her eyes and smiled. God is always watching, too, beyond the four walls of my home, even in the remote places like this breathtaking bay in the greatest Great Lake.

“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” (Proverbs 15:3, ESV)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

“If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm 139:9-10, ESV)

 

Who’s the Hero? – Reflections on “Frozen Fire”

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A compassionate girl. A spoiled brat. A faithful guardian. A devastating disease. A determined doctor. 

The makings of a compelling story. And of a hero.

Reflecting on Frozen Fire, a story based on real-life events, I realize that I have a hard time picking out the hero for myself. Is it Betty the dairy maid? Tom the guardian? Edward Jenner the doctor? 

As I said, this story is based on historical people and places. Maybe that’s why picking the hero is hard. Isn’t that how real life is?

People aren’t solitary islands, unaffected by the world beyond. We rub off on each other, change each other’s courses, give each other a hand or push each other back. What each of us does affects the lives of others. No hero becomes a hero alone.

That’s why behind every hero and even in our lives there may be several “ordinary” heroes who have changed life in extraordinary ways. How about the mother who took the time to listen? The teacher who wrote the encouraging note? The dad who taught the inspiring lesson? The doctor who went the extra mile? The friend who prayed and gave hope? The brother who sacrificed? The grandmother who gave a second chance? 

If you listen to or read Frozen Fire, you’ll have to let me know who you think the hero is. Then maybe you can think of who the heroes are in your own life. Why not take time to thank them today if you can?

As some of the closing words of the radio theatre adaption go,

“True heroes of life are not often kings and queens or those of powerful means. The true heroes of the Lord God Most High are those who serve others without regard to themselves.” 

 Note: Frozen Fire is woven with the story of Dr. Edward Jenner, the British physician who became the Father of Immunology. It’s a great resource for history studies of the late 1700s, for those interested in medicine or simply as a story to be enjoyed. May 14 was a pivotal day in both Frozen Fire and the real life of Dr. Jenner.