Tag Archives: Family

Looking for Something Special in the Darkness of a Christmas Eve…

It’s Christmas Eve in a big old house in northern England. Above the fireplace in the front room, eight socks dangle- empty, but expectant. Each sock has a name attached tightly to it by a wooden clothes peg. The fifth one says GLENYS.

On the hearth beneath sits a glass of milk, a plate with one home-made mince pie, and a carrot. The stage is set.

Night is falling and bedtime approaches. We scamper upstairs, my seven siblings and I, and congregate in the darkness of the bedroom. The curtains are parted, and we peer into the night. For a moment all is quiet. Our eyes search.

Where is it, Dad? Can you see it?

I see it! The cry goes up from my youngest sister. It’s over there!

She points and we all gaze in the direction of her finger, scanning the darkness until we see it too.

It’s a light.

A light, flickering and traveling in the darkness.

There it is! My exuberant and energetic dad exclaims, seizing the opportunity. He’s on the move! He’s getting closer! You’d better get straight to bed. Father Christmas won’t come if you’re not asleep!

And we jump into bed and pull the covers over our heads, and dream of morning, when our front room will be filled with love and laughter, presents galore, and eight socks will bulge with promising and peculiar shapes.

We will marvel at the mysterious bite taken out of the home-made mince pie and search for Rudolph’s teeth marks left in the half-eaten carrot.

But amidst these wonderful memories, always, always for me, one will remain uppermost…

Looking for Father Christmas’s light on Christmas Eve.

We lived atop a hill, overlooking the town of Wigan. On any given night, a million stars shone, and hundreds of lights twinkled and traveled in the darkness.

I’m sure that those eight little faces, glued to the window in the darkness of a Christmas Eve, each saw a different light. But it didn’t matter. We saw the magic. We felt it in the air. We share the memory.

That ritual on Christmas Eve, created by a dad who was so full of fun and love and life, is one that I will replicate with my grandchildren this year. For the first time, I will be with them on Christmas Eve, in their home atop a hill.

And as we stand at the window and scrunch our noses against the glass and search for Father Christmas’s light in the darkness, I’ll be thinking of my dad, and a faraway home in England, and how utterly precious is family, and how fleeting is time, that passes by so very, very fast.

What to do if you’re sitting with your enemies at the Thanksgiving Table…

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When I close my eyes I can still smell the sweetness of the apples.

I can still see row upon row of carrots and turnips and onions and cabbage sitting proudly along the window sills beneath stained glass.

I can still hear the notes of the organ and children’s voices as we sing, ‘Come ye Thankful People Come, Raise the Song of Harvest Home.’

Harvest Festival in England was always a wonderful time. Never had our little church looked so pretty as when her altar was laden with baskets of apples and every available space adorned with the greens and browns and reds and oranges of Autumn.

And although I obviously never celebrated Thanksgiving in England, the colors and sentiments of the harvest season are the same. Families gather, food is shared, and thanks is given.

A few miles away, a wonderful Thanksgiving table is being prepared for me by my American family. As I write, I know that my host is standing at her kitchen sink. She is most probably peeling, and mixing, and measuring.

I know that a place is reserved for me at her table. I know that as I sit at that table, it will be laden with an abundance of food: an enormous platter of turkey; a bowlful of steaming mashed potatoes; a variety of vegetables, and fruit pies in abundance. I will share in that feast. And I will come away full.

And I think about the wonderful host God must be, and how a place is reserved at that huge table for me.

Can’t you just picture God standing at heaven’s sink, preparing that feast- a massive table laden with love, and joy, and peace in abundance? And God smiling, holding a gigantic pitcher, ready to pour a never ending supply of hope and forgiveness to all who are willing to bring their cup to the table?

But therein lies the problem.

In order for us to be filled with God’s best, we must bring an empty cup.

We cannot bring one that is already full… of fear, or anxiety, or jealousy, or busyness. And aren’t they the real enemies at the table? When we are filled with those things, it leaves us no room for anything else.

But if we can learn how to come to the table emptied of the world’s worries, ready to be filled with God’s greatness, then what a feast we will share!

If we can come to the table ready to be filled with God’s greatness, what a feast we will share!

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We will sit at a Thanksgiving table where our enemies are conquered, and where the host is One who never stops pouring. And my cup will not just be filled…

It will simply overflow.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows. Psalm 23:5

When You Don’t Want to Walk Down the Road…

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It was just another ordinary day when the letter arrived. It plopped quietly onto the front door mat, along with the free newspaper and several bills, and lay there for a while before my husband picked it up.

I looked over his shoulder as he opened the envelope, and tried to focus on the words amidst the noise of our young sons charging up and down the stairs.

Dear David, it said. We, at the preachers’ meeting, have been praying about who God might call to become a local preacher. We wondered whether this was something you might consider?

I stopped reading. I was a little astonished. My husband was a sales rep. He sold home improvement products. Surely he wasn’t being called to preach?

You’re not going to do that, are you? I asked incredulously.

I might. David replied.

I was astounded. I had been brought up in the church all my life. My dad was a local preacher, but I wasn’t prepared for this. I can still remember the tone of my voice that day. And I can still hear what I said next, even though it was over thirty years ago. I’m not proud of it.

Well listen David, I fumed, You can become a local preacher (as if he needed my permission) but just don’t tell me you want to be a pastor…because I want to choose my own carpets.

I don’t think he answered me. And even if he had, I wasn’t listening. My mind was off somewhere, flying down the road of self pity, imagining a life of poverty and parsonage living; a road that took me away from the cute little home we owned, with its newly built conservatory and leaded windows; a road that led to houses I would never own, and carpets I could never choose.

And that is exactly what happened. A few years later we packed up, left the only home we had ever owned, and spent the next thirty years traveling that road.

But we never traveled alone. And one day, at one of the curves in that road, God was waiting. I just didn’t see Him at first.

He was sitting quietly in the room at Trinity United Methodist Church, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, listening to the conversation, as my husband and I were introduced to some of our new church family.

We don’t own a parsonage here, one of the members explained. But we’ll give you a housing allowance, and you can buy your own home.

I almost laughed out loud. And I’m sure God was laughing too.

Here I was, over thirty years later, discovering something I had never imagined would be possible:

My husband was still a pastor, and I was about to choose my own carpets….

Two things that I never thought could co-exist together- an impossible combination. But God specializes in the impossible. And while I thought that saying yes to God was synonymous with sacrifice, God knew that saying yes to Him is synonymous with blessing.

Saying yes to God is synonymous with blessing.

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And do you know a funny thing? I am no longer interested in carpets. I don’t need them anyway – our lovely new home, which we have owned for the last four years, has beautiful hardwood floors.

And I think about that journey I was so afraid to take, and the road I still travel, with its ups and downs, and curves, and bumps. And this I know:

We never travel alone;

God goes ahead of us;

Helping us climb every hill;

Waiting at every curve;

Stepping in with surprises;

Seeing what we cannot;

And blessing us as we keep walking.

And far, far better, is the road that leads away from the world, and leads us closer to God.

On Foot Washing and the What Ifs…

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It is October 2014. My first book has just been published and I’m sitting in the waiting area of HarperCollins publishers, marveling at my impossible dream come true, when I notice the statue on the front desk. I smile. I’m not really surprised by its presence there. It’s simple, and small, but hugely significant for me. Jesus is kneeling at Peter’s feet.And immediately I’m taken back, as I often am, to that hot and stuffy hospital room in August 1988, where I wait nervously with my heavily pregnant sister to welcome a new niece or nephew into the world.

I never wanted to be there really, if truth be told. I was truly terrified of being present at the birth. What if I fainted? What if something went wrong? What if I couldn’t be strong for her like she needed me to be? What if I ended up needing more help from the nurses than she did?

My what ifs haunted me all the week before. And so, I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed. Hard.

It happened on a beautiful, hot afternoon in the south of England. My sister and I were gardening, pottering in and out of the house all day, enjoying the feel of grass under our feet. The baby was already overdue and her pains started suddenly. We grabbed the bag of essentials that had been waiting patiently by the front door and headed out to the car. I was more nervous than her, but she didn’t know that.

Less than an hour later, the nurse slipped out of the room for a moment, and that’s when my sister, flat on her back, and in no position to do anything other than give birth, somehow noticed something I hadn’t.

Glenys, she said, slightly horrified, look at my feet!

It was true. They were dirty. The evidence of our gardening was undeniable.

Don’t worry, I assured her, I’ll wash them for you.

Even then, I didn’t realize the significance of what I had just said, or really what was happening in that little room. Even when I turned back from the sink armed with paper towel, and soap, and began to wash between her toes, even then I didn’t get it. It’s only when my sister stopped me and said, incredulously,

Glenys, what are you doing?

I’m washing your feet, I replied.

As I said those words, time stood still. I knew then it was true. I knew that what I uttered next was absolutely true:

He’s here.

And how could it be denied? The presence of Jesus in that little room could not have been more real or more tangible than if he had appeared in very flesh and shook my hand.

He’s here.

Hannah Faith Glenys Kearney entered the world on August 5th, 1988.

She is 34 years old now. Whenever I see her lovely face I am reminded of the night I stood by my sister’s side and held her hand with a strength, a confidence, and a power that I had never felt before and have never experienced since.

And as I drove home in the dark that night, I filled my sister’s car with song. I knew, with absolute certainty, as I know now, that

when I am afraid, He’s here;

when I am alone, He’s here:

when I am faced with those what ifs, He’s here;

no matter what…

He’s always here.

The Person Behind the Curtains

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I never knew who was behind the flowered curtains. But I knew someone was there. I could tell by the way the material was twitching.

I hoped that whoever it was couldn’t see me. And just to make sure, I tried to make myself invisible by shrinking further down behind my dad’s legs. When that didn’t work, I simply hid behind my hymn book, and only lowered it when it was time to trudge to the next corner.

I was here under duress. Given the choice, I would much rather be climbing the laburnum trees that hung over our driveway, or bouncing around dangerously on my pogo stick, or lying on my bed reading my latest Schoolfriend comic. Yet here I was, standing on street corners, singing hymns with four of my seven siblings while my dad, in his loud preacher’s voice, invited all who would pass by, and all who would hide behind curtains, to come to our small village church.

My mum and dad and their eight children must have been an answer to prayer for that little congregation. We were a ready-made Sunday school, with a preacher, teacher, and evangelist rolled into one.

Not even the British rain could dampen my dad’s enthusiasm. Sunday after Sunday, he would drive around the neighborhood and load up our car with a rag-tag bunch of children who jostled on knees and hung out of windows until the doors burst open and kids spilled out into a tiny church to hear about a man called Jesus.

Day after day, my dad stepped out from the pages of the Book he believed in to become the person of the parable; the shepherd of the sheep, and the sower of the seed.

And this I learn: we are called to be people of the parable; shepherds of the sheep; sowers of the seed.

We are called to be people of the parable; shepherds of the sheep; sowers of the seed.

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Because even though that tiny church will never open its doors again;

even though my dad now sits, unable to walk…

somewhere out there is someone who knows about Jesus because of what he did.

And somewhere out there in this big old world is someone who believes in God because they peeped through a flowered curtain to spy on a little singing band in the street.

And now, I’m proud that I was part of it.

When a Three Year Old Teaches you About Salvation

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It was when we were sitting close on the sofa, the book open between us….

I look at his blonde head beneath mine. I watch his little fingers opening those lift-the-flap letters from God and I see him smile as we write his name on each one.

And I think – what greater blessing could there possibly be than to sit with your three year old grandson and read God’s great story together on a Thursday afternoon?

What could be more wonderful than to share the words of a book you were privileged to author? Words that flowed through your pen and came to life on the page; and when you read them over the next day, you wondered where on earth they came from? And then to realize of course that these life-giving words did not originate on earth at all, but could only possibly have been born in heaven.

My three year old joy laughs at the story of Jonah in The Very Smelly Belly; he smiles when he hears how Zacchaeus, The Tiny Tax Collector, found his very best friend; and he looks with interest at the marks on Jesus’ hands and feet when we read The Happy Ending.

And then he turns the page to see his very own invitation…..his chance to say yes to God; to say yes to being part of God’s wonderful family; to say yes to salvation; to say yes to joining Jesus’ team.

And I remember when I was writing the book, how I had pondered long about how to offer that salvation call to little ones, how to word it in such a way that their little minds might understand, and their little hearts be open to.

It took me a while, but one day in my mind I saw that Galilean beach so long ago, and those fishing boats pulled up on shore, and Jesus walking along the beach, leaving his footprints in the sand as he makes his way toward James and John. And Jesus simply says,

Follow me.

And there it was: the Invitation. The life-giving invitation to the most amazing adventure those brothers would ever know. Simple. Uncomplicated. No conditions. Just follow me.

And they do! Those first disciples drop their nets and said yes to Jesus. They just follow his sandy footsteps along the beach without saying ‘The Sinners’ Prayer’, or falling to their knees in repentance. All that would come later. For now, all they do is say yes.

Salvation is simple. It was never meant to be complex, or hard to understand. Salvation is a simple invitation to say yes to Jesus.

Salvation is a simple invitation to say yes to Jesus.

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And so the little blonde on my lap turns the last page of the book, and he sees his invitation. He sees the last envelope attached to the page, with blank lines, ready for him to write his own letter to God; his own yes; in his own little way.

What’s this Grandma?

Well, it’s your invitation honey, to join Jesus’ team, And this is a letter that you can write back to God one day.

But not right now I’m thinking…you’re too young. You’re only three. You don’t understand.

But he is insistent; he wants to write his reply now; and so hesitantly, I ask,

Well what do you want to say to God?

And then here it comes…

His immediate, perfect, three year old response.

It’s not supposed to be this way…this teaching thing. Grandmas are supposed to teach their three year old grandsons, not the other way around. But that’s when God steps in, right there, when you’re sitting on the sofa on a Thursday afternoon, that’s when God steps in, out of the blue, and lets you know He’s real.

I want to say I Love You.

My three year old grandson wants to tell God he loves Him. Perfect. And right now, at just three years of age, what more would God want to hear?

The book sits closed on my table now. My grandson is probably playing in his sand pit.

But when he comes here again, we will sit on the sofa, and take up the book. We will turn its pages, and open that letter, where those three little words scrawled In his three year old hand are waiting to remind me-

you are never too young for salvation;

you are never too young to say yes to God.

Leaving England Behind

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It is early dawn in England on June 26^th 2000. My footsteps echo on the kitchen floor—the way they do in an empty house. Our cupboards are bare; the furnishings gone. Our parsonage is empty, its walls waiting patiently for the cheery new coat of paint that will greet the new pastor and his family. In the front room, twenty boxes stand in wobbly stacks waiting for the moving truck—the four tall ones carry favorite toys, and games, and books. Choose wisely we told our four young children. Take only what is precious. Continue reading →

The Photograph

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As soon as I saw the photograph, I knew I would write about it one day.

We sit side-by-side, my dad and I. He has his arm tight around me, a big smile on his face. We are both holding my first book…a book dedicated to him, and without whom, its words would never have been written.

And how glad am I, how I have prayed for this day…that in his declining health, my dad would still be able to read my dedication to him. And he does!

And when I show him the photograph, he says his favorite word… ‘splendid’. And with a twinkle in his eye, he adds, ‘That’s splendid Glenys, you should put that photograph in every book!’

And I am astonished as I look carefully at that picture again…..to note the difference in my dad and I, and how, yet again, even though he is 90 years old, he is still teaching me…

Because when I first see that photograph, I look at myself first. I check my hair. I check my smile. I check my pose. I look okay.

But when my dad first sees that photograph, he looks at me first. He sees his daughter with her first book; he sees God; he sees the little child who will open its pages to meet Jesus there. He does not look at himself; he does not see that he is still wearing his plastic bib, or that underneath he is wearing his dressing gown, because it is after 6pm and he is ready for bed.

My dad sees only what is ‘splendid’…so splendid, in fact, that he would be willing to share this photograph with the world. And this I marvel at….because it is never about him, but always about someone else.

And so this is my prayer for this little book….let it not be all about me, but let it be all about God, and the little hands that will one day open its pages.

Turn The Page…

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Turn the page Mum, turn the page! my youngest son squeals.

He is sitting on my lap, his three older brothers squashed on either side, and we are pored over our all-time, favorite book. It is 1993 and we are reading the story of a Jolly Postman who rides his bike as he delivers letters to Nursery Rhyme characters.

With great anticipation, we turn the page to find a stamped envelope, addressed to:

The Three Bears, Cottage in the Woods.

My son’s little hands reach out and eagerly unfold an apology letter, from Goldilocks. We read it, and laugh, and thoroughly enthralled, we keep turning those pages.

Twenty years later, this wonderful little book would inspire me to write Love Letters from God, 18 Bible stories for children, each one followed by its own lift-the-flap letter, addressed to your child, from God.

It is my prayer that many little hands will unfold these letters. And as they do so, may God, who continues to turn the pages in all our lives, pour out his richest blessings on them.

I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants. Isaiah 44:3