Amazing Grace of Memories.

I watched something like 40 000 people listen to a full orchestra including Pipes and Drums, play Amazing Grace. Emotions ran amok on faces in the audience. There were unashamed tears; there was unabashed joy; there was the excitement and appreciation of good music well played with the added hype of the plaintive Bagpipes and the scintillating beat of the drums. There was also indifference – not to the music, but to its significance.

I wondered,

1.       How can one be a part of producing such music without an awareness of its meaning?

2.       How can one hear it without being affected by it?

3.       Can anyone hear this tune without knowing the words?

4.       Was it the haunting music or the unheard words that reverberated in many hearts?

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9^th December is a memory day, and started a new train of thought.

My father went to be with the Lord when he was 75 years old, but 9^th December would have been his 98^th his birthday. I have a testimony to share about him, and why I know we will meet again in that wonderful place known to us as Heaven.  (Read Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven for further information!)

Dad had to make a choice that challenges many people in these days – Church or compromise.

My mother had turned her back on God, saying, “Why would a good God allow so many disabled people to be born?”

My sister was handicapped and perhaps Mum thought it was a personal punishment or something. She was not overtly antagonistic, just uninterested in church fellowship although she had been brought up in a church going environment. I never knew her to attend a church again except to weddings, funerals and christenings. She wondered why churches were always wanting money, - what did they do with it anyway? Dad, on the other hand, saw that I went to Sunday School and at some stage he became “A Sidesman” as I think it was called in the C of E which we attended in those days. He attended meetings with other officials, and led a Sea Scout group. I suspect he went through those years without a full understanding, because he stopped going when I left school and started work, mainly I think, because he didn’t want to go alone. I had certainly not received the message of salvation for it was many years later when I realised my belief in God had not led me to submission to His Grace. Dad, meantime, only accompanied Mum to church at weddings, funerals and christenings! He made the choice of compromise for a quiet life.

A choice had been made, and years were to elapse before another choice could be considered. In those intervening years, opportunities were missed, and the full extent of God’s calling will have to be shared in a future testimony, but there came a day when Dad asked the Lord’s agent “What do you really believe?” He continued to ask all the right questions, with all the right answers as responses.

 We will meet again and enjoy many more conversations in the Presence of our Lord.

Imagine it! CS Lewis was well quoted in Edge of Eternity by Randy Alcorn.
All my life on earth was but a series of labour pains preparing me for this.