‘Give me your hand.’ Maybe you wouldn’t have received
that as a special kindness, but believe me, with a steep mountain, or a river
crossing before me, it was more than a
kindness but a life-saver.
‘Kingen di.’ I recognised those words as meaning ‘Give me
your hand.’ A new- comer to the remote
highlands of New Guinea and unused to roughing it, my fellow missionaries
laughed at the wonderful way in which the Lord helped me, for when trekking to
some out-station there always seemed to be someone who stepped out of the bush
to give me a hand just when I needed it.
There are other ways of giving a hand or being there for
people. My mother used to say, ‘There are so many needy people in the world,
and for most the best thing you can give them is a little bit of time.
It is true, isn’t it? A burden shared is a burden halved,
they say. My mother was elderly and disabled, but with her stick and her little
car she went around to visit the shut-ins, and if she couldn’t visit she would
write or phone.
At Easter time I received a random act of kindness. Our
little Elijah, not yet four years old, came running up to me and placed a tiny chocolate
egg in my hand. Given a boxful by his mother, it was his idea to bring them to
church to give away. How blessed I was to be chosen to receive one. Especially
blessed because I in turn was able to
give it away as a random act of kindness.
Dear little Kitty, two years old, was getting fractious.
I remembered the egg in my pocket. Kitty snuggled in beside me as I unwrapped
it. The sweetness of that egg lasted a long time as from then on Auntie Pauline
was given lots of hugs.
What joy grew out of Elijah’s random act of kindness.
Let’s be aware of the many random acts of kindness that
God is strewing on our paths; and let’s strew some of our own, if it is just to
give a hand to someone struggling with a heavy bag, to stop to pass the time of
day; a letter, a timely phone call, or a prayer.
Thank God for random acts of kindness.
Was it a random act of kindness, or was it the North Wind
herself that brought this book into my hands when I was feeling low with a
cold? It was certainly a gift from God.
My friend was supposed to be downsizing into a smaller
house, and explaining that some things she could not part with, such as this
box of books she had read to her children. She held up ‘At the Back of the
North Wind,’ by George MacDonald. ‘Oh,’ I exclaimed. ‘I would love to read it
again.’
I was probably an adult when I first read it, and I
remember how God had reminded me of its message. I had been sure God would not
send me anywhere with mountains or log bridges, and here I was in New Guinea
with plenty of both. I had somehow got ahead of my companions and was overcome
with fear. I could not go back or on. God gently reminded me of little Diamond.
His friend, the North Wind, had carried him in her arms to the cathedral, and
placed him on a ledge, high up. There was not room for her to walk beside him
and when he expressed fear she withdrew. She could not be friends with cowards.
But as he was willing to trust and to step out so she blew strength into him. I
too was able to step out in faith. From then on I wondered how I had found
those mountains daunting.
George Macdonald, before the times of C.S.Lewis and
Tolkien had written the most beautiful fairy stories, allegories of the life of
faith.
I was told that this book, ‘At the Back of the North
Wind’ is about death. I was surprised at that , for I had thought that maybe
the North Wind represented suffering, but now, as I read it again many years
later I think it is neither, but a most beautiful picture of all that our Lord
Jesus is and wants to be in our lives.
Little Diamond, whose daddy is a coachman, sleeps in the
stable above where big Diamond, this wonderful carriage horse, sleeps. His
mother plugs up the knot in the wood by his bed, but the North Wind wants to
come in. She becomes his friend, and carried him far away. She has to do many
things which seem to be all wrong, but Diamond learns to trust her and see how
she is working out God’s purposes for good.
Eventually his trust in her is such that he wants to go
through her to the land at the back of the North wind. Has he come through death
to heaven? No, for after a while he is brought back from a serious illness, but
from here on he has had a taste of heaven and so nothing can perturb him.
The family go through great trials, but in it all Diamond
sings his special songs that he had heard from the river of God. When his
father is ill he takes out big Diamond, now a cab horse, through the dangerous
streets of London’s East End, but nothing can make him afraid and he is able to
bring grace and blessing wherever he goes.
Eventually all turns out well for the family and all
those involved in his life, and at the end it seems that our little Diamond has
died, but we know that he had gone through the North Wind, this time to reach
heaven itself.
And as his relationship with the beautiful North Wind
pictures our relationship with our wonderful Saviour, I pray that we, like
Diamond, will allow nothing to perturb us and give us courage to face every
difficulty, for we may not, like some, have entered into the outskirts of
heaven only to return for a season, but we have tasted of the powers of the
world to come and have sat with Christ in heavenly places and so we too, can
quietly trust that He will turn everything to good for us as we trust in him.
