Hallucinations

I am so thankful to be in a praying church and I know it is through their prayers that I am trying to record this answer to your prayers.

I don’t know how it started, but I knew this intruder was evil. He was coming into my bedroom, hunting through my possessions. I guess to find my bank details, but I wasn’t worried, as my carer has taken care that no one else can access them, but as if in frustration, each time he would leave something unpleasant as if to show his spite.

I pressed my call button, but my lovely night nurse assured that it would be impossible for a man to get in the building. This was the biggest shock, that she did not believe me.

The next time he came as if to laugh at the way he was able to torment me, but I answered him boldly, ‘You don’t need to come here. You need Jesus.’ He vanished, when I spoke that Name and I know he will not return.

Our night nurse wisely took a urine sample and received some medication, confirming that I had a mild infection but the hallucinations continued.

I saw a beautiful young girl come into my room, but not through a door. Somehow I knew it was our youngest sister who had died so tragically many years, and God was assuring me of how He treasured her and wanted me to think of her.

But this was not the end of these attacks. For how could I ever dare to give a prophetic word again, in case it is just my mind playing tricks?

Godliness with Contentment

I was intending to write to a very special friend who is still enjoying independent living, although well on in her eighties. I wanted to reassure her by sharing something of my testimony and then I thought some of my faithful blog-readers might like to hear it too. But in any case, I know I will be blessed by looking back and remembering.

There are many promises of God that he will care for us in our old age, but when I had been sent to a heart specialist while living in the highlands of Papua New Guinea he had assured me I could live to a hundred I was more interested in living as a missionary for ten more years. When you are in your forties, a hundred seems a very long way away.

And I had no concern about providing for the future. I had closed my bank account in UK. Would doubtless get something when I sold my car. I had thought of offering my car to our Pastor at a reduced price, but then God told me to give as he had given to me. – I knew what that meant. I gave it to them.

God did give me the ten years as a single missionary abroad, where first in PNG and when that door closed, in Ghana I was known as ‘the Little Children’s Mother’, but home on furlough I met the husband God had promised me. Joel and Betty had experienced fruitful ministry in Africa for many years, but after Betty’s sudden and unexpected death God showed us both clearly that this was his provision for us both. Our years in pastorates in UK were fruitful and wonderfully happy. It was then God called me to write, and my children’s books were a key for me to be welcomed in the local Primary Schools.

I had five years as a pastor’s wife and then we came to Porthcawl to retire.

Neither Joel nor I had saved and given up good salaries to come into the ministry, but he was well loved by his aunts and then my mother’s death enabled us to buy our lovely dormer bungalow in Nottage, where I learned to live content even after Joel had preceded me to heaven.

He was preaching  up to two weeks before he died, full of faith  and joy. And God wonderfully enabled me, teaching Bible in the schools and preaching in several local churches. But aged 85 I knew I needed to give up the car, and the doctor suggested I should consider independent living in our wonderful new facilities in Stoneleigh.

It was soon after Joel died that the Lord gave me a wonderful gift in Ross to help me to make friends with my computer. He was a helper to so many of us in the church, and always so encouraging. When friends told me their grandsons helped them with their computers, instead of being sorry for myself that I had no grandchildren of my own I asked Ross if he minded if I adopted him as my Grandson. 

I believed God was showing me very clearly that this was a good move for me. I loved my flat, with a spare room for my computer and all my schools gear, and then phoned my financial advisor to see if I could afford this move.

No discussion. She phoned up Ross, and told him, ‘Pauline needs to move. Will you look after her?’ He has looked after me ever since, so that, having continued in the schools, and in good, though weakening health, aged ninety, he was there for me through all the trauma of a cardiac arrest. 

Decisions had to be made. Let’s go back a few years. Living in our bungalow in Nottage, I used to go and sit with an elderly neighbour while her daughter was at work. We continued as good friends until her mother was in need of nursing care and spent her last few weeks of her life in Pinehurst where I am now. It was through this contact that Joel and I  were welcomed in to take a little service with the residents.

But now no more was I up to independent living, but nor was I fit for decision making either. The ‘Grace’ ladies used to go in to visit, and a distinct memory came to me. A lovely friend who lived around the corner had said, ‘I wouldn’t mind ending my days here.’

I was amazed that she should say such a thing. I hadn’t thought about ending my days anywhere. But I needed to think about it now. They had warned me at the hospital that I might drop at any time and I soon learned that I was not safe on my own. 

So Ross agreed that we should visit Pinehurst. What a welcome I received from our lovely Alex when she realised that I had known her mother, and certainly happy to put me on her waiting list, but how many years might I have to wait before someone made room for me by dying. I prepared myself for a long wait, but within four months I was happily settled  in my lovely room, a stair lift installed and there in the corner, my computer.

‘Well, I won’t need that,’ I told Ross, but ‘You don’t know,’ was his gentle reply.

Even now I am often unable to write by hand because of my still very shaky hand, so now how grateful I am for my computer. Soon after I arrived I wrote a poem for one of our Carer’s grandson, and now everyone gets a poem for their birthday, and yes, the Biblical novel I had started when I was in good health, and had thought would never be completed, we are now trusting for a publisher.

So, with David I say, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, ….I lack no good thing.’ And confidently I share my testimony with my dear friends, who through long years have learned to prove the faithfulness the faithfulness of God.

A TIME TO DIE?

Don’t worry. I promise I will not make it depressing.

There is a verse somewhere in the Psalms about the years we live when we are over seventy are but labour and sorrow, but ours most certainly were not.

Joel was a theologian so he should know. He said that Psalm was written to those condemned to wander and die in the wilderness and not to us, but for those in Christ we can accept old age as a special reward.

His first wife, Betty, had worked beside Joel through times of revival in Nigeria, then later through years of warfare and hardship in what has now become Zimbabwe.

I had returned to U.K. expecting to return to Ghana, to hear that Joel’s Betty had died very suddenly. God led us in a plain path and I learned to fill my role as a pastor’s wife. It was soon after this that God called me to write, and between my call to work with the children and my books which had already given me a key to the local primary schools, when Joel died, 22 years ago, I was not left time to grieve. The schools were waiting.

But now I am in a care home and so, perhaps, acceptable to think about dying, but not to our wonderful carers. We have one 99 year old, looking forward to a wonderful celebration, but they encourage us all to continue to enjoy life.

I am so blessed to have a quiet day and am happily sitting in my ‘Eagle’s Nest’ with a flask of coffee as I have a special story I would like to share with you.

A friend had told her mother, You don’t have to be ill to die. And she wasn’t. She had been helping her daughter with the chores, enjoyed her dinner, sat back with her cup of tea and was gone.

Aged 93, and apart from bring unsteady on my feet living an active life, I hope I am not unprepared for God to call me home. Joel had been active, preaching up to a fortnight before he died. Yes, of course bereavement is painful, but God has been so good to me. ‘Grace Community Church,’

planted from Brackla is the fulfilment of Joel’s faith an obedience, has always been a loving family to me and ‘I have and am lacking no good thing’

But perhaps it is excusable that I have been thinking about dying, but it is not what God wants.

I have been feeling ‘poorly’ but so do lots of people my age, so off I went in the community bus for the lunch club. It was our gentle Pastor Clive who was preaching. He asked us what our last prayer might be before we got to heaven (or something like that). Oh. Surely I could answer this.

I found myself sitting in a queue to get to Jesus and then I was there. His arms were round me. I was in his arms, a wonderful Welsh ‘cwtch.’ He gave me a polish, ----- and then - Yes, he sent me back.

Oh, it is so wonderful to know that we are sent by Jesus. And that every day that we live is a special gift from God.

There are so many things I cannot do now, but thank God that I can sometimes, still write, and pray, be thankful for so many blessings and wonderful family and friends.

Pauline

Too ill to die

 I was feeling very ill and waiting for an ambulance to take me to hospital, so how was it that I had the assurance that it was not my time to die? After all, I am now 93 years old. Surely a ripe old age.

Back home now, and recovering my strength, I will tell you the story. A faithful Christian lady had once told me about her mother. At the age of seventy she had been healed of heart disease and she had told her, ‘Mother, don’t forget. You do not have to be ill to die.’

And she didn’t and indeed wasn’t. In her nineties, she had been helping her daughter with her jobs around the house all morning, enjoyed her dinner and sat back in a comfy chair to enjoy her cup of tea, closed her eyes and was gone.

What a lovely story and somehow I had believed this was a promise for me too.

I had come into this wonderful Care Home, having survived a cardiac arrest and for two years have been enjoying a busy and fulfilling life style. A lovely Christian friend had been hoping to join us in this same home, but the only way there would be room for her was if the Lord called one of us home to glory. It could be any one of us. Was the Lord ready for me?

A friend reminded me that if I were no longer here, then this lady might not want to come, but soon after that one of our long-term residents suffering from dementia, but otherwise hale and hearty, slept her way through twenty four hours. They had kept her on a recliner downstairs so that she had constant care, but the next day she very gently stopped breathing. Indeed, she had confirmed to me the assurance that we do not have to be ill to die.

And though, if we are trusting in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour then we can say with Paul that ‘to be with Christ is far better’, yet I know that I am very privileged to be returned from hospital and am beginning to take up again my fruitful life style – rejoicing in every opportunity I am given to shine for Jesus. And yet with the blessed hope of soon being home, home at last with our wonderful Saviour, having demonstrated, I trust, the truth that we don’t have to be ill to die.

 

THE ROAD TO EMMAEUS

 It was Easter Sunday, and I was taken back in  memory to a service many years ago when I was visiting in Denmark. Although I was dependant on an interpreter,  the message had come to me personally and clearly. God w as telling me that I could always know his presence with me, and experience a burning heart as had those two disciples.

Knowing that God was calling me to leave everything and everyone I knew and go abroad as a missionary, what a wonderful assurance I was given that I too could know that our risen  Saviour would be walking  with me every step of my long journey of life. I too could, and still do know the experience of the burning heart.

It was while I was in Australia, on my way to New Guinea that God confirmed to me his promise through a prophet.

‘You are facing vast distances, but I am pledged to come with you and you will be able to turn readily and easily to me at all times as to a friend at all times.’

What a wonderful word of assurance, and how faithful God has been, still is  and will be to each of us who dare to trust his word.

So here I am, an old old lady . Yes, I may be in need of a hearing aid, but thank God, I am not deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit. How thankful that God has brought me to this day; not too old for God to still reveal himself in deeper and yet more meaningful ways.

For now, I am able not only to know the experience  of the burning heart in my daily walk, - yes, even with a walker,- but even more so as I come to the Table of Communion.

Those two disciples had pressed this stranger to come in and experience their hospitality but it was only in looking back that they had realised the wonder of the miracle, that it had been Jesus himself, this same Jesus and yet not the same for he had endured the terrible weight of our sins, suffered the mocking, the shame, the unbelievable cruelty and now, having conquered every strategy of Satan he was there, for them and for each of us,
and still here to make himself known to each one of us in the breaking of the bread.

Yes, he had walked and talked with them, explaining the Scriptures that had foretold all that had happened, but now, - he was revealing himself to them in  the Breaking of the Bread.

And this has been the wonderful revelation that God is bringing to my heart this Easter time.

I am 93 years old, and often  tempted to think I may have tarried too long, but now I am being reassured that God has kept me ‘for such a time as this.’

Oh Lord, open my eyes that I may always recognise your presence with us, and very especially in the Breaking of the Bread.   

HOW DID YOU DO IT?

 The question had taken me by surprise. It is so many years since I went as a single missionary to the remote land of Papua New Guinea, yes, sixty years ago.

My memoires,  ‘Wings of the Morning,’ had been published, soon after my husband’s death, twenty years ago, but this special lady who had invited us round to her Granny flat, had been rereading it.

She reminded me of some of the challenges which had faced us in daily life up in the highlands, but now she was asking, ‘Tell me, how did you do it?’

Words do not come easily to me these days. How could I recount in few words what I knew had been a series of miracles which had changed me from a fearful young woman, a ‘stick in the mud’ as one school chum had described me to a woman of faith?

One of our friends helped me out. ‘Why!’ she proclaimed, ‘We were young.’ And the moment was passed, but I do want to give an answer to my Sue.

How had I done it? My pastor had told me I was not strong enough to be a missionary. When I eventually arrived, my colleagues were not impressed.’ She won’t last a year, they had said, yet I lasted longer than many of them.

My friend Esther had gone to Africa seven years before, but she was strong, athletic, maybe a bit of a daredevil. Yes, she was cut out to be a missionary, but I certainly did not aspire to follow her.

Yet, in our church a word was coming again and again, that someone was going to other shores and would bring revival. I felt a tremendous burden until I asked, ‘Lord, can it be you are speaking to me?’ I knew it was.

For a little while I was sorry for myself, thinking how hard it would be, until the Lord showed me what a privilege he was giving me and told me, ‘Rejoice in your going out.’

So yes, it was tough. As dear Sue reminded me, I lived in tumble down houses, we had fires and floods and times when I could have been very lonely but in it all, I knew I was in God’s hand and he had brought me there.

And if ever I felt overwhelmed by some of the hardship and challenges and think that maybe I should have stayed in UK , gone on for a headship as they had wanted me to and a comfy flat and a car I would remember that God’s hand would still be on me and I would feel that pressure to go as a missionary.

And this same wonderful God has been with me, through those happy years back in UK as a minister’s wife but since then in long years of widowhood.

Yes, dear Sue. We each have our callings and we have sorrows as well as joys, but in it all Jesus is our joy, our strength and our song, and we are here for each other.

Thank you for asking me and giving me the opportunity to recall how wonderful our Lord has been and will always be.

His name shall be called ‘WONDERFUL.’ 

P.S. The Lord is reminding  me of his wonderful promise of ‘Joy and Peace.’ Not just for those on the mission field but for each of us, here and now.