SHOULD I BE A PACHYDERM?

I had thought the boy was abusing his elephant by calling him a pachyderm, but no. An elephant is a pachyderm. So is a rhino and hippopotamus. It refers to an animal who is thick skinned.

So why should I wonder if I should become a pachyderm? Because I am tender hearted and much too vulnerable. If ever I sense rejection I seem to end up in the Slough of Despond.

But I am a writer. A writer is going to have to face rejection. Someone  implied that it was pride that moved people to send their poems into the Seaside News. Little did they realise how much courage it took, for you are putting your head above the parapet and likely to get shot at.

We writers are a little like parents sending their children to school for the first time. I loved teaching the reception class but sometimes it wasn’t just the children shedding tears. But soon enough tears were forgotten for the joy of new adventures in their lives.

And as authors, yes, there may be disappointments, but encouragements too and if our gift and calling is truly from God, we must press on and share it.

I have never forgotten the joy of my first short story being published, eventually leading on to the first novel. I was confident this too would be accepted, but no. I was wallowing in  a pit of self pity until my husband came along to rescue me, not with more pity but a reprimand. ‘You had better give up writing if you are going to behave  like this.’

So, was I going to write, even if I was never published? Would it be enough that it gave me (and my husband) and God too pleasure? Yes!

A few weeks later this same book became the first of others to be accepted and published. Yet here I am, almost forty years on, to find myself yet again, rejected and  in the Slough of Despond.

And so yet again I need to remind  myself that I will write, if is only for my and God’s pleasure. Indeed, God is keeping me well content in this great ‘lock-down’ as I continue to write, with and for him, and I am reminded that  some of the best sellers received many rejections before they were finally accepted.

So, do I need to become a pachyderm? Should I become more thick skinned? I don’t think so. While I envy those who easily shake off any rejection or hurt, I think God  has given us a special ministry to the sensitive and hurting because we can feel their pain.

We don’t need to be thick-skinned to be protected, for like Christian, in Pilgrim’s Progress, we have been given armour; not just our shield of faith and sword of the spirit, but our helmet of salvation, belt of truth and of course our wonderful gospel shoes. We all need to make sure there are no chinks in my armour, and that we keep out of the Slough of Despair.

 And, whatever our gifts, may we all share God’s pleasure as we follow his individual calling in our lives.

THE LAST ENEMY

Pilgrim in John Bunyan’s story, after all his adventures and many adversities, comes within sight of the Celestial city, only to find there is no way to reach it except through this terrible river –yes, the river of death. The visualisation made me tremble. ‘Oh, it is scary.’

And yes, death is scary, and in no way can we shrug it off.

I am almost ninety. I have had a good life. Why should I fear the dreaded Coronovirus?’ Yet every day is precious, God’s gift to us, and death is still the last great enemy.

But we have a Saviour who has conquered death, and Jesus Christ was raised from death ‘to deliver those who all their lives are slaves because of their fear of death.’

So, have we been delivered from the fear of death? After all, Jesus promised that if

we believe in him we will not see death, but still we have to cross that scary river, and it will mean separation from our loved ones, even if it is ‘just for a little while?’

I have been challenged to search my own heart by a young Christian mother who had courage to admit to her own fear of death. I recalled how, also a young woman, I had suffered a heart attack. I had thought I was a strong Christian and was bitterly disappointed to find that I had been very much afraid. Well – it had certainly not been my time to die.

When Connie Ten Boom feared the future, her father reminded her of how he did not give her the ticket until they were in the station, and even so God provides grace and strength only as it is needed.

Fast forward several years. I had travelled alone to work on the mission field, first in New Guinea, where there were many scary situations. Believe me, I had needed grace for that, and God was always there. But it was   when I was in Ghana that I was driving alone in my car and suddenly was in a head on collision.

As I recovered consciousness I felt as if the doors of heaven had been closed in my face. No, I  had not experienced any fear of death, but rather a sense of disappointment.

It is as I  have been writing this account that I realise that it was just a few days before this accident that God had, as it were, ‘given me my ticket,’ to enable me to face this dread enemy.

In Ghana, dance is part of our worship. A few days previously one of our young men in the church had been dancing before the Lord, dancing with a joy and abandonment as King David had done so many years before. Although we were all so sad to hear of his death, sudden and inexplicable, we had no doubt in our hearts that he was dancing now in God’s presence.

‘Oh, God,’ I whispered, in all my pain and shock, ‘you took William, but you did not take me.’

Wonderfully, God whispered back to me, ‘It is because of the children.’

He continues to remind me of that call to teach the children, if ever I feel like giving up.

There is another occasion when death came very close, not to take me, but my beloved husband to heaven.

Before I could take him into hospital, the angel of death had come. His head slipped onto my shoulder and he was gone.

The medics were here, trying to resuscitate him. They must have thought I did not love him for I was begging them to let him go. But it was because I loved him so much I did not want him to be dragged back as it were from the doorstep of heaven. As I put on his gravestone, ‘In the presence of Jesus is fullness of joy.’

The pain of bereavement is very great, but I could not doubt for one moment that my Joel was safe with Jesus.  

Yes, death for the Christian is still scary, but he can and will deliver us from the fear of death and trust him to fulfil his purposes for each of us.

‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.’