A Miracle

It was bitter cold on January 13, 1968, the day two people made a promise to each other to stay together "in sickness and health until death doth us part."  Fifty years later (Jan. 13, 2018), Hardy and I are still together.

To this day we consider it a miracle; we cannot possibly see it any other way. Two people, looking for love, somehow find each other and stay together for 50 years! That's pretty amazing. What's even more astonishing is how it came about.

Our engagement in September 1967

After I graduated from high school (in Didsbury, Alberta), I came to Winnipeg and lived here a year until the rest of our family joined me (see my blog post, "Heimweh," March 11, 2016). 

My first job was at Christian Press, a bookstore and printing press. A big section of the store dealt with German books and I was hired because I knew the language. The Mennonite Brethren Bible College was located a few blocks away and we handled the textbook orders for the college. 

I had  left all my high school friends behind in Alberta, and I was lonely. I needed a social life. So I took note of the male students who came into the store. But I was shy and no one seemed interested in me. One of the fellows "of interest" reminded me of my father because he was sociable and friendly and short like Dad. Also, he spoke German with our bookstore manager ... hmm ... .

Then he didn't appear anymore. I asked our bookkeeper about him and he told me that he had gone to Ontario to complete his degree in theology. Oh well ... Ontario seemed like another part of the world ... .

That spring my sister and I were baptized and joined the Mennonite church close to our home. It was a solemn occasion, a time when we promised to stay true to God and the church, and were able to participate in communion with the rest of the congregation. Before communion, the pastor encouraged each of us newly baptized members to ask God to guide us in our future endeavours. He said we should not hesitate to be specific. So I decided to be specific with God! I told God that I was looking for a life partner and that I was interested in marrying a pastor or a missionary. But if that was not God's plan for my life, I would be okay with that, too. A strange peace came over me and I felt that whatever would be would be, and I didn't have to worry anymore.

A few days later I received a lovely card from that friendly guy who had gone off to seminary in Ontario, congratulating me on my baptism. Two weeks after that I received a postcard from Switzerland.
I was puzzled. How did he even know I was baptized, and what was he doing in Switzerland?

The two postcards that mystified and excited me

It turned out that our bookkeeper at Christian Press had told him that I had inquired of his whereabouts and he had also told him about my baptism. In fact, unbeknownst to me, Hardy had actually been present at my baptism just days before he flew to Europe for the summer to do some voluntary service! 

At the end of the summer Hardy returned and we went on our first date. That evening he informed me that the next day he was scheduled to go to Congo for two years to participate in the translation of the Old Testament into an African trade language. Could we stay in touch?

We began a two-year correspondence, and at the end of those two years we were committed to each other. 
The word "coincidence" was not on our radar. We considered it nothing short of a miracle. I believe that has been the glue that has kept us together all these years, through the many ups and downs of our relationship. 

Hardy gave me this poem a long time ago, before we had any idea about what life would throw at us. I have kept it in my album all these years.

Purpose

A phrase I heard often in my childhood was, "You did it on purpose!"  This meant I was accused of deliberately causing whatever incident had happened; it had been no accident. My apology was not accepted because I had acted wilfully!

Purpose is the word I was given for 2018 by my church fellowship. Although I picked the word from a bag containing many other words, it seems to have chosen me. It has been 'whispering' to me ever since, almost like an earworm! Sometimes I hear it as produce, perform, propose, or even purchase.  But I recognize these as distortions of the word.  I think perhaps they are words that offer an easier way, words that entice me (according to my Enneagram personality type).

A question I ask myself:

How do I stay true to this word? How do I flesh out its meaning for my life this year? 

I must admit that 2018 for me did not begin with purpose but rather with a nasty cold that was quite debilitating and left me helplessly stranded on the couch with nothing I could do, certainly nothing that had purpose (except perhaps to get better by resting!). At night I felt myself dealing with insomnia, so I did a lot of reading. Through my reading I heard some wise voices that calmed  my earworm:

"[T]he fundamental experience of God is one of being at peace and unafraid since God is so much stronger than everything else." (Marcus Peter Rempel, in Life at the End of Us vs. Them, quoting James Alison's interpretation of the prophet Isaiah's encounter with the divine, p. 213)

That statement gave me cause for some reflection and a gradual sense of peace about my word and its implications. It also reminded me of the strong and courageous women portrayed in a coffee-table book of paintings and stories by the artist Ray Dirks and a group of people who desired to honour their mothers and grandmothers for their courage and faith at a time when their world was falling apart.

As I gazed at their faces and read their stories (including those of my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother), I wondered what these women would have thought of the word purpose when their loved ones were taken from them, their homes plundered and burned, and their lives in danger.

Continuing to quote from Rempel: "[T]he marker of genuine encounter with the Great Mystery is this fundamental experience of peace -- and a resulting peaceableness of character. When the well is deep, all drink from the same great aquifer. But deep wells are not arrived at by scratching a little here and a little there. They are the product of long digging in one place. Deep wells are dug by people who choose a home." (Ibid.)

What home could these women choose when they really had no choice?  

They chose, first of all, to be at home in God, the eternal. They did this with determination and purpose.

That is one thing I can do. 

"The process of life demands that some things pass away to make room for others. The leaves fall, to be replaced, next spring, by new buds. Generation succeeds generation. Last year's dying fruit is this year's seed. It is the pattern of the creation.
But God never departs.  . . .  In [God] is a rest which cannot be disturbed, a love which lasts forever." (Augustine of Hippo)