Where Am I?

A month ago, I wrote about the Crucifixion and what it accomplished. I talked about Jesus taking into His person every kind of sin—every manifestation of a fallen creation, and breaking the power of it all by carrying it through to death: every disease and infirmity, every oppressing emotion, every selfish, wicked act, every calamity.

It was a complete victory. That is why Jesus proclaimed from the cross just before He died, “It is finished.” And yet I’m sure there are many people who read that and thought, “Such grand conclusions bear little resemblance to the world in which I live. I am sick. I am depressed. I’ve done awful things. I’ve had terrible things happen to me. Where is this victory?” It’s a fair question.

It all comes down to where you live. Where are you?

As we read the Bible persistently, we continually get more of a sense of its broader overview. One of the things we discover is that as we embrace Christ, all that He is and all that He did, we are living in two places at the same time. We live here on Planet Earth, with our lives planted in temporal terra firma, and we also live in a mysterious place called “in Christ.” Unlike our physical life in a world that we can see and feel and touch—a life that is slowly, inevitably, passing away, our life in Christ goes on forever. And that forever has already begun.

The trick is to learn to live there. We are already there, in Christ, positionally, as far as God is concerned, once we have placed our trust in Christ; but experientially, we must learn to live there, continually conscious of the kingdom of God and its rule over us. It is there we discover that the shackles of our worldly life are losing their power over us.

Life is hard. That should come as no surprise to us; Jesus Himself said, “In the world you will have trouble.” But then He adds, in one eye-witness account, “But be of good cheer—” and in another, “But don’t be afraid—for I have overcome the world.” He overcame the world and all its troubles—all its fallenness—through the Cross.

Now, how is it any benefit to you and to me that He has overcome, if we still have to walk through all the brokenness ourselves? Jesus wants us to know that we don’t have to go it on our own, alone and powerless. Because—if we will learn to live “in Him”—and not just in the world as carnal beings, we also—like Jesus, and through His help—will overcome the trouble that comes our way.

“This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4-5, NIV). So embracing Jesus as the Son of God is the first step in positioning ourselves to being an overcomer through Jesus.

Paul the Apostle instructs us further: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith” (Col. 2:6-7, NKJV). So walk in Him. Or as the NIV has it, “Continue to live your lives in Him.” Because, as Paul goes on to say a few verses further, “In Him, you are complete” (v.10). The whole verse reads like this: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” As you can see from that verse, at the same time that we are in Christ, so also is “the fullness of the Godhead” dwelling there. What a place to live! There can be no lack of any kind. That is why the Psalmist said, “I shall not want.”

What is it that you need? Love—when you’re feeling unloved, or unloving? Joy—when your habit has always been to just plod on in the dull doldrums of duty? Peace—when circumstances threaten to overcome you in a whirlwind of anxiety? For every challenge, the antidote lies in Christ. “For in Him we [were designed to] live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).

This is what God did: “He raised [Christ] from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Eph. 1:20-21). This age and also in the age to come: this means both present and future. And then “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ … and made us sit together [with Him] in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” This is right now, real time. And here’s the kicker, if you can get your head around it, “… that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-7).

In John Chapter 15, Jesus calls it abiding in Him. Eleven times in six verses He uses the word abide, and He makes some powerful promises about what will happen as we learn to do that. Twice in that short passage He says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” I used to read that and wonder, How can He be in me at the same time as I am in Him? But one day I got the picture: I clasped my right wrist with my left hand at the same time as I clasped my left wrist with my right hand. 

Now that is a secure relationship! I in Him and He in me. He's hanging on to me, and I'm hanging on to Him.

Also in that passage, Jesus gives an important clue to how we can cultivate awareness of our position in Christ: “…if My words abide in you” (v.7). The only way for His words to live in us is for us to spend time in His Word. Another clue: “Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in him” (1 John 3:24). So listen to what He says, and then do it!

In John 17, Jesus prays to the Father for all who believe and those who one day would believe, down through the ages, “that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me” (v.21-23). God in Christ and Christ in us, at the same time as we are in Christ. What a great place to be!

Where am I? I’m in Christ, positionally (according to God); and experientially, I'm learning to live there, more and more each day. Where are you?

Did It Please God to See Jesus Suffer?

I found this picture online, bearing the notice "This image may be subject to copyright,"
and yet I could find no information on how to get permission to use it.

I sat down for breakfast with Graham Cooke the other morning. I was at the dining room table with my broccoli omelette; Graham was on YouTube. It was a ten-minute clip called “Uncommon Love,” probably an excerpt from a much longer sermon. I could listen to Graham Cooke all day, but this time, a few minutes in, I choked on something he said. I couldn’t swallow it. Perhaps in this case he didn’t choose his words carefully enough.

Pausing the video, and my meal, I grabbed the big concordance and a couple of Bibles. If I didn’t agree with what he said, I had better articulate exactly why not, and then put into words what might perhaps be a clearer way of expressing the matter.

Graham was painting a picture of how much God loves us:

Beloved, He has everything covered. He knows you—oh, does He know you! And He’s not embarrassed by you; He adores you. He is not offended by you, He is not disillusioned with you, He’s not angry at you.

Great so far. But then:

He’s never going to punish you, because he got angry with Jesus and He punished Jesus. [Here he quotes from Isaiah:] ‘It pleased the Father to bruise him.’ Why? So he would never have to do it to you.

I believe that God loves us with a fathomless love, but I cannot conceive of a God—nor can I trust One—Who got angry and punished His own beloved Son—on my behalf. It sounds sadistic and schizophrenic—and I think such a portrait would frighten away those who do not yet know Him or who haven’t yet grown to trust Him. But I do understand the biblical truth that is being referenced, and I’d like to try to present it more clearly, more accurately.

God is love. And what of “the wrath of God”? I once heard someone say that God’s wrath is poured out on anything or anyone who threatens the objects of His great love. And who are the objects of His love? We are. Not just we the believers, but we the people of this world. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16); “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

God hates sin because it hinders and enslaves and destroys us. His wrath is directed against it. If our lives are so controlled by sin that we are damaging other people, along with ourselves, then we might get seared and scorched by being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong life-view. But God’s heart is always looking to restore even the worst of us, if we will but yield to Him. “He is not willing that any should perish.”

God, the Living Word (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit had a plan all the way from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8), that the Word would take on flesh (John 1:14) and offer Himself as a sacrifice for sins. “When Christ came into the world, he said to God, ‘You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer…. Then I said, “Look, I have come to do your will, O God—as is written about me in the Scriptures”’” (Heb. 10:5-7, NLT; Ps. 40:6-8). He offered Himself willingly to fulfil His part in the plan of the Godhead, not just to die for the sins of the world but to actually become that sin. “He became sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Think of the worst thing you’ve ever done; then think of the vilest thing you’ve ever heard of being done. Add to that the ravages of every disease and infirmity. Think, too, of the deepest depression, the most grievous sorrow, paralyzing fear, and uncontrollable anger. Multiply all that, the darkest of thoughts and words and deeds and conditions, by however many people have ever lived on this earth or ever will: that grand total is what settled on Jesus as He hung on the Cross. That is what He became. He drank to the dregs the cup that had been given to Him, and the Father poured out His wrath against all of it, every single thing that ever threatened the peace and joy and righteousness of any human being—everything that is contrary God’s nature and design. The power of sin died there on the Cross with Jesus. Then He rose again from the dead.

Graham Cooke quotes above, “It pleased the Father to bruise Him.” This comes from Isaiah 53:10, the prophet proclaiming the events that would unfold at Calvary, about 700 years before they happened. Here is the whole verse, drawing from many different translations: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He was willing—it was His good plan—to crush Jesus and cause Him grief. Yet when His life is given as a guilt offering, an atonement for sin, He will have many spiritual offspring or descendants. He will enjoy a long life: He will continue to live—forever, and the will and pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand—Adonai’s desire will be accomplished. God’s purpose will succeed. The will of the Lord will triumph through Jesus.”

In Isaiah 55:11, we are told that God’s Word will not return to Him empty but will accomplish that which He pleases; it will prosper in the thing He sent it to do. Think of that verse for a moment in this particular context: Jesus is the Word (see John 1:1-14). After He died and rose again, He did not return to the Father empty-handed: when He “ascended on high,” He “led captivity captive” (Ps. 68:18 KJV; Eph. 4:8) and brought “many children into glory” (Hebrews 2:10, NLT). The living Word accomplished what the Father sent Him to do.

It was the fulfillment of a plan, a holy mystery, devised before the world began, a plan that the enemy of our souls could not perceive or penetrate. The powers of darkness thought they would gain a tremendous victory in destroying Christ. They didn’t understand what God was doing; “had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (I Cor. 2:8, KJV).

The Father drew no pleasure from seeing His Son suffer on the Cross, but there was pleasure in the anticipation of its end result. Even Jesus Himself, in spite of His terrible suffering, “endured the Cross”—"for the joy that was set before Him” (Heb. 12:2, KJV). That joy was the triumph of seeing mankind reconciled to God.

In the Little Things

Last month Greg and I were invited to attend a fund-raising gala. It was to be a classy event, which meant I was going to have to reach way back in my closet and find something much dressier than I usually wear. The day came: we got all dressed up and went out and had a wonderful time. 

And that is the end of that story. But wearing that outfit reminded me of a story that I have only ever shared with a couple of friends and yet which I always meant to tell to a larger audience: a story of the goodness of God in the little things, His readiness to help in the tiniest details of our lives—when we simply ask.

It must be ten years ago that I found that plum and metallic gold dress at Winner’s: only $29 and it fit like a glove. I wore it on a couple of occasions, in places like Mexico where one is quite comfortable going out with nothing to throw over bare shoulders. But then a couple of years later, I wanted to wear it to a special event in Wetaskiwin in March, and I knew I would freeze if I didn’t have a wrap.

But plum and metallic gold—what an impossible material to match. I began to think that I should try to find a piece of all-gold metallic fabric. Tending to procrastination as I have often been inclined, it wasn’t until a couple of days before the big dinner-dance that I did anything about it. In my usual running conversation with God that morning, I asked Him to help me find something suitable. After praying that little prayer, I felt impressed that I should drive to the solitary fabric store in Leduc, 20 minutes away. Not that that seemed a really supernatural leading; that was the only choice I had without driving all the way into Edmonton.

I stuffed the slinky little dress into a plastic bag and headed out. Once at the store, I went directly to the remnant bin, looking as always for a bargain. As I pawed through bundles of leftover cloth, a sales woman came over and asked if I needed any help.

“I’m hoping to find something to make a shawl, maybe a gold metallic, to go with this,” and I pulled the dress out of the bag.

“We have a rack of metallics over here,” she said, and she led the way.

And there I saw it: the same plum, the same gold, the same fringe, just with a slightly different weave. I was absolutely astounded.

The fabric was made in large square panels surrounded by the fringe. The woman cut off a single square for me. I paid her $13 and headed home, planning exactly how to sew up this little treasure.

That evening a friend happened to drop by. Excitedly I pulled out the dress and shawl fabric and told her the story, finishing with, “What do you think?!”

And she said, “I think Jesus loves you very much.”

What a cool way to put it. I did feel His love through that gesture; I felt His caring heart in the little details; His provision—not just in the necessities but in the special extras.

He loves each one of us like that, and He is just waiting for us to connect in that way, to come to Him with expectation, so He can show His kindness.

When "Stuff" Happens

Job was a man who lived during the time of the patriarchs of Genesis. The richest man in his territory, he was also described, even by God, as a man of complete integrity (Job 1:8, NLT). Then God allowed Satan to test him, and in the space of a few hours, Job’s extensive herds of oxen, sheep, and camels were all wiped out and his seven sons and three daughters died. (When we think we’re having a bad day, we should compare ourselves to Job.)

Through all this, he kept his trust in God and did not blame Him for what had happened.

In the second round of testing, Job’s health was taken from him. He was a miserable mess. This time his wife told him to shake his fist at God and lie down and die. Job simply told her not to be foolish. His whole stance is summed up in Job 13:15: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” Since the first time I read that scripture, many years ago, it has stayed with me, burned in my heart, and it has challenged me to learn to trust God like that. A few years ago, He gave me a vivid metaphor of that kind of trust.

I have a dear little cat named Muppet. She’ll be 16 this year. She lives outside, along with Antonio the Siamese. She’s half wild, jumpy, neurotic, and not given to affection unless her radically cycling hormones throw her in that direction for a short period of time. She does love me in her own way; in the summer when I’m working in the garden, she like to sit beside my little stool, and there we quietly enjoy each other’s company. But mostly we live quite independently of each other, and we both like it that way.

She used to have a batch of kittens almost every summer. Especially when the kids were still around, it was fun, and the kids made sure the kittens got handled plenty enough to be well tamed and socialized by the time they were ready to go to their new homes.

But times changed; the kids grew up. Rachel, the youngest, was the real cat lover, and when she moved out, new kittens didn’t get enough attention. I soon discovered that if the kittens grew up feral, they would be impossible to settle in homes. They don’t ever really seem to tame unless they’re tamed early on. If they grow up wild, they have to be destroyed. And that is not a happy option.

It was a few summers ago that Muppet raised her last batch of kittens. I had managed to keep her calm and contented enough that she was caring for them in the little cat house on the back deck instead of hiding them somewhere. I tried to handle them regularly. But around the time that the kittens were starting to frisk around on their wobbly little legs, Muppet found a breach in the barricade that keeps her from getting under the front deck, and she moved them all under there.

Several days went by. The kittens were very happy; they had no cause to ever come out, as their mother showed up regularly to nurse them. And while they weren’t afraid of me, they weren’t about to come when I called.

I tore off some of the lath and crawled under the upper deck, but the kittens had migrated to the smaller space under the lower deck. Eight inches of clearance was lots for them, but it wasn’t nearly enough for me.

There was only one solution, as far as I could see: I would have to starve them out and then re-barricade where they had got in. I placed Muppet in the carrying kennel, with my apologies and generous rations of water and kibble. But she was so frantic at being locked up, her long coat was soon a mess of water and soggy kibble. By morning she looked much worse, because she had had to relieve herself in between freak-outs and now she was covered in “stuff.” The poor thing! She had no idea why I was doing this to her, this seemingly random cruelty. She had no way of understanding that this temporary trial would save the lives of her kittens.

By early afternoon that next day, the kittens were plenty hungry enough that they came romping to a bowl of milk as I called. I took them and the milk into the house and quickly set about securing the barricade. Now I had to deal with cat kaka before I restored Muppet to her family.

I gathered mild shampoo, a big pot of warm water with a dipper, and towels out on the back deck where everything could be hosed down later. Muppet, when I released her from the kennel, was no longer half wild; she was full-on feral. She is not a cat you would ever try to shampoo at the best of times; now I was adding insult to injury and indignity.

As I knew it would be necessary, I caught her by the scruff of the neck. And then I began lathering. There were four sets of claws going in all directions and she looked like she was going to turn herself inside out. “I’m sorry, kitty, I’m sorry,” I kept saying.

Two or three lathers and rinses later, I figured I’d got her as clean as I could. Her belly had been difficult to get at, though, with all those flailing claws. I was also concerned that there would be shampoo remaining deep down in her coat. It might be irritating, and it sure would not be good for her as she groomed herself.

Again, I saw only one solution. I picked her up, avoiding the claws, carried her to the pond, and threw her in. Just as I knew she would be, she was back out in a split second. Not nearly enough time for a good rinse. She ran a few metres, shook hard to expel the majority of the water, and crouched there, looking confused and miserable. She didn’t try to run; she held still as I came up and ruffled all her fur to stir up any deep-down soap. I threw her in again, scrubbed her coat again with my hands, and threw her in again, apologizing in a soft voice all the while.

Then I gathered her into a big towel and held her while I rubbed her coat half dry, and then I set her down to find a warm place in the sun while I went off to get her kittens.

Once I had finished cleaning things up, I sat down in the love-seat on the deck just to have a little rest. Now, the cats absolutely know that they are not allowed on the deck furniture, and although they will sneak up there when no one is around, they would not dream of jumping up when we are right there. Neither is Muppet, as I indicated earlier, one to come and offer affection.

But this dear little cat saw me sitting there; she came up on the deck and jumped right up beside me, lay down with her chin on my leg, and began to purr as loudly as her little body could manage. In the purring, I heard her saying, “I love you anyway. I have no idea why you did what you did to me, but I trust you. And I won’t hold it against you.”

And then I heard God in my heart quoting Job’s words, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

Flowers for Valentine’s

I have a Christmas cactus that Dwight and Lisa Forseth gave to me when they moved away from Wetaskiwin, what is it now, seven or eight years ago? They had bought it at a church auction fundraiser some years earlier, and they didn't think it would travel well, piled in with all the rest of their belongings.

Plants have a hard time with me, as I don’t look after them very faithfully. Cactus is actually a good choice; they don’t die very quickly when left without water. And I was sure thrilled when it began to show a host of glorious blossoms right in time for Christmas. One year—I think it was because it went terribly short on water, it missed the Christmas bloom. But then it made up for it by colourfully observing the next major religious holiday: Easter. 

This year has been different again.

For years I had thought it needed to be re-potted: it was getting rather sickly. I figured it was root-bound. But the big blue and white china pot was very rounded on the sides, and I knew I would never be able to get it out of there in one piece. It was a dilemma. Once or twice I even considered smashing the pot.

Last summer I learned about slashing the sides of a potted shrub before transplanting it into the ground. It was explained that inside the pot, the roots would get going 'round and 'round, getting all wrapped up in themselves, so to speak. Slashing down the sides of the ball of roots, as brutal as it sounds, actually sets all the little rootlets free to spread out and take on some new territory. As Christmas approached again, and once more I surveyed the sorry state of my cactus, I thought of this technique of making cuts in the root-ball. But first I had to get it out of the pot.

I want you to stop and consider how you would feel if you were that plant and something like this began to transpire on an ordinary day out of a clear blue sky. I took a very large serrated knife and stabbed it down to the bottom of the pot, then sawed all the way across in both directions. I repeated the mayhem in a line at ninety degrees from the first. Then I turned the heavy container upside down and shook it violently. Dry soil began to shake loose from its moorings, seeing as how, no surprise, it hadn’t been watered in quite a while. After a lot of soil had come out, I began tugging the four different sections in turn, easing them down and out and onto the floor. As careful as I tried to be, though, there was quite a lot of damage.

Poor cactus! Its world was upside down and everything was falling to pieces. But I wasn’t finished yet. Any chunk that was big enough to hold onto and which had matted roots indicating where it had rested against the side of the pot, I slashed deeply with my knife. Then I began to stuff all the chunks and smaller pieces, willy-nilly, back into the pot, finishing by scooping up all the stray dirt with a whisk and dust pan and dumping it on top of the pathetic remains. Then I rocked it hard to settle some of the soil down deeper, half-drowned it with water, and set it back in its place.

No, it definitely did not bloom for Christmas. I think it was just glad to be alive, and it was barely even that. But it began to regenerate, and just in time for Valentine’s Day, there is one beautiful blossom and the promise of many more buds.

We hear the saying, “Bloom where you’re planted.” It means to be satisfied with your lot in life and to believe God to use you where you are. But sometimes we enter a season of tremendous upheaval, and we think maybe God wants us to move on to something new. Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe He sees us becoming root-bound, all our opportunities for growth just being turned back on ourselves until we’re at risk of becoming self-centred and ingrown.

Jesus said, “My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.” (John 15:1-2, NLT)

Sometimes we endure seasons where everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Or we go through deep pruning. At other times we find ourselves so dry spiritually that we feel we’re going to shrivel up and die. But as Isaiah 35:1 tells us, we serve a God Who, in His time, will cause even the desert to rejoice and blossom like a rose.

Death and Life at Work in Me

“We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” (2 Corinthians 4:10-12)

What does it mean to carry about in our body the death of Jesus? I believe it is about the laying down of our lives, as modeled by Jesus. He emptied Himself of His glory; He laid aside His heavenly home and His immediate, intimate communion with His Father and came to live among us as a servant. He spoke of and demonstrated the principle that if anyone would be great, he must be a servant of all—quite the contrary to what we instinctively imagine.

In speaking of His life and death, He said, “I lay down my life. No one takes it from me; I give it away.”

Some years ago, my husband encouraged me to learn to give myself away. (Perhaps he saw that as an introvert and a writer, I tended to have an inward and self-centred focus.) It has been a journey, doing as he suggested—a quietly thrilling adventure.

A friend commented the other day on the scripture “faith worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6). The context in which he spoke made me think of our interaction in the Body of Christ—and out in the world. It made me think, too, of the scripture that says, “Though I have enough faith to move mountains, if I don’t have and demonstrate love, I have nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2, my version). Faith cannot exist or operate in a vacuum; it must be used and lived out among other people. And it must happen in an attitude of self-sacrificing love, that of laying down one’s life.

This laying down of my life is not to be inspired directly by the needs of those I see around me, although that is certainly part of it. But the needs are many; they are, in fact, overwhelming, and God doesn’t call us to answer primarily to needs; He calls us to answer firstly to Him. As I walk in communion with Him and listen for His voice, I often hear Him say, “Do you see that person? Do you see that situation? Go. Now. Quick, before the opportunity is gone. Offer yourself and what you have to meet the need.”

I experienced such a thing just last Sunday. I was making my way from the truck to the main entrance of the church. Greg was lagging behind somewhere, talking to someone, but I was hurrying against the cold. It was a biting -30°C.

As I pulled open the door, I glanced behind me and saw a minivan pulling up to the sidewalk in front of the church. I recognized the woman driving, a young mom with four small children, aged two, three, four, and five. I know that her husband does not attend with her at this point in time. What a brave young mother, venturing out in this weather! It stirs my heart that she is so eager to get to church with her little ones. Obviously, she was pulling up right in front to expedite getting her children inside quickly and out of the awful cold.

Suddenly I heard the Lord in my heart, saying, “Go. Help. Now!”

I hurried to the near side of the van as Mom began pulling kids out, starting with the oldest girl and the little boy. They were all still in their pyjamas, with jackets hastily pulled on and still unzipped. Even Mom was in just a pair of pyjama pants and a light sweater.

(The apparent fact that she hadn’t even had time to properly dress the kids or herself lent the scene an even more noble and pathetic perspective to my eyes. I didn’t find out until much later that it was Pyjama Day at Sunday School. I think God must have had a little chuckle over my interpretation.)

I scooped up the little boy and hustled along beside his older sister, quickly covering the dozen or so strides to the door. Before I had quite reached it, I heard a wail behind me. The youngest girl had taken just a couple of steps when, obviously, the cold had hit her. She stopped short, jacket gaping, and dropped her head, loudly communicating her discomfort and confusion.

Hastily setting the little boy down inside the foyer, I told his sister to look after him. Then I ran back to pick up the littlest girl and accompany the middle girl to the entrance and into the welcome warmth. Mom would be busy for a few minutes parking the vehicle.

I surveyed the small group. The five-year-old looked quite together, but among the others were snotty noses, grubby faces, and dishevelled hair. There seemed to have been a quick trip through the Drive-Thru at McDonald’s, as evidenced by the half-eaten hash-brown still clutched in the hand of the youngest.

How well I remember those busy, exhausting days when my own kids were small, reflected in my poem “Weeds & Wildflowers.” In part:

Dress the kids and feed the kids and try to wash the clothes
Soothe a tiff; wipe up a mess; blow a dirty nose
Every day was overflowing with a thousand little chores …

I was grateful that I had felt moved that morning as I’d left the house to grab an extra-large handful of Kleenexes, and as always, I had my trusty little spray bottle of colloidal silver with me. I sat down on the floor in the middle of the foyer and opened my purse.

At the Farmers’ Market, I seem to have become known in a small way for this particular ministry: after first asking permission, of course, I love to clean up a little face, finding great delight in the heavenly countenance that soon shines through. In fact, this very family one day was passing by, saying hello, when the oldest girl, evidently remembering something from a previous visit, asked, “Do you like washing kids’ faces?”

“I sure do,” I answered. She pointed to her brother, who at a quick glance appeared to be in need of a spit and a polish, so to speak. But that particular day he had darted shyly behind his mom and evaded me and my ministrations.

But not today. He allowed me to blow his nose and spray and clean his dear little face. Then I blew another nose, scrubbed another face, and rummaged a small brush out of my purse with which to tackle the serious bedhead sported by the youngest. I worked away at the tangle and marvelled as it slowly yielded into fine, blonde curls.

The whole time, there was a great love and joy coursing through me. I could feel the presence of Jesus. One of the ushers was hovering nearby, and I sensed that he felt the Presence also. He seemed very touched. “Good on you!” he said.

But I knew the credit did not belong to me. If I was left to myself and my own inclinations, this would never happen. I wouldn’t even have noticed the need. If God hadn’t nudged me, I would have been caught up in conversation with a friend by now, oblivious. My behaviour did not spring out of any particular goodness of my own; it sprouted out of the death and life of Jesus at work in me. In dying to myself—carrying in my body the death of Jesus—and so becoming more aware of people around me, the life of Jesus is also revealed in me.

As I now read that passage in my Bible once again, I see, just before it, a verse that explains further: ^“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7, KJV). The glorious life of Jesus is the “treasure” we carry in our “earthen vessels,” these bodies that God originally formed out of the dust of the ground. When we let the death of Jesus work in us, that Life streams out from us to those around. The power manifested is so clearly contrasted with the human life from which it flows that it is obvious the glory and praise belong to God, not to us.

Jesus talked a lot about death. “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground, it remains alone,” He said, describing His life and His imminent death (John 12:24). But, He explained, if it allows itself to “die,” to fall into the ground and be buried, it will spring up again and reproduce itself many times over.

Jesus said that if someone seeks to “save” her life, to protect it, to hoard it to herself, she will lose it. Her hopes and dreams will slowly shrivel away without ever producing their full potential. If, however, she gives up her life, gives it away for others, laying it down for Jesus’ sake, she will “find” it: she will be surprised by fulfillment and joy that she somehow thought would pass her by when she chose this principle of self-sacrifice.

If I continually carry with me “the death of the Lord Jesus,” living in a constant state of relinquishing my own will, listening for God’s voice, and serving others, the life of Jesus will also be revealed in me. That is, people will see the life of Jesus in me. They will be drawn to Him, ministered to, by Him, through me. And I, having, “died,” feel His life flowing through me, and it brings life into my mortal body. I find myself infused with joy and energy and what the French would call raison d’etre—a reason for existence, a purpose for being, a meaning for my life.

If I live for myself, I am like that grain of wheat, essentially alone, living spiritually cut off from others around me. But if I allow myself to fall into the deep, dark, rich soil of God’s providence and purposes, I find myself alive after all: more alive than ever before and enriched a hundred times over.

Through this dynamic in me, the life of Jesus is set in motion in others; then as they, too, come to understand, they let the death of Jesus work in them also, which paradoxically leads to abundant—and eternal—life.

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, … being made conformable unto his death. (Philippians 3:10, KJV)

Rape and Redemption

A year or two into my marriage, I was invited to attend a wedding shower for a young woman. As part of the entertainment, our hostess asked if each of the married women would share how she had come to know her husband. The woman beside me, who was just a few years older than I, had introduced herself to me as Dawne. When her turn came, she told her story. She said that a nice young man had asked her out, and that as they were driving along, he reached out to put his arm around her shoulders. Her response was to recoil violently and cry out, “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!” because, she explained to us ladies, she had had a bad experience with men just a few months earlier. The young man, however, met her fears with gentleness and kindness and compassion, and he soon won her over.

A little later, as we were left to our tea and conversation, Dawne quietly told me some more of her story. When she was nineteen years old, she said, she was working in Edmonton in a department store and living in a basement suite with a girlfriend. One day at work she ran into a fellow whom she had known four years earlier at her church youth group. He told her that he was married now and had a little girl. He chatted with her only briefly and then moved on. A few days later, as she left work and walked toward her bus stop, she saw this young man again, stopped at the curb in a car with two other fellows. They offered her a ride home. She accepted.

She soon found herself being driven, not toward her place, but out of town, north of the city. She became understandably anxious. They stopped in a small town for gas, and as they did, Dawne heard a clear voice speaking in her head: “Get out of the car. Go to the ladies’ washroom, and stay there.” She had never heard of God speaking to people today in an audible voice, so she wasn’t sure it was He. Again the voice came, speaking the same words. But she was paralyzed by the fear that had come over her and she stayed where she was. The men threw some of their empty beer bottles at a stone memorial on main street as they sped out of the small town and into open country. They pulled off into a field, and they all raped her.

At one point she managed to break away, and she ran as fast as she could through the light covering of snow, the coarse, frozen stubble from the harvest slashing at her bare feet. They soon caught her again, and they treated her even more roughly after that.

She cried out to the one she knew, asking, “Why are you doing this?” He reminded her of something he had said to her four years earlier. This young man, 18 years old, had sexually propositioned this 15-year-old girl. When she turned him down, he had said, “If I can’t have you, I’m going to make it so that no one else will ever want you either.” So this was his revenge.

That was the part of the story I heard over our tea cups that afternoon, this, and the fact that the rape had left her pregnant, that she had given the baby up for adoption, and that now she was just counting the years until her boy would turn 18 and she would be able to track him down. I did the math: he must be 14 or 15 by now. Not too much longer.

I didn’t talk to Dawne much over the next many years, although we attended the same church part of that time and I would see her across the way in the congregation. And we would always smile and say hello when we saw each other here and there around town. I never stopped wondering how the rest of the story had unfolded.

More than thirty years have passed now, since that wedding shower where I met Dawne. I contacted her a few weeks ago and told her I would like to hear all that has transpired, and that I would like to write about it, if she was comfortable with the idea. She was eager to glorify God with this testimony of His faithfulness, so we got together and talked. Her voice still trembles and her eyes still tear up when she speaks of what happened to her 48 years ago, although she is quick to say that the tears are more for gratitude of all that God has done since. Her story picks up right after the assault.

As the three men dropped her off at her place, Dawne had the presence of mind to cross behind the vehicle and memorize the licence plate as she walked past. Once inside, distraught and in shock, she received the help of her friend while a young man from upstairs phoned the police.

When the officers arrived, they insisted that they needed to take her to the hospital. Dawne flatly refused to go with them alone: they had to let her girlfriend come along.

The hospital staff confirmed that she had indeed been assaulted by three different men, and then the police put the girls back in the squad car and proceeded to have Dawne retrace the route with them. She had given them the licence plate number (the car turned out to be stolen), and when they gathered up broken beer bottle glass from the cenotaph in the small town, they were able to retrieve fingerprints.

In due course, all three men were apprehended. Meanwhile, as a month and then two crept by, Dawne realized that she was pregnant. Her girlfriend had moved out, heading back to school, and Dawne could not afford the basement suite alone. She was so ill from the pregnancy that she couldn’t keep her job, so she found herself on welfare, living in a small apartment, alone and lonely and depressed. The church she was attending, because of her pregnancy, declared her to be “a member in bad standing”—even though the circumstances had been made known. (It’s all I can do to refrain from breaking in with some angry editorial comments here.) Not surprisingly, she never went back to that church. For quite some time, she quit going to church at all.

Someone told her that they knew of a person who would take care of the unwanted pregnancy for her. This was before the time when abortions were readily available: she paid $300 up front for what used to be referred to as a back-street butcher. The day came, and she travelled by bus to the address she’d been given. But she found she couldn’t go through with it: she stayed on the bus until it took her back home.

The horror of the violation was on her mind continually. She was so filled with hatred and bitterness that she found herself fantasizing about committing mayhem on the three men. She told her mom, and her pastor, that she imagined seeing them on the street, running them through with a large knife, and walking coldly over their corpses. Knowing that the attacker with whom she’d been acquainted had a little girl of his own, she even imagined arranging for something terrible to happen to her when she got to be Dawne’s age.

Strangely similar to the offer of help in arranging an abortion at the three-month point, now at six months a relative told her he knew someone who, for $300, would look after these men for her. In the end she told her uncle no and held on to her money. (She always assumed the proposal was to see that they all got a thorough beating; now she wonders if the offer was perhaps to have them “terminated,” and she shudders at the thought.)

She became more depressed as the months went slowly by. She found herself thinking that both she and the baby would be better off dead. One evening when she was over seven months pregnant, she opened her medicine chest and took out a large bottle of aspirin. Before she could even take the lid off, her buzzer rang. Who could that be? She never had any visitors. She pushed the button and asked, “Who’s there?”

“It’s a blast from your past,” shouted a raucous voice, which she immediately recognized as belonging to a girlfriend from back in her school years. This friend had moved out of province four or five years earlier. The young woman took the apartment by storm. Spying the aspirin, she demanded, “What are you doing with those?” She grabbed them from Dawne’s hand and stuffed them into her purse. “You’re a mess,” she declared. “Go have a shower and get cleaned up. And do something with your hair!”

Meekly Dawne complied. When she had freshened up and even curled her hair, they sat on the couch and had a visit. The friend placed a call from Dawne’s phone, apparently to her new husband. “I won’t be home tonight,” she announced into the receiver. “Dawne’s sick. I’m spending the night.”

The two of them then pulled out the sofa bed and made it up, and they both retired. When Dawne woke up in the morning, the hide-a-bed was hidden again, the bedding was neatly folded on the couch, and her friend was gone. She didn’t hear from her or see her again for another 20 years. She has always thought of the events of that evening as more of an angelic visitation than a random visit from an old friend.

The events of that night prevented her suicide, but her dark thoughts, her hatred and bitterness, were consuming her. She came to the place where she couldn’t carry it anymore. She got down on her knees beside her bed and asked God to take it all away, to change her heart, to change her thinking. She stayed on her knees until she felt in her soul that the power of the darkness had been broken.

When the time came for her baby to be born, she determined to keep her eyes shut the entire time. She knew that if she ever laid eyes on that child, she would not be able to give it away. The doctor laid the baby across her chest and told her she had a little boy. Dawne lay there praying in her heart for him, entrusting him to the Lord, and dedicating him to the plans and purposes of God. Then she spoke to the newborn infant: “I know you won’t be able to understand this, little one; I know you didn’t ask for this, but I have to give you up because I cannot look after you. I am giving you the best gift I can give you: a mom and dad who will love you. And I hope I will see you again someday.” When she signed the adoption papers, her hands shook so badly that she could hardly get her name on the documents.

Two months after the birth of her son, she married the nice young man that she had been dating since a couple of months after the assault. Another month or two later, she faced her attackers in court. The three of them had hired a lawyer; she was appointed one by the court. He knew nothing about her, didn’t seem to want to, neither did he even seem to be on her side. The wife of her antagonist was put on the stand, and she testified under oath that her husband had been at home with her during the hours in question. The proceedings became so distressing to Dawne that she stood up and walked out, with the judge shouting after her and threatening to hold her in contempt of the court. But then he followed her out and spoke with her quietly, and on hearing her misgivings on the “justice” she saw shaping up, he agreed to put her on the stand and question her himself.

The judge led her through the telling of her story and the identifying of her attackers, and then he said, “I understand you had a baby as a result of this encounter.” At her affirmative, she saw her antagonist lift his head for the first time, startled. He began to cry.

Now the judge addressed the defendants. “Is this young lady telling the truth?” All three slowly nodded their heads. Turning back to Dawne, the judge said, “The police have charged these men with rape. Do you wish to charge them as well?”

“No,” Dawne responded. Then turning toward the men, she told them, “I forgive you.” She didn’t want any more hurt from the situation, not for herself, not for anyone. She just wanted to move on and leave it all in God’s hands.

The judge spoke again: “The young lady may forgive you, but this court does not.” Each man was sentenced to repaying to Social Services the full amount that it had cost to look after Dawne during her pregnancy.

Once again, I’m biting my tongue here. But I suppose in Dawne choosing not to charge the men, she forfeited any right to compensation. Regardless, there is no way that any amount of money could have undone the harm that was done to her. In forgiving the men and trusting God, she did the most powerful thing she could do for her own restoration.

As I write Dawne’s story, I am reading a book on a present-day martyr, a Turkish man who was murdered for his devotion to Christ. When it talks about his widow choosing to forgive, it says something that helps clarify the dynamic of releasing someone who has hurt us.

People who do not believe on Jesus cannot understand that this sort of forgiveness is a supernatural gift of God. Forgiveness does not include the wish that these murderers should be spared earthly punishment. Forgiveness means to forgo one’s own feelings of vengeance and to bless the murderers in the name of Jesus. (Faithful Until Death, Wolfgang Haede, P. 118)

On the second anniversary of the rape, a son was born to Dawne and her husband. Dawne felt that it was part of God’s redemption, blotting out the darkness associated with that date by infusing it with new joy. Four years later they had another son. Theirs was a happy, godly family. But Dawne’s heart still ached with a lonely love for her first-born son. She prayed for him continually and yearned for the day, still many years away, when perhaps she might be allowed to meet him. She began to have a recurring dream, that she would awaken in the middle of the night to a knock on the front door. She would make her way down the hall, open the door, and there would be a young man saying, “I’m your son Allan.”

The dream came so regularly and for so many years that she finally went and told her current pastor about it. “Do you think this is God promising me that I will get to meet him some day?”

“Where are you in the dream?” the pastor asked. “What house?”

She didn’t know.

He prayed and asked God that the next time she had the dream, she would be able to recognize her surroundings. He also pointed out that it was important that she and husband tell their two sons that they had another brother and that their mom was hoping to meet him some day. After that, the boys began to pray for their other brother on a regular basis.

The next time Dawne had the dream, it happened as the pastor had asked: she was able to look around and notice the layout of the house, the position of the closets and so on, and she realized that it was the same house they were living in. The only difference was that when she opened the front door and looked across the street behind her son, there was a house opposite, whereas in actuality there was just a farmer’s field, because they lived on the very edge of town.

 Finally the day of her first son’s eighteenth birthday came and went. Dawne began her search, but immediately found a closed door. In rape cases, she was told, the records are sealed.

More than ten additional years drifted by. Then in 1999, Dawne received a notice that the laws had changed and all adoption records were now open. She placed a phone call to Social Services in Edmonton. The woman who answered the phone was rather negative, and she discouraged Dawne from proceeding: after all, would her son really want to find out that he was a product of rape? Dawne began to second-guess herself: perhaps the woman was right.

But after just a couple more weeks, she decided to try again. This time she would phone Calgary instead. And this time, from the moment the woman on the other end picked up and identified herself, Dawne was sure that God was now working actively on her behalf. The woman was full of compassion, first for Dawne’s awful experience, and second for her burning desire to find her son. She promised to check into it.

It was only a day later that the woman phoned back to say she had located the young man, living about four hours away. “Allan has been looking for you too,” she said. “He will phone you tomorrow when he’s off work.” She also told Dawne the names of the couple who had adopted her son. Dawne was rendered speechless: her son’s adoptive father was a first cousin to her husband.

That first phone call was anxious and exhilarating. Dawne was a little taken aback when her son asked right off, “Are you a Christian?”

“Yes,” she answered, wondering where this was going.

“That explains it!” he exclaimed. He went on to say that his adoptive parents were nominal church-goers, attending not much more than Christmas and Easter. “But,” he said, “from the time I was six or seven, I always wanted to be in Sunday School. There was a bus from one of the churches that went around Sunday mornings and picked up kids, and I always made sure I was on that bus.”

Before they ended the call, Allan asked if he could come for a visit in two weeks’ time, once he was on days-off again. Dawne was so excited that she forgot to give him her address. And she didn’t even have his phone number. Perhaps he’ll phone back, she thought. But he didn’t.

Two weeks later, with her husband out of town working, Dawne found herself waking up in the wee hours of the morning, right about the same time that the dream always used to come. She lay there thinking. He finished work last night. He could just about be here by now. How will he ever find me?

Then she heard a knock on the front door. She got up and made her way down the hall. She opened the door, and there stood her son, now 29 years old. Across the road was the same house she had always seen in the dream: over the years the town had grown and what used to be the farmer’s field was now all residential.

They embraced, and Dawne invited him in. “How on earth did you find me?” she asked.

“I stopped at a gas station on the edge of town and got a map,” he said. “Then I asked the woman behind the counter if she knew of anyone in town with this last name. ‘There’s only one family in town that I know of with that name,’ she said. I told her I was looking for Dawne, and she said, ‘She’s a good friend of mine.’ Then she took my map and drew on it the route to your house.”

Dawne couldn’t recall any friend of hers who worked in a local gas station.

The next morning, still amazed that Allan had found his way to her house, she drove to the gas station he had mentioned to find out who had been behind the counter. There she found her friend Sue. “I didn’t know you were working here,” she said.

“Nope,” answered Sue, “I’m not. Just filling in. Just last night and today.”

Back at the house, she noticed that Allan kept going over to the patio door and staring out into the neighbour’s yard. Then as Dawne was taking something out of a drawer in the buffet, he glanced inside and saw a photo, which he then picked up. He did a bit of a double-take. “You know Chris So-and-So?” he asked, pointing to a boy in the picture.

“Yes,” she said, more surprised than he was, “he used to live next door. He and his family moved away a few years ago. But how do you know him?”

Allan hardly seemed to hear her question. “I knew I’d been here before,” he said. “I knew it!”

She stared at him. “When were you ever here?”

“Do you remember one time about 13 years ago when Chris’s grandma came to visit, and she brought along another grandson, Allan, and he brought his friend, who was also named Allan, and they called us Little Allan and Big Allan? I am Big Allan. I stayed there for two days, and I played football on the lawn with your other two sons.”

Dawne was incredulous, and she was actually quite angry with God at what seemed to her at the time a cruel joke. But it would seem that God in His wisdom ordained that that was not the right time to reveal mother and son to one another. He makes everything beautiful—in His time. And in the meantime, He was composing and orchestrating a fantastic story.

Dawne’s healing was a gradual process over many years, with several significant milestones along the journey. The first was God’s touching her in the area of her hatred and bitterness and helping her to extend forgiveness to the rapists, within the first year of the assault. Then she also had to deal with the way other people sometimes made her feel. There was the policeman who, the night of the rape, when he asked for her soiled clothes, held up her dress and said, “Well, no wonder. Look what you were wearing.” It was a dress with a modest neckline and a hem that fell below the knee. Seriously! This was in 1969, the era of the mini-skirt. I remember how short I and my friends all wore our dresses back then. Dawne never wore anything like that, but however unjustified the officer’s comment and the judgement it implied, one can imagine the shame that fell on her.

And over the years that followed, there were enough little remarks from people along the way to keep throwing her off balance emotionally, innuendos that questioned her character and lay the fault of the crime at her feet. When she was pregnant with her third son, her mother-in-law said to her, “How can your husband be sure this baby is his? After all, the first one wasn’t.”

These comments caused her to question her own integrity. She searched her heart in vain for something that might have brought the assault upon her. She finally brought it all to God, like the psalmist who prayed, “See if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:24). She simply asked Him that if she had ever done or said anything to incite this man against her that He would forgive her.

Still the depression persisted. In 1984, on the fourteenth birthday of her lost son, she found herself desperately low. Sitting down, she printed the date on the inside cover of her Bible and then wrote a prayer:

Lord Jesus, I am hurting deep inside. The memories are too painful for me. I cannot bear them. I believe Your Word, which tells me that You bore our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4-5). I ask You, Jesus, to heal me completely, not only of the memories but of their devastating effects upon my being. I rest in Your Healing. I accept it in Your Name. Thank You, Jesus.

Three months went by. Dawne had just been released from a second stint in the hospital for depression. Six older women in the church, “spiritual mothers” to Dawne, invited her to go with them to a retreat in Calgary. A woman would be speaking there, they said, on deep emotional wounds. When Dawne said she couldn’t afford to go, these dear and determined ladies pitched in and paid her way. At the retreat, she was able to talk with the guest speaker shortly before a session.

“God is going to reveal to me the root of your depression,” the woman told her. “He will show me while I am speaking, and I’ll say your name so that you’ll know the next part refers specifically to you.”

In the middle of the session, the woman suddenly said, “Dawne. Now I’m going to talk about grief. Grief is the loss of anything that was precious to you.” She went on to speak on the subject, but Dawne had already heard what she needed to hear. She had never grieved, never really affirmed and validated the pain she carried, for two very great losses: first, her virginity, stolen in such a violent, heartless, and ungodly way, and second, her first-born son, whom she loved with all her heart in spite of the terrible way he’d been conceived. She came home from the retreat knowing that she needed to somehow let God help her grieve.

It was the following Sunday in church. She went up for prayer, which was nothing unusual for her. Two of these “spiritual mothers” came to stand with her. The first woman just reached out her hand and touched Dawne lightly on the forehead. The power of God hit her so hard that she fell to the floor. A consuming grief was released in her; she said later that it felt like someone had just died. Sobs wracked her body and tears coursed down her temples as she lay flat on her back. The first woman knelt beside her and prayed: “And now, Lord, I ask you to heal Dawne completely, not only of the memories but of their devastating effects upon her being.” She used the exact words that Dawne had written secretly in her Bible three months earlier.

Meanwhile, the church service stood still and waited for God to do His work.

When the grief finally abated, the other woman knelt down, laid her hand over Dawne’s heart, and asked the Lord to fill her with an overflowing joy. And then Dawne began to laugh. She laughed until she cried; she rolled from side to side; she laughed until her sides ached. She laughed a crazy, contagious laugh until the entire congregation was laughing along with her.

When it was over, Dawne knew that she was finally free.

When I think about Dawne’s healing, it brings to mind something the Apostle Paul said in explaining what really was accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55, KJV). The enemy of our souls, whose continual intent it is to rob, kill, and destroy (John 10:10), tries to keep us in bondage all our lifetime through fear—ultimately the fear of death and the grave (Hebrews 2:15). Jesus triumphed over all the power of death, the grave, and the devices of the enemy. Sexual abuse is one of the most painful ways the enemy stings us with the venom of wickedness, but Christ won an absolute and all-time victory over this and every other evil.

Some experts (Fred and Florence Littauer) estimate that three of every four women have been victims of some sort of sexual abuse, though often the painful memories are necessarily repressed, and one in four boys also has been a victim. This puts the numbers at a staggering fifty percent. Some of this abuse may be “minor,” and some major, but even the so-called mildest cases generate trauma that can last a lifetime. The walking wounded are all around us.

Recently I was talking with a young woman, a believer, who suffered abuse in her childhood. “God tells us that His grace is sufficient,” I said, “and that Christ took every pain, sorrow, grief, and wound to the Cross. In doing so, He broke their power over us. If His provision is not fully sufficient for this scourge also, then Christ’s sacrifice falls short for half of humanity.” My point was rhetorical: anyone who walks with Jesus comes to know increasingly that His provision is not only sufficient but exceeding abundant above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20, KJV). Dawne would certainly agree.

There have been several opportunities lately for Dawne to share her story with local youth groups. Some might wonder how she could talk publicly about such a thing. But the power of an evil deed, though it flourishes in darkness, is exposed and stripped of its influence by bringing it out into the light. And where we’ve been badly wounded, once we receive God’s healing, He gives us authority and power to impact others with the overcoming truth of God.

She tells her story in the context of the power of forgiveness. She talks about scars; she shows the young people one that she has on her hand and tells them how she got it. “When the wound was fresh,” she tells them, “it was very painful, but it finally healed and only left a scar. The scar reminds us of what happened, but there is no longer any pain.”

It is forgiveness and faith that bring God’s healing into our emotional wounds.

As I finished writing her story, I phoned Dawne to check a few of the facts. She was just putting up her Christmas tree. “I’ve found this ornament in the decorations that has something written on it,” she said, “and I’ve just been sitting here looking at it. It says, ‘Without faith, miracles can’t happen.’”