Saturday 17 November 2018

PANIC !

THIS IS NOT A BAD LIKENESS OF ME!  -  All the way to the ever present 'Tie' and Black Jacket!!!     One of my earliest memories is of a dentist.    I was just six, and he, a grim faced and towering giant in my eyes, had the task of removing an unwanted tooth.    Nothing to hang on to but the chair

After losing two molars when I fell on my face I found myself filled with apprehension about the required visit to the dentist.
Fortunately my Dentist lives on the 2nd floor of a lift less building, and my bruised and painful rib-cage forced me to wait before making the climb, and enduring the 'Chair'.    Both teeth had just snapped off leaving jagged splinters - but no pain.    NO, the pain would come when my industrious friend came to DIG out the remains.      The day before I was to finally attend him I found myself afflicted with a very real 'Panic Attack'!   I was in a dreadful state - and all orchestrated from my 'Imagination' well coloured, no doubt, by that old enemy the devil.

My Appointment was for Tuesday of this week at 2p.m.    Daryl drove me into town and left me at  the bottom of the pile of stairs.     I stood looking at them.    And suddenly the words of Psalm 37v5 'Commit thy way unto the Lord,....' came into my mind.      There seemed no one else going my way, and I continued to look upwards at the dingy staircase.      'Commit your life to the Lord!    Throw yourself, your fear, your apprehensions and cowardly anxieties upon Me, the One who takes ALL our 'infirmities' upon Himself, for the sake of our Father in Heaven's love for us.
OF COURSE I KNEW THAT.      YES, how often the actual knowledge of this Truth is somehow snatched away from us at crucial moments by the gusts of doubt and trembling thrust upon our flesh.
Yes, we KNOW He IS with us, has promised never to leave us, BUT when the TEST comes, as Satan said in Job 1v11, commenting to God in Heaven about Job '...put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.'       This is Satan's insight regarding ALL mankind, but he was WRONG about Job.     Job met his nightmare without losing his integrity, and faith in God's overall Goodness.     He did not let the sudden threat and even the reality of it remove the REAL knowledge of GOD with him.

And there I was laid out in the Dentist's Chair.      Looking at me slightly mockingly, the Dentist, who actually knows me quite well, remarked -  'Well, so now I suppose you are looking forward to me excavating these roots and tortuously digging them out piece by piece.?'      But I had climbed the stair, and resolutely walked with Jesus to the Chair,     'No, I replied, 'I do not look forward to it, but I want my teeth to glorify God, and not be rotting in my mouth.     Do your worst.'
He laughed, and said 'I want to save what I can, and that is what I will do'.    He immediately got to work and in 45 minutes had cleared one of the damaged root platforms and built upon it a completely NEW tooth.   No injections, no pain, and a very REAL awareness of being in the Master's Hands.
He will do the same with the 2nd decapitated tooth NEXT Tuesday at the same time, God Willing.
And these teeth will both look much better than the old ones.     What was I terrified of?  What had robbed me of the Assurance of His Presence, and of His ability  to ACT for my good and welfare?

I know some of you may well have been praying for me, and I thank you.     Wish I could testify to being less of a coward, but I am glad that it is not we who save ourselves, or establish our coming and going.   HE, the Lord of Life, holds on to us, and it a Mighty hold, that will never let go of what has once been committed to His Keeping.

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REFURBISHED, one of two 2 room lodgings first built way back in the 1980s and then sited close to what is now the School Swimming Pool.    They were built from a donation from a dear friend from Canada, Dorothy Wilde, and together were known as 'Wild End' and acted as Guest Rooms and also extra bed rooms at various times until 2013 when they were moved to make way for the Pool.     One became the School Maintenance Workshop and Store, and the other was moved to the Jacaranda Compound to become a small staff house.    It has been a little neglected and run down, of late,  and so recently it was decided to take it in hand again, and and put it to further good use.      It is good to see restoration rather than destruction, and how conservancy can provide ongoing life and usefulness to what otherwise would disappear and be forgotten.    ALSO it continues to testify to the Memory of a dear friend, now away with the Lord, but still very much a part of our family history and experience.    CURRENTLY it is sited opposite Jacaranda Cottage.  It is a simple structure of prefabricated timber, with an iron roof and cement plinth.  Still very mobile should we need at any time to re-site it.

WE HAVE ALSO TWO ADDITIONS TO OUR LITTLE HERD OF CATTLE!    Two black and white Calvs, one heifer born a year ago, and one bull born just three weeks ago.   Each from different cows already with us.   They are both very friendly but we will only keep the heifer.   The bull will either be kept for meat or sold.


We also were able after some two years of waiting on the Lord, to purchase this portable electric Milking Machine!    Such a time saver, cheap to run, hygienic, and a great hit with our three milkers; they all look as if they have been hypnotised into paradise every time they are milked these days.   AND the milk yield has almost doubled.

We Thank the Lord.     Our Dairy man, Vincent is also happy, having long dreamt of us going 'modern' as he calls it.


Well this will have to be all for this week.   Our son Steven will be visiting tomorrow until Wednesday, and then on Friday we will have one of our daughters from the States visiting for some days.      AND CHRISTMAS seems to almost have come, the days rushing by. 
God Bless you all, and constantly walk and talk to you by your side.
Our Love in Him always,

John, Esther and Daryl Green



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