Author: Ian

We decay and die. We go from dust to our bodies and then we die and end up back to dust. BUT.. God takes us and protects us. He surrounds us with His love and as we live, if we continue to live within His love, we will live on longer and be protected from the world.

It is like man, taking iron ore and processing it into steel and making it into something of value. Like our bodies, steel will rust and decay and not live as steel for very long. Man takes his object of value and protects it. Covering it in paint to preserve it and make it more beautiful. Man has even invested in different paints and processes to preserve the object for as long as possible. Man has not found the perfect way to protect his object. But God’s love is the perfect protection for our lives.

Of course as we look at the cars on the road, one of man’s favorite objects, you will see that even though man has tried to protect his object, his car, it still rusts and decays. If the covering of paint is chipped, water can get in and start the decaying process. At first he doesn’t see it and before long the small chip has turned the reddish colour of rust. If left, the area becomes larger and eventually deteriorates into a hole and then that area is unrepairable. That whole section needs to be cut out and some new steel the exact shape put in to make the object beautiful again.

Like our lives, if we go outside of God’s love, His best for us, then our lives are not perfect and we allow Satan, the rust of our lives to come in and affect us, to make us unhealthy. It could be through our mind, body or our spirit. being this way is not normal and will shorten our earthly lives. Satan will try to chip away at our lives until he finds a way in. then once in he will work on us until he has made a hole and makes us deteriorate more and more.

If we don’t go back to the maker and find the exact shape to fit the hole in our lives we won’t be whole and beautiful again. Once we have done this we need to ask for God’s forgiveness and the protection of His love again, live as he taught us to live and keep Satan’s attacks on our lives at bay so he doesn’t chip our armour and get in again.

Just as man, when he finds the exact shape piece for the hole in his object, he doesn’t just fit it and say good. No, he wants to protect it from rusting again so goes about finding the right type of paint and matching colour, the best protection so he won’t have to keep replacing the part and it will look beautiful again.

So as we repent and make the hole in our lives perfect we need to keep living in God’s ways and love so we can show His beauty in the way He made us and pass on the love He has for us to others.

“Your time here is finished”. Ian and I looked at one another, shocked and disbelieving. We had worked as missionaries to Romania for twenty-five years, and fully expected to live there until we turned up out toes…. what was God talking about??

We had recently returned to Romania after over two months away – the longest period away from our Beloved Country for many years. The time we had recently spent in the U..S. had felt like a “time out of time”, and we knew that God Himself had arranged the trip for our good.

Back in October 2015, we had attended a three-night holiday in Krakow, Poland, arranged for missionaries by Christian Hospitality Network, and much appreciated it was; breaks of any kind happened rarely whilst serving on the mission field, and a few days in a five star hotel was nothing short of a miracle! The dates of this holiday “just happened” to coincide with our planned visit to the U.K., which meant we could get to Calais by a circuitous route (via Poland!) and still catch the train we had booked to take us through the Tunnel to Blighty in early November.

In the weeks running up to our holiday, Ian and I were talking and praying, yet again, about my long-lived problems with depression and anxiety and Ian suggested I talk to a counsellor while we were in Krakow. In the thirty-five years I had been depressed and anxious, I had been adamant on two points: one, that nobody but Ian should know about my state of mind, and two, that this situation would never stop me from doing God’s will. In all that time I had not seen a counsellor, due in a large part to lack of funds. So, on the first morning of our stay, I booked an appointment with a counsellor – what did I have to lose?

The break was exactly what we needed, and I duly turned up for my appointment, which “happened” to be with Pastor John Nordstrom. Within five minutes of entering the room, John had diagnosed PTSD, originally caused by a motorcycle accident when I was twenty, and invited me to travel out to Illinois for counselling and therapy with an expert in that field. I came out of the room changed, aware that there was hope after so many years. Ian said he could see a change in me as I met up with him for dinner, and told him what had happened during my half-hour chat with John.

In July 2016, Ian and I flew to O’Hare airport in Chicago, to be met by John and welcomed warmly by his family and the church he pastors in Ottawa, Christ Community Church. We were hosted by John and his wife Glenda in a lovely apartment attached to their house, and quickly became involved in church life. My treatment began a few days after we arrived, and, although traumatic at times, proved to be an amazing path to healing; within a couple of weeks, I was driving for the first time in over twenty-five years! In addition to the therapy with the PTSD counsellor, I was also attending counselling sessions with John, which brought about still more healing of hurts I had experienced at the hands of various Christian leaders over the years.

During our stay in Illinois, we took time to pray about our work in Romania, and felt God saying that there were changes ahead. This excited us, and we were very enthusiastic about our return to the Beloved Country in early September.

Due to the fact that my brother, Peter, had died two days before we flew to the States in July, we spent a couple of weeks visiting family, etc., before setting off to drive the well-known route to north east Romania. Once on the road, however, we were both astonished not to be excited to be returning to what had been our home for many years. Even when we passed the border, our usual enthusiasm of being back in the country was absent, and the whole journey went by without any real emotion of any kind.

Ian and I had not shared with each other this feeling of “blankness”, as each of us thought the other was feeling their usual delight and excitement as we travelled east. A few days after we arrived back at our rented house, however, we started to tentatively discuss how we felt – this was the first time in well over twenty years that we had not been super excited about getting back home.

That was when we prayed together, and God spoke clearly to us both, “Your time here is finished”. Although profoundly shocked, we were both certain that we were hearing His voice (although whether that voice was audible, we can’t say). It explained the strange journey we had just taken, 2,000 miles when we had both felt disconnected to Romania, and unable to dredge up any enthusiasm for what had been our meat and drink, practically and spiritually, for twenty-five years!