“That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ…In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”(Ephesians 1: 11-12).
In the dingy darkness, Dad stepped forward, expecting the elevator to be there. Once again, the demands of WW II production levels had kept him at the shop, working well into the night to get a factory motor repaired. My father plunged down an open elevator shaft, breaking his arm and leg and nearly crushing his spirit as he lay in traction in a hospital.
I was four years old at the time—1943. My dad and I were very different—like my brother, he liked motors, hunting, and fishing. Like my mother, I didn’t. Yet Dad instinctively knew that I was the one to pass the family letters on to—the old rag-paper epistles from the 1790s he had found at Aunt Josie’s house after she died.
The letters had lain dormant for decades, but I found them alive with religion, brimming with the spiritual wisdom of Scottish Calvinism. “Your mother hopes you will remember who is your great preserver and support—take care of what company you keep and remember the Sabbath day and you may expect to thrive the better all week”(1793). “Although you and I are far distant from each other, yet we should not forget each other’s eternal welfare. Remember to seek God earnestly at a throne of grace and to rely only and alone upon Jesus Christ for Salvation as he is offered in the Gospel”(1799).
When Dad passed the letters on to me, I didn’t know that he was giving me a future as well as a past. The letters led to eight trips to Belfast, involvement in the affairs of Northern Ireland, and a love for the religion carried to these shores from the British Isles—England, Ireland, and Scotland. The Great Awakening drew its first breath from this heritage—and remembering and honoring our past may energize another spiritual awakening today.(Jim Burns)
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