Helping others!

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

Everyone needs an uplift especially when things in life seem to be going wrong.  During the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln the President had many decisions to make and a lot of issues to deal with. There came a time when things were not going well for the Northern cause and many people were turning up at the White House with complaints or to give the leader every sort of advice on how he should act.  The pressure and stress upon the President was enormous.

One day a friend came to the White House named Billy Brown. He had grown up with Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois.  He approached  the entrance and was stopped by an aide who enquired whether he had an appointment to see the President.  In those more informal days Billy said that he had no appointment and that he didn’t actually need one as the President would be happy to see him without a previous arrangement.  The aide looked somewhat dubious but went in to the President and said that a Billy Brown was outside.  In about two minutes the aide returned and immediately behind him was President Abraham Lincoln.  He was so pleased to see his old friend and clasped his hand. Billy was then invited to stay for evening meal with the President and his wife Mary.

Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554)

All photos courtesy of Unsplash 

Lady Jane Grey was a remarkable character from the history of our country.  She was known as the ‘Nine Day Queen of England’ and she died at the age of 16.  She was highly educated, very intelligent and was a descendent Henry VII the first monarch of the House of Tudor that ruled through most of the sixteenth century.  Jane was born in 1537 and died in 1554.  She had a personal tutor and was able to speak a number of languages and could converse in Greek and even correspond with intellectuals in that language.

She studied not only languages but also the Word of God, the Bible and came to a settled conviction which led her to faith in Christ.  She believed  the Gospel and knew that the only way to Heaven was through faith alone in Christ alone. She grew up with two sisters, one named Katherine who was very beautiful but not an intellectual like Jane, and Mary who had some kind of physical deformity.  Her parents were deeply ambitious and carried the hope that Jane would one day inherit the throne and become Queen of England.

Starting the year well!!

A New Year brings fresh challenges and opportunities, but life is unpredictable! At times, the variety life brings can be very exciting, but sometimes it’s a bit frightening. Problems at home, business pressures, ongoing health issues and uncertainty! The speed of change and our helplessness to manage events can be disconcerting! Yet, as mere mortals, we cannot control our circumstances and must try to cope with what seems inevitable as well as we possibly can.

There are many situations like this in life. Sometimes illness cannot be avoided, we are affected by what other people do, and often things are out of our control. We are quite skilful at coping most of the time, but sometimes we just have to ‘go with the flow’. I am not a laid-back type of person, so I often wonder what it must be like to be relaxed and unaffected by changeable circumstances.

The ultimate uncontrollable event is death. It creeps up on every one of us. We may prolong life and improve the quality of our twilight years, but we cannot evade death in the long term! But I believe, and the Bible teaches, there is hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.

How will you serve this year?

Omar Nelson Bradley was by any standard or measure a remarkable man.  He was born in Missouri in 1893, and his parents were humble people. Interestingly, he was born on President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, Lincoln is generally considered America’s greatest president, and his memorial in Washington DC is one of the wonders of that great city. Bradley seemed to inherit something of Lincoln’s greatness. 

Bradley learnt early in life the necessity of working hard and of personal integrity. His father died when he was fifteen, and he had to give a lot of help to his mother, who took in lodgers to make ends meet. Despite the work he did at home, he was also a hard-working student, and maybe this trait was due to his late father’s influence as his father had been a school teacher. Bradley graduated from school with high grades and then went to the military training school at West Point. There, he was a hardworking student, an excellent athlete, and a wonderful marksman. Out of a class of 164, he graduated forty-fourth in 1915. Yet he was the first in his class to reach the rank of general.

He was under six feet in height, weighed only 145 pounds, and was prematurely grey. Indeed, he started to go grey in his late teens. He lost some of his teeth in an ice skating accident and had to wear dentures from an early age. Yet he was determined at all times to pursue excellence, and through quiet determination and competency, he rose up the ranks of the army. He spent twelve years as a major, and at times, it seemed he would never rise further, and then he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. He never achieved the rank of full Colonel because  instead, he was made a full General.