It has been a long time since I shared my abundant life on this blog! I dislike excuses, but sometimes we have reasons. I guess my main one would be that, along with family and friends, I am besotted with hands-on pastimes many of which are pictured here.
I have loved making things for most of my life but making has become a passion. I LOVE creating: textured yarns on my spinning wheels, music on my piano, garments on knitting needles, amateur but infinitely satisfying water media art*, gardens indoors and out, soaps for face and body (we have not bought soap for our household since 1976!); and I may have omitted a passion (happy obsession?) or two—not to mention the ubiquitous books which line our shelves and floors.
However today I woke up inspired to share a personal story—actually the very reason I am enjoying an abundant life, so overflowing with excitement that I sometimes fight going to sleep at night and get up with anticipation most days because there is so much to make! If you have read my story on this or one of my other blogs, I do hope you will read it again!
Back in 1971, I was a wife and mother of five children** ranging from ages 7 to 15. Life was tremendously good in terms of family and circumstances—but not good inside my soul. The world was spinning and changing too fast and some of my life props and idealisms had been pulled out from under me, like the magician’s trick of pulling a tablecloth off a table while the dishes remain intact.
Visibly, I was intact. The dishes were on the table. But inwardly I was a mess! For months I’d had a sense of aching emptiness, a void which all my daily joys could not fill. The void consisted of a lack of meaning. I desperately longed for inner peace. What was wrong with me, that I had such desperation when my outward life seemed so good?
I’ve always looked for answers in books. Our local library was within walking distance of home, and I walked there a lot—trying to make sense out of life and find peace for my hungry soul via the world’s philosophies and religions, especially the mystic Eastern religions which appeared to offer the thing I needed most: peace.
And although I rarely let myself face reality, deep inside I knew I was desperately flawed inside my head and heart. I was the problem. I was the reason I lacked peace!
I avoided the old-fashioned word for my condition, but in rare moments of truth I acknowledged that word: SIN. I was a sinner. After devouring many books I found the Eastern religions to be flimsy, lacking in a down-to-earth reality which could change me.
What was the answer? Was there an answer? On the third Saturday in January, 1971, I said to my husband, very emphatically, “Something is missing from my life!” Once again, I trundled off to the library to look for answers. Having exhausted many overly-wordy, allegedly “meaty” books in the spiritual and self-help sections of the library—I “just happened” to find a very slim little book, simply titled PEACE WITH GOD.
Maybe I thought, “Well why not? I’ve read most everything else on these shelves.” Or maybe I wasn’t even thinking. But I checked out the tiny book, PEACE WITH GOD. That evening, after the household had settled into a Saturday night routine, I read the book thoroughly, absorbing its contents.
In very simple, unpretentious language, and with Biblical references, PEACE WITH GOD presented the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All of mankind is in bondage to sin. God came to earth in the Person of Jesus Christ, to die on a cross at Calvary—for our sins, for my sin. Jesus paid the penalty, and rose to defeat the power of sin and death. He lives. He is Eternal God, an all loving, all just, all righteous, all merciful God. When we believe in Jesus and His finished work on our behalf, He forgives our sin. We are washed clean with His blood, and He gives us His life—with His victory over the powers of darkness, His peace regardless of circumstances as we look to Him and abide in Him, growing in Him through His Word, The Bible.
The book explained how we could do nothing, absolutely nothing. Yet when we believe in Jesus, we have the free gift of Eternal Life with Christ Who is God—and we can have His spiritual victory over sin, His abundant LIFE on earth, His new life in exchange for our old sinful life which died with Jesus on that cross! I distinctly recall a sense of peace from reading the book, but it was a kind of sad and wistful peace. I recall saying to myself, “Oh, if only that were true!”
The next day, Sunday, I surprised myself by suddenly arranging to go to a Bible Church in the neighborhood I called a friend who attended that church, and she and her husband agreed to pick me up. We entered a bit late, and the congregation was singing a Gospel hymn; I had never in my life heard such singing. I recall thinking, “It’s as of they believe what they’re singing about.”
During the sermon that morning, God very clearly and simply picked me up and lifted me into His Kingdom—the Kingdom of Forgiveness and Love. In retrospect I see that God used that Sunday worship service as a catalyst for my salvation. Suddenly I knew that Jesus was real, and I needed His forgiveness, His Life—and that understanding landed me into Christ.
But I was totally ready to be born into God’s Kingdom that Sunday morning. I’d been prepared the night before, when I read a slim little book called PEACE WITH GOD, by Billy Graham.
As I left the church on that bitter cold January day in Wisconsin, the sun on the snowdrifts seemed nearly blinding. At that point I knew nothing of Scripture, except that I was a new creation in Christ. I was forgiven, and I was raised up with Him, That night I picked up a childhood Bible which I had never read; I’d tried a couple of times but it simply had not made sense to me. But now I found myself in John 15, and it made all the good plain sense in the world. “I am the vine, ye are the branches; He that abideth in me, and I in him, bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing.” And “This is my commandment, That ye love one another as I have loved you.” And “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you . . . .”
(As a lover of the Old Bard, William Shakespeare. the King James Bible replete with “eth” and “ye” seemed natural to me, and still does!)
Meanwhile, back in 1971 my peace and joy were palpable—and I was so excited that I could not keep my mouth shut. As the days progressed I told nearly everyone I knew about the Savior—even our vet as he was negotiating with our sick pet, either a cat or a dog; we had many of both.
Now, with many years of Scripture in my soul, I can witness that God has never failed me in anyway, and although I have sometimes failed to pay attention, or to obey my Lord. Jesus Christ sustains me. New LIFE. Abundant LIFE! Articulately and succinctly explained to me long ago, in a tiny gem of a book, PEACE WITH GOD, by the late Billy Graham.
The Lord Jesus is the reason for my abundant, hands-on life. And my blogging life, as well, when I blog. 🙂
*I have updated my art blog on occasion. Just GOOGLE “Margaret Been’s MESSY PALETTE.” Art is a language universal, and hits come from everywhere—including Afghanistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia as well as all over Europe, Oriental countries, South America, and our neighbors to the North.
**We had one more child, in 1976—adding up to 4 girls and 2 boys. They are Joe’s and my best friends.
Margaret L. Been — March 6th, 2018
Northern Reflections--glimpses of gold by Margaret L. Been 