Remembering: A light in the kitchen

My first trip to Russia took place in August of 1992. We hit up a lot of Russian cities that most Westerners were ignoring...that meant travel by rail and often overnight.

I remember one of those trips...I woke up at a place we had stopped at...a small Russian village that still had an apartment building in it. (not the one pictured here...but just as old)

Anyways, I recall a light being on in one kitchen...the rest of the windows were dark.  I was thinking...imagine....Here I am from so far away, where my whole life surrounds my country, culture and city.  Yet so far away, here, right now, in that small kitchen...God knows their names, sees them, they have a story...and God loves them too.

I prayed for those I did not know.  Even now as I remember I pray for them.  

It just struck me as somewhat amazing...that God knows all about them, about me...about all of us...and He loves us just the same.

I think of this from time to time...I just felt it was time to record this observation.

Happy Birthday Steph!!

 

This amazing young woman turns 29 today.

Stephanie, we love you and wish you amazing Blessings!

Please always know you are loved.

-Mom & Dad

Something cool....

My grandmother, Elisabeth Dieser Gerk, was born on August 19, 1902. Her birthdate and baptism are preserved in this old Church record from that time, in Russia. Granny was born in a time when Russia was on the old Julian calendar. Her passport and other papers documenting her birth are all based on that old calendar. 

The problem is that Russia did away with the Julian calendar and moved to the Gregorian calendar, as the western world had done, just after the Russian revolution. 

 So what does it mean? The date that my family celebrated her birthday is wrong. Using a conversion table, my grandmother was born on September 1, 1902. 

 So what is cool about that? 

My Dad, John Gerk, was born on September 1, 1933. The same birthdate as my grandmother, his Mom!

It's all about God....

It’s All About God: When something happens to me ... how can I learn to interpret it from the perspective of what God might be up to rather than just from the perspective of how it makes my life easier or more difficult? –Tim Shroeder

Heard that quote in the winter. 

Trying to apply it in my life is another matter all together.

In his amazing book "Reaching for the Invisible God", Philip Yancey tells the story of another favourite author of mine, Father Walter Ciszek.  How Ciszek applied this concept of accepting what God had for him, in his day to day life.

Ciszek says: 

"Across that threshold I had been afraid to cross, things suddenly seemed so very simple. There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God's will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see His will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could separate me from Him, because He was in all things. No danger could threaten me, no fear could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of Him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in His will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring. The past, with all its failures, was not forgotten; it remained to remind me of the weakness of human nature and the folly of putting any faith in self. But it no longer depressed me. I looked no longer to self to guide me, relied on it no longer in any way, so it could not again fail me. By renouncing, finally and completely, all control of my life and future destiny, I was relieved as a consequence of all responsibility. I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God's sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul.

He continues:

"His will for us was in the twenty-four hours of each day: the people, the places, the circumstances He set before us in that time. Those were the things God knew were important to Him and to us at that moment, and those were the things upon which He wanted us to act."

This is the principle that I am trying to discern.  When folks walk the Camino, they treat it and everything that happens, as the Will of God.  How to make that a metaphor for life? How to apply it in my own life?  I have to learn.