Today was another day with a series of miracles.

I have been waiting almost a year for a neurology appointment because of a small cyst or similar growth in my brain, accused of a range of unpleasant symptoms. Finally, I was given a 1:00pm appointment today to see a neurologist at a Gold Coast hospital.

 

Miracle number 1. Being an afternoon appointment, although the day was cloudy, we had opportunity to wash our weekly laundry before going.

 

After pegging the washing on the clothesline, Rosemary and I left early to take a bus to the railway station, from there to take a train to another station, to then finally to take a light-rail tram to the hospital.

 

Miracle number 2. Even though our bus was running several minutes late, we were still in plenty time for the train and, along with a number of other travellers, waited patiently on platform number one as directed.

 

Unfortunately, due to track works, to the surprise of the platform staff, the train pulled up at a different platform, separated by an overhead walkway.

 

Those of us waiting at the advertised platform hastily struggled to get to the other platform.

 

The ambulatory ones took to the stairs and crossed over to the other platform in record time. Being less mobile, we had to traverse two ramps to get to the overhead gantry, then another two ramps to descent to the other platform. The train left before we had a chance to get there.

 

The station attendant apologized profusely, but explained that they do not inform him until two minutes before a train arrives, as to which platform it will arrive. We could wait for the next train in about half-an-hour, but again we would only have less than two minutes to get from one platform to the other depending at which platform the train arrives.

 

This was a risk we couldn't take so decided to go by 'bus to another station, one that has a centre platform for trains using either track.

Miracle number 3. Almost immediately a 'bus arrived and we boarded it for the continuation of our journey.

 

Miracle number 4. Despite the bus stopping frequently and taking a very circuitous route, we got to the next station before the train arrived. We waited there for the next train, boarded it and were taken to the station from where the light-rail tram was to depart.

 

Already 30 minutes late, we arrived at the light-rail tram station only to be advised over the public address system that the tram to the hospital was running late, 'due to an incident on the track'.

 

Miracle number 5. When we finally clocked in at the hospital for my appointment, the digital receipt showed that our arrival time for our one-o'clock appointment was exactly one o'clock, to the second.

 

Miracle number 6. The test results revealed that the cyst was not sinister and, until a cause could be found, I would only require treatment for symptoms.

 

Miracle number 7. The weather turned sour in the afternoon and presaging ominous storm clouds were brewing. However, after our uneventful return tram, train and 'bus journeys, we arrived home in sufficient time to bring in the washing before it rained.

 

Lionel Hartley

Not just a coincidence.

I was out for an exercise and companionship walk with my wife Rosemary and I saw an unusual piece of plastic on the footpath. Being the ever-curious one, I picked it up to look at it. I wondered what it was used for, as it was very small, shaped like a miniature bottle cork on one end and with a small round knob on the other.

I purposed to put it in the rubbish bin when I got home, but I forgot, and it was still in my hand when I reached my outdoor workbench. I placed it on the bench and promptly forgot about it.

Several days later I was using a rental car, a hatch-back wagon, and in the boot there is a shelf suspended from the boot lid with two elastic straps. This shelf is designed to shield the contents of the boot from view when the boot is closed. A previous renter had broken one of the fasteners and had repaired it with, of all things, what looked like chewing gum or some other adhesive and it was coming off. As I hadn't noticed it when I signed the rental agreement, I was concerned that I would be held responsible for the cost of its repair when I returned the vehicle at the end of the rental period.

I examined the broken fitting and I immediately knew why the piece of plastic that I had picked up just a few days prior was not in the rubbish bin. This plastic plug with a knob on the end was identical to the original fitting and was easily clipped into place to substitute with the broken one.

My lack of higher mathematical ability cannot fathom the chances of this being a coincidence. I believe that this could not possibly have occurred without divine intervention and I thanked God for his concern with the minutia of our lives. Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.

Lionel Hartley 

 Habits of Prayer.

For many years my wife and I would often retreat to a block of land that we owned in the Brother Mountains east of Glen Innes in New South Wales. Following the sale of the house that we had there, we returned often to stay in a caravan in an adjoining block of land that we had purchased separately because it contained an artesian well. Our water supply in the caravan was from a tank under the caravan, filled as necessary from the well. To get the water into the sink I had fitted a small hand-operated piston pump attached to the tap.

 

When the pump was frequently used, very little energy was required to have water, as the water poured out at the first stroke. But if the pump had not been used for a long time, the water got low in the pipe, and when we wanted it we had to pump a long while, and the water came only after some effort.

 

So it is with prayer; if we are instant in prayer, every little circumstance awakens the disposition to pray so that desires and words are always ready. But if we neglect prayer, it is difficult for us to pray, for the water in the pipe gets low.

-- Lionel Hartley www.lrhartley.com

 False Hope.

 

In the early 1980s I was approached after church by an elderly church member affectionately named Granny. She asked if I knew her grand-daughter who was now overseas but had been working as a nurse in the same hospital as me. Yes, I did know her, quite well, in fact, as we had worked together quite a number of times over an extended period of time. Granny explained that her grand-daughter was working overseas at a mission hospital but had caused quite a deal of disruption by insisting that things be done her way.

 

Granny knew that although I had left nursing, I was, at that time, running a counselling practice at the same hospital. And so she asked if I could write to her grand-daughter as a concerned friend and encourage her to change her approach. I agreed and said that I would send an immediate telegram with an appropriate Bible reference and follow it with a lengthy letter of explanation.

 

So I duly sent the telegram which read: AMOS 3:1-3 LETTER FOLLOWING. And I did follow it with a letter of explanation.

Amos 3:1-3 –says: Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, (2) You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. (3) Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

 

Unfortunately the telegraph operator left off the first three letters of the name of the Bible book Amos. So the telegram that she received read, S 3:1-3 LETTER FOLLOWING.

Now the grand-daughter was an intelligent girl and figured out that it was a Bible reference in the message and to expect a letter from me in the mail. But what book of the Bible starts with S? It couldn’t be Psalms as that starts with a letter P. It couldn’t be Samuel as that starts with a 1 or 2.  It could only be the Solomon’s Song of Songs.

 

Embarrassingly, Song of Songs 3:1-3 reads: By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. (2) I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. (3) The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

 

And this was a message from Lionel and it said that a letter was following.

 

Well, the grand-daughter was sufficiently moved by this, and so she wrote me a very passionate love letter responding to her perception of what I had said. Our letters crossed in the mail and it was over a week later that I received another letter in which she profusely apologised for the misunderstanding.

 

Now you want me to tell you that we got married and lived happily ever after – well, no, we simply continued to love each other as a sister and brother in Christ. And so apologies were accepted and to her credit she took my counsel and ceased her inappropriate behaviour.

So there is such a thing as dashed hope.

 

--- Lionel Hartley

 Devil-foiled Youth Ministry.

Proverbs 16:9 (TLV) "Best Laid Plans Often Go Awry".

When I was a teenager in the Anglican Church the priest approached me and another young person to join with him as he set up the church hall as a youth drop-in centre with youth activities on a Sunday afternoon. He booked the hall and purchased a large amount of equipment - table tennis tables, card tables, dartboards, board games and all the paraphernalia that went with them and gave me a set of keys to the hall. He then worked on an extensive advertising campaign within the church, the local schools and in the general community. For a couple of months, every Sunday afternoon I would unlock the hall and turn on the hot water urn for refreshments. Shortly thereafter the priest would join us in the hall, say a prayer with us and go out into the streets surrounding the church to round up young people to attend. Faithfully the other young fellow and I would boringly fill the time playing table tennis or darts, activities that neither of us bookworms particularly enjoyed. No one else ever came and eventually the idea was abandoned and the equipment donated to the church school.

-- Lionel Hartley

Do you have a best friend?

A certain person recently confessed to me that there was a time when she absolutely hated me. A recent hug initiated by her told me that this is no longer the case. When my wife Rosemary and I were courting, this lady, Lorraine, had been Rosemary's best friend for the previous decade or so, and in Lorraine's mind, I was stealing her best friend. We solved that by introducing her to a friend of mine and they got married a week after us. Just before Christmas we spent several days with them as their guests at a seaside resort. After over 50 years Lorraine still refers to Rosemary as her best friend.

Do you have a best friend? Someone who is clearly closer to you than anyone else? The book of Hebrews makes the argument that Jesus is that part of the Godhead who has the closest relationship with humans. He created our universe. He became one of us. He redeemed us. One of His current rôles is pleading on our behalf against the condemnation of our sins. He truly identifies with us. 

Welcome Him as your best friend today.

-- Lionel Hartley

 Ideas and the benefits of journaling.

Ideas, like sunsets, are brilliant flashes of colour which, unless photographed are lost forever excepting as some grey shadowy recall in the recesses of our memory. By journaling our ideas and thoughts, the cognitive content is preserved, not to freeze it in time, but to use it to secure the base of a springboard for the fostering of still more ideas.

-- Lionel Hartley, Great Ideas Journal, Salubrity™ Seminars, 1998, reprinted 2004, (Introduction)