God popping up!
Shortly after Fiona and I were married, Fiona’s mother asked us to visit Doreen Gemmel; an old friend of the family who was in a nursing home in Northampton.
She had had a purposeful life, initially growing up in a privileged home in Glasgow and then being called by God to work among the down and outs in London setting up a refuge for women in a basement near Marble Arch. Her life is recounted by Phyllis Thompson in her book, ‘Within a yard of hell’. The one thing that I remember now about our visit was seeing her propped up by pillows in her bed and saying, ‘My dears, how can you not believe’?
I often think about what Doreen Gemmel said to us that day and again over the weekend when I read Psalm 53 which starts with the words - ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God’. I thought of the great contrast - Doreen Gemmel’s words compared with those of the fool. Our belief is strengthened not only by answers to prayer but by recognising how often God seems to pop up in our everyday lives.
Recently we had been hoping to go to France with a friend, who sadly at the last minute was unable to come. This meant we had a spare ticket as we boarded the London train. When the guard came around to inspect the tickets, he discovered that the lady next to us was on the incorrect train and was due to pay a penalty of £75. Of course, we offered our spare ticket to this lady who happened to be Chinese, and we started talking with her after the guard had moved on. We told her about Fiona’s great uncle, Arthur Jackson was as a missionary doctor and left the UK for Shenyang in 1911 and that he died trying to stop a plague being spread by Japanese travelling on trains from Manchuria to Beijing. The Viceroy at the time offered $10,000 to the family in recognition of his sacrifice, but the family offered the money back for the building of the first Shenyang hospital. A book is written about the life of Arthur Jackson, and we told our Chinese friend about it and our time when we had also visited Shenyang. She was fascinated and whilst we refused her offer for a present in exchange for our friend’s ticket which otherwise would have gone to waste, we had the privilege of talking to her about Arthur Jackson’s life and about Shenyang. She was keen to buy the book and told us that her grandmother lived in Shenyang. It was a fascinating conversation both for her and us. God was in on our journey and had popped up.
How can you not believe?
Anthony Collins