How One Thing Leads to Another

I recently ordered the CD from Sound Word and the children and I re-listened to Ranald Macaulay speak at the Charlotte Mason conference this past summer. When I heard Mr. Macaulay speak at the conference and then later, when he sat at my table during breakfast, I was touched in a deep way. Something in his person, not just in what he said. It has been hard to put into words. There was something gentle but confrontational about him. He just seemed the type of person with whom I could spend many comfortable and interesting hours.

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Listening again to this lecture led us to investigate L'Abri, an organization that Ranald Macaulay's in-laws Francis and Edith Schaeffer started, though I don't recall him ever mentioning it. I just knew there was that connection. And the lady I went to the conference with mentioned her stays at some of the L'Abri locations and said that what I admired in Ranald was commonly found in the people of L'Abri. Now, our older daughters are planning on having some involvement with L'Abri this winter and we are all excited to see where this will lead.

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I ordered some of the books that were suggested reading for those coming to stay at L'Abri and one of those is L'Abri by Edith Schaeffer. I'm about two thirds of the way through it, trying to finish it quickly so the girls can have a chance to read it too. I am really struck with the ordinariness of their experience. Ordinary when one is experiencing Christianity that is. I like that she talks about the common daily tasks and life's hardships as well as the 'spiritual' experiences of the many people they have touched. So far, this is one of the quotes I like best.

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"It hasn't been, nor is it, a life of any kind of 'ease', but it has been tremendously exciting to see the reality of communication with God, and to see the reality of His replies, His answers, in the realm of material things, and in the realm of the minds and hearts of human beings."

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Isn't that a good description of life with God? It is a description I can definitely relate to. This book inspires one to pray and trust God for answers, and to remember that sometimes the answers are a series of seemingly small or insignificant connections. And sometimes when it looks like something is going wrong, it is exactly going right in the providence of God. We don't always see the connectivity until we look backwards. As Edith says in this book several times, "Luck? Chance? Coincidence?" I don't think so.

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I think when I finish L'Abri, I will read another one of her books that I already have, called What Is A Family? while I wait for the girls to read the titles on the suggested reading list. Then I'll steal them too.