The Happy Ending

‘Tools With A Mission’ is a Christian charity that sends donated tools to the developing world. Yesterday we heard the story of Deliphar in Zambia.

Deliphar’s family was struggling. They had managed to pay for some of their children’s school fees, but didn’t know how they could afford to feed them. Deliphar joined a tailoring course. In just six months, she not only mastered the craft but was also earning a living by selling clothes. Deliphar now owns a sewing machine; her new skills and passion for tailoring has transformed her family.

A good story with a happy ending.

This morning I’ve read about Caleb.

Caleb, leader of the tribe of Judah, was one of the twelve spies sent by Moses on a reconnaissance tour. Along with Joshua, he advised the Israelites to proceed immediately to take the land of Canaan. They didn’t; they wandered in the desert for forty years.

Eventually, eighty-five-year old Caleb, who’s still strong and fit, who’s followed his God wholeheartedly, receives his ‘promised land’.

Another good story with a happy ending.

I’ve often said that Christian faith is a story with a happy ending… defeat becomes victory, despair becomes hope, death becomes resurrection.

I’ve had several conversations recently with friends about family members with dementia. ‘The disease might hide the person underneath, but there’s still a person in there who needs your love and attention.’ True, but it’s really difficult.

Families are suffering… the constant, unrelenting need for supervision, the inability to always recognise family members, patterns of behaviour that disrupt and destroy family life, the frustration of absent memory, unpredictable, uncharacteristic behaviour…

Yesterday someone on TV described dementia as ‘the long goodbye’. It may have been a good story, but it’s not a happy ending.

Today I’ve no easy answers. I return to the words my elderly grandmother wrote in my first Bible… ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.’

It’s enough. It has to be.