Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Churched

Home
Evangelical
“And Grace My Fears Relieved”

“And Grace My Fears Relieved”

Last updated on: February 14, 2020 at 10:37 am by Matt Pearson

“And Grace My Fears Relieved” 2020-02-13T22:44:59-05:00 Matt Pearson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Earlier this week, I listened to a sermon by Winn Collier. In the sermon he referenced a story by Walter Wangerin. I found the story at a website (Todd Stiles’ blog) and learned the story came from one of Wangerin’s books titled Little Lamb, Who Made Thee?

It is a moving story, demonstrating a beautiful picture of the Gospel. Enjoy.

“And Grace My Fears Relieved”

The coming of the Kingdom is like the coming of my father to my brothers and me when we sat fishing, blithely fishing, from a ledge twelve feet above the water in a stony cove in Glacier National Park.

In the year of sudden awakening, 1954, I was ten.Â My brothers, grinning idiots all (for that they followed a fool) were, in descending order, nine, seven, and six.

Before our trip from Grand Forks west, I had furnished myself with fishing equipment. With a cheerios box top and my personal dime, I sent away for ten small hooks, three flies, leader, line, a red-and-white bobber, and three thin pieces of bamboo that fit snugly into one pole. Such a deal! Such a shrewd fellow I felt myself to be.

On a bright, blue morning we chopped bits of bacon into a pouch and went forth to fish.Â We sought a mountain stream, though we ourselves did not depart the trail down from the campground. Fortunately, that same trail turned into a wooden bridge that crossed furious roaring waters, the crashing of a falls from the slower bed of a stream.

A mountain stream! There, to our right, before it dived down into the rock chasm immediately below this bridge, was a mountain stream. Filled with fishes, certainly. We had found it.

But the bridge joined two walls of stone, and even the slower stream came through a high defile.

But I was a shrewd fellow in those days, a leader indeed. I noticed that a narrow ledge snaked away from the far end of the bridge, that it was over-bellied by an enormous boulder and therefore hidden from the view of lesser scouts. If we could crawl that ledge on hands and knees through its narrowest part, ducking low the boulder, why, weâ€™d come to a widening, a hemisphere of stone big enough to sit on, from which to dangle our legs, a sort of fortress of stone since the wall went up from that ledge a flat twelve feet and down again from that ledge another direct twelve feet. Perfect. Safe from attacks. Good for fishing.

I led my blinking brothers thither. None questioned me. I was the oldest. Besides, I was the one with foresight enough to have purchased a fishing pole.

â€œYou got to flatten out here,â€ I called back, grunting in order to fit beneath the out-cropping boulder. They did. One by one they arrived with me in a fine, round hideout. Above the sheer rock some trees leaned over and looked down upon us. Below our feet there turned a lucid pool of water, itself some twelve feet deep.

And so the Brothers Wangerin began to spend a fine day fishing.

We took turns with the pole.

The bacon didnâ€™t work, butâ€”as a sign of our favor with all the worldâ€”the trees dropped down on silken threads some tiny green worms, exactly the size of our tiny hooks. We reached out and plucked worms from the air baited the hooks, and caught (truly, truly) several fingerling fish. Oh, it was a good day! All that we needed we had.

Then came my father.

We didnâ€™t see him at first. We werenâ€™t thinking about him, so filled with ourselves were we, our chatting and our various successes. But I heard through the waterâ€™s roar a cry. Distant, distant: â€œWally!â€

I glanced up and to my rightâ€”where the bridge arched itâ€”and I almost glanced away again, but a wild waving caught my eye.

â€œWALLY! WALLY! WALLY!â€

â€œDad?â€ Yes!â€”it was Dad. â€œHey, look, you guys. Thereâ€™s Dad leaning over the bridge.â€

They looked, and straightway Philip started to cry, and then Mike, too. Paul dropped my pole into the water twelve feet below. And I saw in fatherâ€™s eyes a terror I had never seen before.

â€œWALLY, HOW DID YOU GET OVER THERE?â€

Over here? I looked around.

SuddenlyÂ hereÂ was not a fortress at all. It was a precipice, a sheer stone drop to a drowning water, andÂ thatÂ water rushed toward a thundering falls far, far below my father. With his eyes I saw what I had not seen before. In his seeing (which loved us terribly) I saw our peril.

He was crying out as loud as he could: â€œWALLY, COME HERE! COME HERE!â€

But the ledge on which weâ€™d come had shrunk. It was thin as a lip now. The hairs on my neck had started to tingle, and my butt grew roots. I couldnâ€™t move. Neither did my brothers. I didnâ€™t even shake my head. I was afraid that any motion at all would pitch me headlong into the pool below. I gaped at my father, speechless.

He stopped waving. He lowered his arms and stopped shouting. He stood for an eternal moment looking at us from the bridge, and then his mouth formed the word Wait. We couldnâ€™t hear it. He didnâ€™t lift his voice. Quietly under the booming waters he whispered, â€œWait.â€

Then he bent down and removed his shoes. At the near end of the bridge, he bent down farther, farther, until he was on his stomach, worming forward, knocking dust and pebbles by his body into the stream, bowing beneath the enormous boulder that blocked our freedom.

â€œDadâ€™s coming. See him?â€

â€œYep, Dadâ€™s coming.â€

â€œI knew he would.â€

He pulled himself ahead on the points of his elbows, like the infantry beneath barbed wire, his face drawn and anxious. He was wearing shorts and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. Red with darker red squares. I remember.

When he came into our tiny cove, he turned on his belly and hissed to the youngest of us, â€œMike, take my heel.â€ Mike was six. He didnâ€™t.

â€œMike,Â now!â€ Dad shouted above the waterfall with real anger. â€œGrab my heel in your hand and follow me.â€

You should know that my father is by nature and breeding and profession a formal man. I donâ€™t recall him often to go into public wearing short-sleeved shirts. Nor would he permit people to call him by his first name, asking rather that they address him according to his position, his title, and degree. Even today the most familiar name he will respond to is â€œDoc.â€ Dad is two-legged and upright. Dad is organized, controlled, clean, precise, dignified, decorous, civilâ€”and formal.

What a descent it was, therefore, what a sweet humiliation, that he should on his stomach scrabble this way and that, coming on stone then going again, pulling after him one son after the other: Michael Philip Paul.

And then me.

â€œWally, grab my heel. Follow me.â€

It wasnâ€™t he who had put us in these straights. Nevertheless, he chose to enter them with us, in order to take us out with him. It was foolishness that put us here. It was love that brought him.

So he measured the motion of his long leg by the length of my small arm, and he never pulled farther than I could reach. The waters roared and were troubled; the granite shook with the swelling thereof. But my father was present, and very present. I felt the flesh of his heel in my hand, leading me; and I was still in my soul. I ceased to be afraid.

That stony cove had not been a refuge at all but a danger. Rather, my father in love bore refuge unto me; my father bore me back to safety again. So I did not die in the day of great stupidity. I lived.

Thus is the Kingdom of Heaven likened unto a certain man whose eldest son was a nincompoop.

Devotions

Previous Post

February 13, 2020

West Franklin Talks - Episode #2 Links Mentioned

Next Post

February 26, 2020 Gettin' Ahead of God

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Biblical Reflections Devotions Fridays are For Illustrations General Challenge General Preaching Resources Letters to West Franklin Preparing to Preach Table Talk Questions The Preaching Event Top Ten Quotes Uncategorized West Franklin West Franklin Talks

Select a Month March 2023 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which New Testament book is written as a sermon?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Galatians Acts James Hebrews