While I was in Eureka, California, with Mhairi recently, we
had the awesome privilege of sharing a meal with Betty Kwan Chinn, whose life
story, When the Gray Bird Sings, is written by Dr Karen Price (and read on
audio book by Mhairi). Betty, whose early life was one of unimaginable horror
and suffering during the Cultural Revolution in China, escaped, was rescued,
and she has lived and continues to live a life laid down for others as she
seeks out those who are homeless and lost in addictions and offers shelter,
life and hope for them. She is an extraordinary woman, full of humility and
grace, still, in her late sixties, working 7 days a week, often deep into the
night out on the sand dunes alone looking for the lost.
As a 7-year-old, Betty spent a few years chained to a
garbage heap at the edge of her town, where she survived on excrement and
whatever she could reach within the length of her tether.
In my prayer window this morning, I was looking at the
wooden cross Mhairi gave me last Christmas. Rather than being the shape of a
cross, it is a rectangle of smooth wood in which a thin but strong cross has
been cut. The road is narrow to eternal life, and it is through the cross of
Jesus that we enter.
Last weekend, I met a university friend in Amsterdam for a
couple of days. My back was sore; her shoulder hurt: we still managed to laugh
a lot. After she boarded her river cruise, I had a few hours on my own in the
city before catching a flight back to Aberdeen. I had brought a backpack only
as carry-on, thinking that would be easier for walking the cobbled streets of
Amsterdam.
I thought there wasn’t much in my backpack, but it seemed
surprisingly heavy, especially with a sore back, and led to my sitting long in
a café.
I thought I’d only brought the essentials, but I know I
could have left things behind and been less weighed down. I could have enjoyed
Amsterdam more had I had less in my backpack.
The unseen backpack I carry through life is stuffed full of
all sorts of things which could prevent me from getting through that narrow
pass outlined by the Cross. Fears. Doubts. Memories which can weigh heavily.
I think of what must be in Betty’s backpack, which she must
be laying down, throwing down even, daily. I pray for all who carry real rocks
of suffering in their backpacks: Lord, help them to jettison them and instead
be set free to be filled with the light and life of your love.
Lord, help me this morning to swing that pack off of my
shoulders and abandon it once more at the foot of your cross, so that I can enter
your gates with thanksgiving in my heart, your courts with praise.
