WELCOME TO KENILWORTH CASTLE
I was excited. I had made the most significant purchase in my lifetime. A bungalow with a front porch and a dining room with a wall of bookshelves was the answer to my prayer. I had lived in parsonages throughout my childhood as a pastor’s daughter. My husband and I had lived in apartments or rented a home. With daughters raised and now single, I found the perfect home in the central part of town, near work and church. A first-time homebuyer’s program in my city provided the opportunity. Everything about this house seemed to have God’s blessing, down to small details.
On the day I moved, my Sunday School class members crowded into my small apartment and finished the packing and cleaning. They provided lunch—my first luncheon in my new home! The ladies stayed to make the beds and unpack the dishes.
My brother came for a visit. “Do you want the rocking chairs from Mother and Daddy’s home in Georgia?” He explained that when he handled the details of the estate sale, he saved the chairs and put them in his southern Missouri cabin. I responded a definite “yes!” The next time he visited, he brought two white rockers, chairs from my dad’s childhood home in Cobbtown, Georgia. They were perfect for my front porch. When the wind blows and they rock back and forth, I conjecture my parents have come to sit a spell!
My sister-in-law searched for blinds to fit my large windows and a couple spent a beautiful fall day hanging white blinds that matched the trim of this 1930’s home. Friends came on several Saturdays to work with me to reupholster my dining room chairs. My community group from church brought an evening meal and followed up with a dedication service. Each room was prayed for.
I felt the appropriate title for my home on Kenilworth Court was “Kenilworth Castle.” Yes, there is a castle in England with that name, built in the 1120’s. The castle can still be viewed in the town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire, England. Even the ruins appear majestic.
My large dining room was perfect for the table my dad had refinished and brought from his Georgia workshop one Christmas. I could stretch it out to serve 12 people with the three leaves he provided. My heart’s desire was to have white dishes that could be used for everyday and to entertain. I found a simple pattern, but the dishes were too expensive. I had to be practical. I must have mentioned this to a nurse in the doctor’s office where I worked because she came in one day to work and laid a plate on my desk.
“Do you like this pattern?”
“I do,” I responded. I didn’t know where this conversation was headed.
“Great! I have a set of 12 that you can have. My husband has never liked these dishes and I don’t use them.”
The next evening, she came over and brought 12 place settings and a large serving platter. The pattern was like the one I had seen online. I was delighted!
After she left, I carefully examined the plates as I put them on the kitchen shelf.
The next day I had a question for her. “Do you remember the name of the pattern for the dishes you gave me?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, the name is quite appropriate. The pattern is called “Providence.’”
Providence is a word we don’t use often so I did what I love to do—looked up the meaning in my Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition. “Divine guidance or care;” or “God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny.”
I love the idea of His guidance and care. He knows what we need. I am reminded of how Jesus used illustrations from nature to show us these truths.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life . . . Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
Last week, I worked in my yard and had almost finished the bush I was trimming. I stepped back to look at what I had accomplished and spied a bird on a branch and a nest nearby. I carefully finished my trimming to not upset the bird nest. I saw that as evidence of God’s care of that bird by allowing me to see it before I trimmed the section that held the nest. If He takes care of the little bird’s nest, He is watching over me too.
In 2019, at Christmastime, Laura and Don sent plane tickets to Rebecca and me and we spent a week with them at their home in northern Virginia. The timing was special. Their dad, my former husband of 29 years, died in March of that year, so this was our first Christmas without him. Mount Vernon was one of the sites we visited. When we started out in the visitors’ center, there was the presentation of a short film about General George Washington. The film showed a reenactment of “The Crossing of The Delaware” which took place on December 25 and 26, 1776. George Washington led a bedraggled army, yet they daringly crossed in ice and snow and won the battle. They fought the Hession army, the well- trained Germans who had been hired by the British to help fight during the American Revolution. They had been warned by a spy, but they didn’t take it seriously.
Georgia Washington said the victory was due to “Divine Providence.” This is an amazing story which can be found on YouTube as well as various videos to be found at the web site of Mount Vernon.
The verses above challenge us to trust Him. After I heard a sermon on these verses three weeks ago, I determined to have a “no-worry-day.”
What would that look like for you?
For me, it is trusting in God’s Providence, His care, His divine guidance.