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Beautiful Fall greetings to our BlogNog Visitors,

Who needs a boost of encouragement today?  Everyone!  And what a blessing to faltering hearts are the words of an encourager.  The one who, like the boy in today’s Christian Mother Goose rhyme, “strokes our nose” with bright words of morale-boosting support when we think we “can’t go on” – and who refuses to lose heart and hope for us.

It’s the encourager who renews our spirit to believe in great expectations again; who brings a song, laughter and a basket of hope from the endless reservoir of the “God of hope.”  The God Who gives us courage to march on in the face of the impossible, and turns our eyes upon Jesus; Who blesses us with miracles in answer to prayer!

I thought of such encouragement this week when I read of the recent 70th reunion (2009) at St Paul’s Cathedral in London – commemorating the over three million British children who were evacuated from their homes, and separated from their families in World War II.  It was a voluntary sacrifice by parents in key cities who sought safety for their children in the English countryside.

Many of the now silver-haired attendees at St. Paul’s wore the original brown “luggage” type label which, 70 years ago, marked them at railway stations as child evacuees.  One great fear among those wartime children, as the train left, was that they might never get home again.  Kindly villagers took them in; some for over four years!  What a frightening experience war levies on little children and families.  The picture of the English “Bobby” checking the little girl’s train label tells the whole story.

C.S. Lewis, author of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), whose adventurers were four young evacuees from London, actually took child evacuees into his Oxford home during the war.  Perhaps they were the inspiration for the fascinating world of Narnia.

Just before war was declared, my family moved from Nottingham Street to the Liverpool suburbs of Knotty Ash.  Our own experience with evacuees came when Hitler launched his massive air blitz on Liverpool on Thursday, May 1st, 1941.

That began a week of “the terror by night” (Psalm 91:5) with nearly 500 Luftwaffe bombers that left our city a blazing mass of rubble, with over 1,500 people killed and more than 50,000 left homeless.  It also left us with countless stories of heroism and courage in the spirit of a patriotic people who knew God was on our side.  The radio voice of our leader, Winston Churchill, was our valiant encourager.

May 3rd, Saturday night’s blitz, left us with a city that looked like Dante’s Inferno!  Sunday morning brought timid knocks to our front door.  Three children from our old neighborhood stood there.  “Please, Mrs. Ainsborough, our mother sent us to ask if we could stay with you. We’ve been bombed out and living in an air raid shelter.”   My Mother immediately brought the rest of the family to our house, along with other neighbors from the demolished  Nottingham Street.  Our house was bulging at the seams.

By now, my youthful spirit of curiosity drew me into the heart of the still blazing, devastated city.  Our wonderful museum was gutted, which meant the delightful Sammie the Seal was gone, too.  It was a Sunday I’ll never forget.  To make matters worse, it started to rain, and, with no transport, I had miles to walk back home.

There were long columns of bombed out people walking, obviously heading for safer areas before nightfall’s expected raid.  Then I noticed an elderly woman walking alone.  I decided I would walk with her and carry her brown paper parcel.  As she handed it to me, I dropped it in the wet rubble.  It burst open – and there lay spare ribs in the ashes.  Spare Ribs!  An absolute luxury with rations at four ounces of meat a week!

“I’m very, very sorry,” I said tearfully.  She just smiled and said, “They’re just spare ribs, love.  It’s alright.  Last night, I lost eleven of my family – children and grandchildren.  These are just spare ribs.”  We left them in the ashes, just as an American truck pulled up, loaded with evacuees, but with room enough for the wise grandmother and me.

(That phrase, “It’s just spare ribs,” became a stock answer in the Decker household when lamenting something that is not valuable compared to the bigger things of life).

Thanks to the friendly G.I’s, I got home before dark, thankful that I was hardly missed in the fluster of new sleeping arrangements for fourteen extra people in a three-bedroom home!  I was told I could sleep in the bath tub!  I did, for the six-week emergency measures – and there was no wardrobe closet to escape into Narnia!

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Attention: Late Breaking News!
(and the reason my latest blog is late)

After writing that last paragraph, I accidentally punctured a vein in my right ankle.  In a matter of minutes I lost over a pint of blood. I called my son, Kevin, who came racing, but before I became unconscious and the ambulance came, I gave him these first aid instructions:

“Cover a large sterile gauze pad with a thin layer of honey; sprinkle a generous amount of turmeric powder (a common kitchen spice) over the pad; then apply it to the foot and wrap it firmly with a four-inch-wide gauze bandage.  (Yes, I keep all such items on hand.)

The turmeric stopped the bleeding immediately!  Having survived the Liverpool Blitz, I didn’t want to bleed to death in the middle of a Christian Mother Goose Blog!  Our physician, Dr. Collins, says I’ll regain the lost blood in about ten days.

I learned this useful turmeric tip from butchers who occasionally sustain serious cuts in butchering, and I pass it on to you friends.  So, please forgive the late posting of this blog.

Now, in another “vein”…recently, a well-educated chap told me he was listening to the radio and heard an old tape of a man speaking whose voice and inspiring words held him spellbound.  He had no idea who that speaker was until he heard: “You have been listening to WWII Winston Churchill speaking.”

This brief encounter sadly revealed a generation’s ignorance of history.  Surely, in that man’s twenty years of schooling, Churchill’s immortal words would have been studied.  Words that held Britain together in her “darkest, yet finest hour,” till God brought us victory!

In America’s schools, what else are we obliterating, leaving our young generation woefully ignorant of the courage, sacrifice, and Godly foundations of this Christian country?  The country who gave rise to its freedom with the cry, “We the People!”

I thank God for our Christian Home School Moms and Dads, and Christian schools who are keeping the torch of America’s true Godly heritage alive, as they trace it from Genesis One to “…One Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

Be encouraged, Jesus said, “…Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”  Psalm 91 still stands!

Be sure to say an encouraging word to those you love TODAY!

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Christian Mother Goose®

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