Finding the Restaurant

 One day this last week, I was sitting with the grandkids looking through an old photo album. Soon we came across a picture of their parents (son Nathan and wife Kylie) sitting and smiling, at what appeared to be a Japanese Restaurant.  When they asked about it, I laughed and told them the story that goes with it..

It began when Nathan was about six years old. Along with his older brother, Trevor, we were vacationing in the beautiful mountains west of Tokyo.  We came across a particularly lovely hotel/restaurant about 5 miles across the lake from where we spent many a memorable summer, and even much later, two whole years leading up to and during the 1998 Winter Olympics. But back to the story.  We ordered breakfast and I said with a sigh of contentment,

“Ah, boys, someday you’ll bring your brides here!”

That’s when I realised the underlying stress my little Nathan was under.  He was the only foreigner in the Japanese school near our home, and I realize now that being bilingual and having lots of friends wasn’t enough to give him true “local” status. Instead of smiling along with his brother at this acknowledgment of impending maturity, where he’d have a bride to show around, he dropped his head into his hands and, looking up to us, cried, “I don’t know how to get here!”

I had to laugh when I read from John 14 this morning. Jesus had just pronounced some of the most comforting words in the Bible. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. And if I go to prepare a place, I will come back and take you to be with me ….. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Dear Thomas speaks up in a future echo of Nathan’s own fears: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (John 14:5-6)

I’m going to guess here that Thomas was also carrying a heavy load of anxiety.  Just read back a few chapters and it’s not hard to imagine. Maybe Thomas’s fragile heart wasn’t too evident until he made this comment.  Fortunately, his fears were put to rest; and I’m happy to add that Nathan also experienced a happy ending.

Twenty years after that fretful time, Nathan was able, without anything more than a sturdy car and a GPS, to bring his bride back to that lovely restaurant, a personal fulfilment of my prophecy. 

We live in uncertain times, that’s for sure.  When we do decide to watch or read the news, we don’t feel better.  We feel lost.  We feel unable to figure out how we’re going to find that celebratory restaurant or that elusive dream or that pathway to peace…….. But we can rest in the promise that Jesus HAS gone before us and prepared a place for us, and we WILL know how to get there when the time is right. 

This morning we attended the dedication of our littlest grandchild, Jeremiah Nathan.  Of course it couldn’t have been any sweeter than to see two parents, aunt, uncle, cousins and four grandparents all together with the church, praying that this precious baby will know a life of peace and joy, purpose and fulfilment. We hope that Jeremiah will never experience stress, but when he does, we know that he will never be far from the One Who gave him life, and a great family and an even greater future.

Bless all of us and give us courage, 

Marsha