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PUttjpki" Pa"ic' by Carine Goossen Last year, as a part of a trip with my youth group, my friend and I went to a farm for a hay ride. When we arrived we just talked and played in the barn, jumping into hay and having hay fights while we waited for the wagon. We finally climbed into the wagon and started through the woods. We were going pretty slowly, but it was still fun. We stopped at a pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins for Halloween weekend. My friend and I found the biggest pumpkins there. They were so big they were hard to hold. We were standing by the steps of the wagon and we heard, coming from behind us, all the other kids shouting "GO!" "Move it!/I "Hurry up!/I My friend was already sitting on the wagon with two huge pumpkins on her lap. As I stepped upon the wagon, with a crowd of screaming kids behind, the horses took off! There I stood, teetering on the step with two work horses taking off over the field, running as fast as they could. I sat down beside my friend, who was terrified. She clung to one oversized pumpkin - her other pumpkin had flown off the wagon and smashed. I dropped my pumpkin, turned and looked towards the horses. I saw that we were heading for a strawberry patch. If you've ever seen a strawberry patch you know how very bumpy it is. What should I do? The horses were totally out of control, running wildly toward the field. My friend was shaking and starting to cry. I started for the front of the wagon. Just then we hit a bump and I flew into the air and landed right on my bum. I got right back up and grabbed for the reins just as the wagon started to tip. I thought that the wagon was going to tip right over, but fortunately it didn't. I only caught one rein. I pulled as hard as I could and started yelling, "Whoa! Whoa!/I But because I was only holding one rein, the horses started going around in a circle. I looked back at my friend. She was as white as a ghost and shaking with fright. I pulled again, this time with both reins. The horses finally came to a halt. Boy, was I relieved! I went to my friend and sat down beside her and watched the youth leaders and other kids come running toward us with their hands waving and shouting to see if we were all right. We couldn't say a word. As they came closer; the T;ere I stood, teetering on the step with two work horses taking off over the field, running as fast as they could. ~ horses became spooked and took off again. They didn't go as fast, but it startled the two of us! I grabbed the reins and the horses stopped. Finally the driver got to the wagon and took over. When we jumped off, my friend was so terrified all she could manage to say was, "My pumpkin is gone!/I That was the most adventurous night of my life. When I got home I told my parents the whole long story. They laughed the whole night. When I think about it, I laugh too. But it was scary. My friend will never go on a hay ride or even step near a horse again. Those moments seemed like a lifetime but passed by in a second. I will never forget it. . . . . . . Carine Goossen is a lively, enthusiastic, involved 14-year-old who keeps her parents, Gareth and Gayle Goossen, and her two older brothers hopping to keep up with her. They live in Kitchener, Ontario, and attend the Kitchener ME Church. She is sought after as a babysitter by children and parents alike. 10 SOPHIA / WISDOM
~e b~st part .about ~ ~owmgupm Northern Ontario was summering at the lake. My parents owned a camp ("cottage" if you're from the east, "cabin" if you're a westerner) on one of the numerous freshwater lakes dotting the Canadian Shield. Summers here are short and glorious. As children, our summer holidays were spent swimming, hiking, boating, catching frogs and berry picking during the day and enjoying campfires at night. It was the best kind of education, where we absorbed lessons from nature daily through our senses and were rocked to sleep every night on a wave of pure peace, looking at the stars through our bedroom windows and listening to the wind in the trees. Many of those lessons I learned from my older brother, who later grew up to become a biologist, making a career from his fascination with the natural world. He showed me tadpoles developing the nubs that would grow into legs as they became frogs. He also showed me a sight I could have done happily without: a garter snake lying under the sauna, slowly swallowing a toad whole. One day he knelt in the wet sand at the shoreline and dug holes, pointing out to me how they spontaneously filled up with water. I was amazed to see how the water miraculously appeared, welling up into an empty space with no visible cause. I've been reminded of that natural miracle many times since. I've learned that in removing our treasures from us - people, dreams, possessions - God is trying to carve a space inside us to fill with himself. When it happens, we are usually so focused on our pain (and, let's admit it, our anger at God for letting it happen) that we can't see it as having any benefit. The more tightly we cling to our treasures, the more God is crowded out of our hearts and lives. I am the first person to react with anger and an outpouring of grief when life disappoints my expectations. Yet I have to admit that my character has been sweetened by those disappointments. I am more patient now, more sensitive to others than I used to be. More worthy goals and values have replaced earlier shallow, self-centred ones. I am able to understand and minister now to people in pain in a way I never could before. I am learning the wonderfully liberating news that my worth as a person is not dependent on my success or popularity. Best of all, with my props removed, I am forced to depend on God and discover the beauty of his loving heart in a way that previously was only theoretical, derived from books and sermons rather than personal experience. When the source of our joy is in family, friends, career and aspirations, our happiness is only as secure as fragile circumstances. However, when God is our centre, God's Spirit wells up in our empty places as a source that can never fail, even when our world is crumbling. When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well and said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again" (John 4:13, The Message), he was not just speaking of the physical water she came to draw, but of her history of relationships that had tragically failed to fill the emptiness in her heart. He wanted her to let go of her pitifully inadequate sources oflove and come to him for a love that would not run short or disappoint. Grief is real. Loss is real. God respects our pain and feels for us in our suffering. But the story doesn't end there. If we wait a bit and let God work, we will find ourselves filling up with treasures the world can't remove or destroy. ........................................... Marianne Jones lives with her husband and mother at One Island Lake near Thunder Bay. She attends Redwood Park Alliance Church in Thunder Bay. FALL J999 11
Page 1 and 2: SOPHIA W I S D 0 M Say to Wisdom, "
Page 3 and 4: ,a, couple of years ago, the editor
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Page 7 and 8: Seasons of Blessings by Olga Enns w
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Page 13 and 14: than I had given. I learned that in
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Page 17 and 18: crushed by fear of the harsh, criti
Page 19 and 20: The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Page 21 and 22: A Child Again by Lori J. Willms Neu
Page 23 and 24: !\VO Poems by Marianne Jones Pilgri

SOPHIA - Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches

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