I’ve heard this sentiment time and time again in today's covid 19 era: “Well, sure, our safety’s in the hands of a sovereign God, but He doesn’t want us to take stupid chances.”
 
A masked friend said something like this to me just the other day. And if I hadn’t been biting my tongue, I would have told her, “Rubbish!”
 
The reason? I’d just finished reading The Story of John G. Paton, or Thirty Years among South Sea Cannibals (Compass Circle, 2019, originally published around 1892).  
 
Born in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1824 and raised by devout parents in the Reformed Presbyterian church, John G. Paton became a passionate homeland evangelist in his youth. Then, as a young man, he was introduced to the pioneering missionary work of the Rev. John Inglis in the New Hebrides–a South Pacific archipelago now known as Vanuatu, with at least some of its islands once famously populated by tribes of cannibals.  
 
Paton spent most of his adult life on two islands there, first Tanna and then Aniwa. In spite of disheartening disease and deprivation, terrifying attacks by violent and well-armed locals, and many narrow escapes from death, he managed to learn the native languages, to translate key parts of the Bible into these tongues, to teach many to read, and ultimately to lead many to the Lord.
 
Heartily recommended to our Bible study group by our favorite church historian Dr. David Saxon and his wife Jamie, The Story of John G. Paton is a remarkable book on many levels.
 
Most superficially, it’s astoundingly well-written—not at all what I expected from a 19th Century missionary whose only formal training appears to have been as a manufacturer of stockings. What’s more, it wasn’t at all graphic on the subject of cannibalism; thankfully, he left that abomination to the reader’s imagination.
 
Far more important, this missionary demonstrated beautifully how to live out Jesus’ instructions for the Christian walk: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23, NKJV). Paton’s passion was bringing these bloodthirsty pagans to Christ, whatever the personal cost; and indeed, by the end of his ministry, it was said that the entire island of Aniwa had claimed Jesus as Savior.
 
Through countless trials, Paton exhibited a level of agape love, patience and courage that could only have come from the indwelling Holy Spirit. It was his love of all men that attracted so many once-hostile natives, and his unrelenting patience and courage that allowed him to stay the course through personal tragedy and devastating illness.

How grateful I am that he lived to write about it all: What joy there is to read about the lives of these men and women as they became new creatures in Christ! 
 
Some of Paton’s difficulties have been experienced by many missionaries over the centuries, and continue to this day for the bravest. Just consider such fundamental challenges as learning an unwritten language, transforming it into the written word and translating such foreign concepts as salvation and sanctification to people whose theologies revolved around hatred, revenge and fear.
 
But what fascinated me most about this story was Paton’s fearlessness in the face of circumstances that would have sent most of us packing. His explanation? “As I had only once to die, I was content to leave the time and place and means in the hand of God.”
 
Once, when a group of tribes had banded together for a great feast and decided to include Paton and his early converts among their victims, the Christians locked themselves in the mission house. For many hours, they listened to the rampaging natives tramping about the premises, whispering to each other, listening at window and door.
 
Terrifying? No doubt. But as Paton wrote, “Our safety lay in our appeal to that blessed Lord who had placed us there … He that was with us was more than all that could be against us. This is strength; this is peace: to feel, in entering on every day, that all its duties and trials have been committed to the Lord Jesus, that, come what may, He will use us for His glory and our own real good!”
 
And more: “All through that dreadful morning, and far into the afternoon, we thus abode together, feeling conscious that we were united to this dear Lord Jesus; and we had sweet communion with Him, meditating on the wonders of His person and the hopes and glories of His kingdom. Oh, that all my readers may learn something of this in their own experience of the Lord! I can wish them nothing more precious.”
 
I think John G. Paton would have been perplexed by the timidity of today’s followers of Jesus Christ.  He took plenty of “stupid chances,” after all; what could be more reckless than planting yourself amidst tribes of men and women who would have enjoyed nothing more than executing, cooking and feasting on you?
 
As it turned out, Paton was perfectly justified in entrusting his life solely to the Lord. After completing his earthly duties, he died in the oh-so-civilized world of Australia at age 82.
 
His message to us?
 
“Reader, in your life, as in mine, one last Chapter still awaits us. By His grace, who has sustained me from childhood till now, I would work out that Chapter, and live through these closing scenes. With this book still open before you, I implore you to go alone before your blessed Saviour, and pledge yourself so to live, and so to die, in the service and fellowship of the Lord Jesus, that you and I, who have companied with each other through these pages, may meet again and renew our happy intercourse in our FATHER’S HOUSE.”
 
I can’t wait to meet this most inspiring brother in Christ. In the meantime, I join the Saxons in wholeheartedly recommending his autobiography.

Here we go again: ​a recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that any amount of running will reduce your risk of death from every cause imaginable, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. “Even small ‘doses’ of running appeared to improve health and longevity,” the researchers gushed.
 
This would seem to at least partially confirm the findings of  a 12-year Danish study of 1000 healthy joggers, published in 2015. "A light jog a few times a week may help you live longer,” said the Danish researchers. But don’t go crazy, they warned: “Those who jogged strenuously were just as likely to die during the study period as those who were sedentary."

So the latest scientific knowledge returns once again to recommending moderation in all things. But never fear: A year or decade from now, there'll no doubt be another study reserving long life to high-speed, pavement-pounding marathoners.  

What's missing from the ever-changing brilliance of modern secular science? Just this singular fact, noted by King David 3000 years ago: "And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them" (Psalm 139:16b).

This is why secular science's most heartfelt solutions for extending our longevity are doomed to fail. The truth is that we each have a divinely scheduled appointment with death. And nothing can possibly change it -- not even all the medications or diets or exercise regimens the world can possibly dream up.

But here's the best news: You will live forever. The only question is where you'll spend it. 

So if you haven't done so already, why not take some time today to plan your destination for all eternity?  

I recently got the news that an old friend of mine had died. It’s all over: We will never again hear her infectious laughter, ponder her commentaries on the passing political scene, wonder anew at her boundless energy and determination to make the world a better place. Nor will we ever again sorrow over her earthly sufferings, or her growing bitterness.
 
Her friends are left to wonder: Does she still exist out there, somwhere? If so, where? Is she perhaps living in eternal glory, or eternal punishment?
 
I had not seen this friend for quite some time. She had no interest in seeing me, truth be told. Guess it was because I tried, timidly and stumblingly, to tell her about the happily-ever-after joy that is freely available to anyone who repents of his sin, and trusts in Jesus to have paid for that sin on the cross. And tried to tell her how I know that these things are true, absolutely and eternally. 
 
Unfortunately, she was not happy to hear what I had to say. She was in fact furious. Her face was red and her language blue as she stormed out of the restaurant where we’d met for lunch, leaving me with the bill and that sick feeling that I’d said it all wrong, that if only I’d approached it this way or that, we’d still be sitting there, having a wonderful conversation about the afterlife that the Lord has promised.
 
Now she knows the truth, one way or the other.
 
It’s possible that she received Christ before she died. Maybe a genuine believer sat down with her at the hospice—a nurse or a chaplain or the neighbor in the next room. And maybe she was finally frightened enough to listen, to grasp at mankind’s only hope, to heed the call of the “forever” that God has written on our hearts, according to Ecclesiastes 3:11. 
 
But I am left to wonder once again why so many of us are so stubborn about considering eternity while there is still time—and to do so before we become so bitter about life’s hardships that we can't see beyond our personal pain and disappointments.
 
Why do we spend countless hours planning our earthly endeavors, from vacations to careers, families to retirements, and yet refuse to investigate the great questions of eternity? How can we be so blind to what really matters?
 
I know that some of us have come to our own conclusions on this subject by thinking long and hard, or believing what someone we admire has said about it, or simply deciding that no one can possibly know what comes next, so all we can do is hope for the best.
 
Stop!
 
There is a source of authority that is demonstrably true, a volume containing detailed scientific and prophetic information that its authors could not have even imagined apart from supernatural intervention. It’s a divinely inspired work delivering a single cohesive message—this in spite of the fact that it was written over the course of 2000 years by ~40 different authors from all walks of life, from glorious kings to lowly shepherds.
 
That source of authority is, of course, the Bible.
 
Why do so many of us refuse to at least investigate its reliability, its promises, and its warnings, when it’s eternity that’s at stake?
 
Why do we let ourselves get so wrapped up in the things of the next 10 or 25 or 50 years that we have no time left to plan our forevers?
 
Please—if you have yet to receive Jesus Christ, don’t wait another day. Repent and trust in Him now, before it’s too late. 

The other day, in combing through a 50-year-old stash of letters in search of a particular missive, I came across a poem typed on a frail, yellowing page.
 
Entitled “The Christian’s Goodnight,” it had clearly been turned out on my mother’s 1938 Smith-Corona manual typewriter. (Is it odd that I’d recognize her typing anywhere?)
 
Wondering if my mom had composed the words herself, I did some research and learned that no, it had apparently been written 150 years ago by a Christian named Sarah Doudney; she had published it in 1871 in a book entitled Psalms of Life. I learned, too, that a number of slightly different versions exist today – including versions set to music attributed to an F.A. and J.E. Sankey.  
 
A few things about this poem are fairly certain: “The Christian’s Goodnight” has been sung at funerals from the Bahamas to Yorkshire, including the funeral of Charles “the prince of preachers” Spurgeon. It is said to be used as a “lowering down” song in some areas, as the casket is being placed in the grave.
 
But even these details are a bit muddled. One commentator called the hymn’s origins and history “tangled,” saying it deserved in-depth investigation.
 
I suppose those details matter less than the message of these lovely (and very biblical) words. Its lyrics are bound to be tremendously encouraging to any Christian who has buried loved ones. After all, as Doudney wrote in introducing the poem in Psalms of Life, "The early Christians were accustomed to bid their dying friends 'Good night!' so sure were they of awakening at the Resurrection morning." And we modern Christians are no less certain of many joyful reunions and happily ever afters.
 
I hope you enjoy these lines as much as I do.
 
The Christian's Goodnight
 
Sleep on, beloved, sleep, and take thy rest;
Lay down thy head upon the Savior’s breast;
We loved thee well, but Jesus loves thee best
Good night! Good night! Good night!
 
Calm is thy slumber as an infant’s sleep;
But thou shall wake no more to toil and weep;
Thine is a perfect rest, secure and deep
Good night! Good night! Good night!
 
Until the shadows from this earth are cast,
Until He gathers in His sheaves at last;
Until the twilight gloom be over past
Good night! Good night! Good night!
 
Until the Easter glory lights the skies,
Until the dead in Jesus shall arise,
And He shall come, but not in lowly guise
Good night! Good night! Good night!
 
Until, made beautiful by love divine,
Thou, in the likeness of thy Lord shall shine,
And He shall bring that golden crown of thine
Good night! Good night! Good night!
 
Only Good night, beloved, not farewell!
A little while, and all His saints shall dwell
In hallowed unison indivisible
Good night! Good night! Good night!
 
Until we meet again before His throne,
Clothed in the spotless robe He gives His own,
Until we know even as we are known
Good night!  Good night!  Good night! 

I was reminded recently, as I wrote 750 words about my journey to Jesus for an upcoming anthology of Christian testimonials, what a huge role science played in that journey. Perhaps you count a feminist atheist or two among your friends or family members. If so, you might appreciate a brief overview of some of the key evidences that helped this child of God see the light.

So here for your reading pleasure is an excerpt on that subject from my memoir Heaven Without Her. It's not short, but then we can't capture a scientist's attention with a few high-level claims; for them, the proof's in the details.

***
It was a Friday afternoon in late autumn, 2003. A girlfriend I’ll call Anne and I had played hooky to get in one more round of golf before the weather turned. We’d already lost several balls amidst all the falling leaves, and if we got too close to the garbage containers the bees swarmed us. But the course – Western Lakes, one of my favorites – wasn’t all that busy and we’d been allowed to go out alone.  Besides, it was a heartbreakingly perfect Indian summer day; the warm, moist air bore just a hint of the chill that was to come, a hint that transported me back to childhood anticipation of Thanksgiving and Christmas and endless joy.

We were on the tenth tee box when Anne made a shocking statement.

“So you’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a supreme being,” she said.

“Why, yes, I have,” I said. “An Intelligent Designer, aka God.” I was blown away that this topic had been broached by a woman whose scientific education and life’s work had left her hostile to anything smacking of religion.

She busied herself with a few practice swings.

“There are only two explanations for our origins,” I added, unable to bear her silence. “A God or time plus chance, as in evolution. I studied it, and I’m certain the answer is a God.”

“Prove it.”

Prove it? Atheist Anne was interested in hearing evidence for God? I was thrilled; I wanted nothing more than to tell her about the incredible truths I had discovered.

“You want the five-minute tour or an hour-long lecture?”

“Puh-leeze,” she said, teeing up her ball.   “I listened to enough lectures in school. Just give me the CliffsNotes version.”

She hit her shot an impossible distance, maybe a couple hundred yards. Even though it had sailed a bit right on her, into the fringe, it would take me at least two shots to catch up.

“Five-minute version, coming right up,” I said, teeing up my Golden Girl and hitting it about 100 yards, straight down the middle. I used the moments of silence to quickly rifle through the “science” files in my head. By that time, I’d collected overwhelming proof against evolution theory, having listened to scores of lectures and read more than a dozen books on the subject.  I could tell her with a fair amount of confidence about the origins implications of everything from genetics and geological formations to paleontology and sedimentology.

But Anne was a big-corporation manager who based her decisions on high-level information, not details; I needed to pick just a few of the points that would be most eye-popping to her.

Ah, here, filed under “M” not far from “magnificent…”

“First, mutations,” I said, climbing into the cart as she stomped on the accelerator. “Mutations that actually add to a creature’s genetic information. Evolution can’t function without them.”

“True enough,” she said.

“They don’t exist. Name one.”

“Come on, that’s not my field. You should ask an expert. Hit your ball.”

I climbed out of the cart and slapped it with my 7 wood, the only fairway wood I seemed to be able to hit more than 15 feet. My Golden Girl formed a perfect little arc and landed another 100 yards closer to the green. It sat prettily in the middle of the fairway to the left of Anne’s tee shot.

“Cart golf,” I said, jumping back in. “I did ask an expert. I emailed the head of the federal government’s human genome project and asked him for one example of a positive, additive genetic mutation.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t have an answer for me.”

She used her 8 iron to loft her ball onto the green; amazingly, I achieved the same result with my trusty 7 wood.

“Did he answer you at all?”

“Immediately. He said people with sickle cell anemia don’t tend to get malaria.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Not quite,” I said. “It may be positive for the person with sickle cell anemia, of course, but it’s not an additive mutation. It doesn’t add anything to the DNA, which is what would be required if, for instance, a dinosaur were to sprout wing stubs on its species’ way to becoming a bird.”

She shrugged. “Then if that was the best this guy could do – well, he’s probably just an administrator.”

“M.D. and Ph.D. He’s a chemist and a geneticist.”

She shrugged again and headed for the green with her putter.

We finished out the hole (she with a par, me with a double bogie) and headed to the next hole. A foursome was just teeing off, and from the first one’s pathetic drive, it looked like we might have a long wait before we could tee off.

“Okay, I’ll grant you that makes some sense,” Anne said, picking up the conversation where we’d left it at the 10th green. “Strike one against evolution. What else have you got?”

The second golfer had teed up by that time, buying me a few moments of silence to return to my mental file cabinet. “Irrefutable” was the word that popped into my head – and indeed, there was my answer right next to it, straight out of biochemist Michael Behe’s mind-blowing book Darwin’s Black Box.

“Irreducible complexity,” I said as soon as the golfer had connected with her ball, sending it out a good 25 yards from the tee box.  I had no idea if Dr. Behe’s line of thought would impress Anne, but his book had blown me away. “The fact that biological systems are too complex to have been formed through bunches of tiny little modifications.”

“Too complex? Or too complex for you and these authors you’re reading?”

“Too complex period,” I said, praying for the wisdom to capture this subject in a few sentences.  Her question reflected evolutionists’ portrayal of Intelligent Design advocates as too dumb to understand, and too cowardly to even try. “The book I read on this was written by a biochemist, so I’d say he understood the subject pretty well.”

“Geez, we’re going to be here forever,” Anne said, waving her gloved hand towards the tee box, where a golfer in bright aqua shorts had just completed her second total whiff of the ball.

“We could ask if they’d let us play through,” I said, wishing they’d take notice of their pokiness and wave us through without being asked.

“That’s okay.  We’re not in any hurry, are we?”

“Not me,” I said, popping open the Diet Pepsi I’d picked up at the turn and taking a good swig. “So – irreducible complexity. Consider, if you will, the lowly mousetrap. Platform, hammer, spring, catch, and a holding bar.”

She rolled her eyes at me and smiled wickedly. “You don’t think it’s odd that you know the parts of a mousetrap? You, who would do anything to avoid ever having to touch one?”

I had to laugh. “But reading about it isn’t so bad. Anyway, it has these five parts. It can’t function without all five of them.”

She thought for a moment. “Right – I can see that.”

“That makes it an irreducibly complex system. If it were a living system, it could not have evolved component by component. Without all of these interdependent parts in place, none of them would’ve functioned, and none would have survived the natural selection process. Make sense?”

Anne considered this for a few ticks and nodded. “Okay. I can buy that.”

I took a deep breath. I’d always been afraid of Anne; she’s one of these very frank people who thinks it’s her duty to tell you if you’re being an idiot, and I don’t usually appreciate hearing that.  Besides, I’ve never been articulate, and this aging brain of mine is beginning to betray me now and then. A potentially lethal combination for someone intent on making a mission-critical point, as we say in the ad biz.

But I could hardly quit now.

“Well, what Dr. Behe did,” I said, “was show how human systems are irreducibly complex and so could not have evolved. He described a handful of them in some detail – blood coagulation, cell operation, and the immune system, for instance. He showed how these things could not have come about by gradual evolution of interdependent parts, and how they had to have been designed as complete systems from the start.”

Anne was watching the fourth golfer tee off. It looked like she was lost in space. She wasn’t, though; I knew she was thinking about what I’d said.

“Eyes,” she said. “I’ve heard that argument applied to eyes. Something about some ancient fossil having incredibly complex eyes.”

I tried not to show my surprise that she’d paid a lick of attention to this sort of information.

“I’ve read that, too,” I said. “Trilobites, maybe? Something like that, anyway. If evolutionists are to be believed, they were among the earliest creatures and went extinct hundreds of millions of years ago – yet they had these amazingly complex, multi-lensed eyes that let them see underwater without any distortion.”

“Yes, I think that was it, and there’s no evidence of precursors.” She was putty in my hands, it seemed – except apparently she couldn’t quite leave what she’d always been taught: “That they’ve found so far, at least.”

It was finally time to tee off, and the slow foursome ahead of us stood back to let us play through. Whereupon we both duffed our drives, which led to friendly laughter and chatter all around as we worked our way down the fairway.

I decided to let the subject of origins ride for the duration. Like most of my friends, Anne already thought I’d gone off the deep end on this God thing, and I wanted to prove I was still a real person interested in the real world. We chatted about work and vacations, clothes and movies.

But she brought it up again as we approached the Par 3 17th hole.

“So you don’t deny natural selection,” she said out of the blue, surprising me again.

“Not at all,” I said. Were we really having this conversation? “It happens; it’s like a manufacturer’s quality control system, except it occurs without man’s intervention. It happens artificially, too, which is why there are hundreds of breeds of dogs today. Certain genetic traits are kept, others are bred out.”

“I thought creationists – that’s what you are, right? -- I thought creationists denied that sort of evolution fundamental.” She parked the cart and marched over to the tee box, squinting at the flag just 112 yards away.

“I’m pretty sure it predates Darwin,” I said, smiling at the understatement. “In fact, the first book in the Bible – Genesis – records artificial selection in some sort of livestock.”

She looked back at me, her eyebrows raised in surprise. 

“Really, it does,” I said, aware that I was in danger of drifting. “It’s what they call ‘microevolution.’ Whereas when evolutionists say we evolved from slime, they’re actually talking about macroevolution – that’s what creationists deny. It’s bait and switch – they use real-life examples to get you to agree to microevolution, then say that it explains macroevolution. Pretty deceptive, if you ask me.”

I re-focused my thoughts on the main point of today’s discussion: showing Anne there’s good reason for believing that this universe is the work of an Intelligent Designer in general; I’d save the God-of-the-Bible evidence for another day. 

“But the point is that natural selection describes the survival of the fittest,” I said, grateful to whoever had come up with this easy-to-remember way of explaining a critical distinction. “It can’t describe the arrival of the fittest. It isn’t a creative process.”

She teed off then, using an iron. Her ball landed about an inch from the hole, causing a group of grounds workers who’d gathered on the last green to erupt in cheers.

--Heaven Without Her, pages 114-121

I seem to be running into an awful lot of Fake Christians these days -- those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ but whose words make it clear that they don't believe a thing He said about Himself. 
 
Have you, too, noticed an uptick in this phenomenon? Or maybe it has simply become easier to identify these pretenders in recent years.  All you have to do is take the biblical stand on a current controversy and wait. Almost invariably, the Fake Christian will tell you how judgmental you are and how warped your idea of God is.
 
Never mind that your source of authority is the Bible itself, which is demonstrably the word of God. If you oppose abortion, or warn against behaviors that He calls an abomination, or suggest that salvation requires repenting of what He says is sin and trusting in Christ to have paid its penalty in full, the Fake Christian will be all over you.
 
“I am a Christian,” he or she will insist with the pride that God says He hates, “and He told me that there are many ways to heaven, and that He loves all His children no matter what they do or believe because He made them the way they are!” Included in this universalist hug-a-thon are the practically pagan, who deny everything about Christ, from His deity to His atoning sacrifice -- because, hey, Christianity doesn't mean I have to actually believe that Jesus is who He allegedly claimed to be and did what He allegedly claimed to have done. How arrogant of you to even suggest it! 
 
I have yet to come up with an effective response to this sort of theology. I’ve tried simply sharing the Gospel. I’ve tried explaining how I know that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God. I’ve tried addressing the Fake Christian’s primary objections. I’ve even tried asking the last-resort question, “What if you’re wrong?”
 
To no avail, apparently. It seems that thinking you’ve heard directly from God trumps every other argument – even if “directly” really means via someone as widely admired as Oprah Winfrey or Joel Osteen. That’s particularly true if the Fake Christian holds to a relativistic view of the world, absolutely certain that “what’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me.” 
 
Perhaps the way to prepare for such situations is to spend some time with Living Waters University on youtube. Here, evangelist Ray Comfort demonstrates how to persuade unbelievers (including Fake Christians) of their sinfulness and impending judgment before a holy God -- and then explain why the cross is their only hope. Such an argument will normally be rejected, but not always. And perhaps we will have planted a seed or two that will be watered by the next believer and will ultimately germinate in the light of some crushing life circumstance.
 
Sadly, these days our world is jam-packed with Fake Christians who detest everything we stand for. But Jesus told us how to treat them: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44-45a).
 
And that means telling them the truth about the Gospel, whatever the cost. If we love them, it’s the least we can do.

​My friend Shannon Chesebro recently shared a lovely story of God’s love with me--a story demonstrating that His eye is not only on the sparrow and on each of His children, but also on the least of His creatures. I asked Shan if I could in turn share it with you, dear readers, and she kindly agreed. Hope you enjoy her report as much as I did!

 
While working at a neighbor’s barn one day in April, our 12-year-old son, Johnny, navigated around a bunch of newborn kittens and their moms.  As he worked, he started to hear a plaintive cry in the corner near the hay, far away from where all the other cats were.  As the meowing continued, he ventured closer and found one tiny white ball alone, one eye matted shut, the other just a slit.  By the time he completed his chores, the kitten was still pitifully alone, barely moving.   
 
So naturally, he brought it home to our barn, where he tried to coax the little one to eat food and drink a saucer of milk he had sneaked out of the house.  He made multiple visits to the barn that day to try to persuade the kitten to eat.  In the evening, he pirated the kitten into the house and put it in his closet.  But by 10 pm, it was meowing again and Teddy, his roommate brother, suggested coming clean to my husband, Josh, and me.
         
Johnny’s confession rolled out with urgency. “I’ve been trying to feed him all day.  He won’t eat and he looks sick.  I’m sorry I hid him, but can you help me, please?”  We contacted the neighbor who “owned” the kitten. He estimated that it had been born around April 2, and was emphatic about its fate: “No, I don’t want it back. You want more?  We have kittens coming out our ears here!” 
 
We next called a friend who is a small animal vet. His advice? Feed kitten formula via an eye dropper and use cotton balls with warm water on its eyes.  Due to the virus, all the stores were already closed for the night, so we just tried to keep the kitten warm and gave it a little cow’s milk and prayed.  Josh figured out it was a she as we cleaned her off and snuggled her.  We doubted that she’d survive the night; nevertheless, the boys set an alarm and woke every hour until morning, coaxing her to eat each time.
         
When the sun rose, the kitten was still alive!  So we stocked up on supplies, consulted more with our vet friend via text and camped out on the kittenlady.com website.  Johnny was the one in charge of the kitten’s feedings, at first every 2 hours through the day and night.  He set his alarm and woke for every single night-time feeding with me just helping with the very first and very last shift of the day. 
         
That first night, the boys had named her Corona ten Boom, Corrie for short.  Throughout quarantine and the “safer at home” time, we have been reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.  Corrie, a godly woman who risked her own life to hide Jews in her home and work with the Dutch resistance in the Netherlands during World War II, is a hero to our whole family, so we all agreed we loved the name and thought it was super appropriate given our current situation.
 
Boy, did Corrie grow quickly!  By the time she was six weeks old, her eye had healed, she was putting on weight and she’d become super spunky. 
 
We have horses and chickens and barn cats, but other than a couple chinchillas who peacefully live in the basement storage room, no indoor pets.  Five years ago, when we moved to our ranch and kept our soon-to-be-barn cats in the house for a few months when they were just kittens, we discovered that Josh probably has a cat allergy.  But even as we started Corrie on solid food (a trigger for allergic reactions to cat dander, we hear) we noticed that he could cuddle her with little to no allergic reaction! It seems that Corrie is half-Siamese, and Siamese are apparently somewhat hypoallergenic. So a house cat she will remain.
 
But we quickly realized that we might not be able to give this active kitten all the stimulation she needs to grow up happy and healthy.  I started to consult cat-expert friends – should we get her a sibling?  Most everyone said yes.
         
So the hunt began.  We knew we wanted a female, an at least half-hypoallergenic cat, and a kitten who was similar in age to Corrie.
 
Unfortunately, hypoallergenic breeds or mixes were few and far between, and cost in the hundreds or even thousands. And we felt an urgency; we knew that the longer we waited the harder it might be for her to accept a sister.  She was very much our little furry princess, doted on by our entire family of seven.  So while I found a couple possible leads on families of just-born kittens that wouldn’t be able to leave their mom until July or August, I knew waiting that long probably wasn’t ideal.  I even considered going back to the neighbor’s barn for the one remaining Siamese-mix kitten, but I knew it would be wild and possibly diseased and that might not end well.
 
Finally, after two weeks of pursuing various dead-end leads, I found a kind man who lives three hours southeast of us and who breeds Manx (a semi-hypoallergenic breed).  He had two female kittens for sale for a semi-reasonable price, ready for adoption on June 9th.  We set up a video call to meet the kittens the following evening.  
         
Meanwhile, I had started to think about what to name Corrie’s sister cat.  Corrie’s name was just so perfect, we had to find something equally meaningful for these unique times as well as reflecting our spiritual values.  No doubt Covid is a popular pet name these days, but I didn’t think it would fly in a family so weary from the quarantine.  Besides, our little Corrie has a surname too. 
 
And there was the solution: We could give our new kitten the name of the human Corrie ten Boom’s sister – Betsie.  Betsie is just as much a hero to us as Corrie is.  (If you read The Hiding Place, you’ll understand why.)  Then it hit me: Betsie’s real name was Elizabeth. And I had a really sweet friend named Elizabeth, who had passed away on May 19th (you can read her sad but inspiring story here.) That could be the new kitten’s name – Elizabeth ten Boom, AKA Betsie.  My family all readily agreed that this was perfect.
         
The afternoon after I talked to the Manx breeder, a couple of my kids and I were getting ready to run errands when a friend texted me that a nearby cat shelter was hosting an open house that day.  Since the shelter was literally on the way to some of our errands, we decided to pay them a visit even though they probably wouldn’t have what we were looking for.
 
As I drove, I thought about how cute those Manx kittens were and what a long drive it would be to get one.  So I prayed out loud with my kids, “Lord, if there is a kitten at this place for us, make it really, really obvious.”
         
After praying, I looked at the clock on the dashboard.  Shoot, it was later than I thought, so I called Josh and told him it would be best if we just met at the shelter. Still, by the time we all got into the little fair, our assigned adoption counselor informed us that there were no more female Siamese or otherwise hypoallergenic kitten mixes available.  My heart sank.
 
Even so, as long as we were there, we let her take us around. Just as we were wrapping up our tour, still kitten-less, a car pulled up next to us. As the driver got out of her car, our tour guide was commenting about our hope of finding a Siamese girl kitten.
         
The driver, whose name turned out to be Mary, interrupted us. “You’re looking for a female Siamese kitten? I have one right here.  I just got back from getting her spayed and she’s ready for adoption!”  She opened the back door and gingerly slid out a travel cage. 

​ I noticed a tag on the cage.
 
“Does that say April 2nd?” I asked. “Is that her birthday?”
 
“Yup."
         
“And is that her name?”
         
“Oh yes, but you could change it, of course.”
 
Her name? You guessed it: Betsie. We had found Corrie’s sister!
                   
We quickly filled out the necessary paperwork, paid the shelter and, the next day, brought Betsie home, whereupon the kittens immediately fell in love with each other.
 
There are multiple morals to this story.
 
First, God often blesses His children with the sweetest gifts.  We wouldn’t have thought adopting a kitten during the coronavirus quarantine would be just the thing to calm and comfort our family.  Corrie has been such a gift! 
    
Second, God LOVES to tickle us by answering specific prayers.  “You wanted obvious.  How about a bit suspenseful and dramatic on top of obvious?” I could just hear Him chuckle.  
 
Third, God is sovereign.  He brought Mary to the adoption fair with Betsie at just the perfect time to meet us. He works His plans out, even when I’m running late.
 
Fourth, I believe God cares about all His creatures, even a couple of little kittens who weren’t born sisters but were so clearly meant for one another.
 
Finally, we will never forget the amazing story of our kittens’ human namesakes, Corrie and Betsie ten Boom, and believe God will use that story in our lives and the lives of people who meet and hear about our kittens. 
 
If you haven’t yet read The Hiding Place, you really must! You’ll find a free online pdf of the whole book right here.   

--Shannon Chesebro