Happy Birthday Queen Fern… to a Woman that Gives

Misty Hollow Carving
This BLOG is sponsored by “Misty Hollow Carving”. You are welcome to visit Misty Hollow and see all of my carvings.

My Web Site is a like a Gallery – please drop in for a stroll through.

To help me promote my Web Site please copy this URL address and email to someone today http://www.murraylincoln.com/

* * * * * * * *
Today’s Blog Post

Happy Birthday Queen Fern… to a Woman that Gives
On this past Thursday evening we joined others in Kingston to honour a special lady – that is a “Queen” – an amazing Queen in her own right and realm.

Now the Queen of the British Empire known as ‘Elizabeth’ has nothing on Fern. Queen Fern’s influence goes way beyond what Elizabeth has ever done. I know. She is a special person that has made a big difference in my life. This posting is to honour her and tell a little more the hidden story behind the scenes. The story of Queen Fern.

In 1967 my new bride Alida and I moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick to begin our new adventure in the Maritimes. We had traveled to the Maritimes on our Honeymoon(September 1967) thinking that we might be transferred back to the West of Canada where we had come to. But instead I was transferred to Fredericton to take leadership in a Business Machine Office that served all the St. John River Valley from Fredericton to Quebec’s border.

I walked into a Department Store in downtown Fredericton to service a cash register. The cashier was a young lady that was very happy and bright. She was easy to talk to. I came back a few calls after that as the machine needed more service.

That young lady was Princess Fern. Not really a Princess but she is in my story today. She was instead a Bible College Graduate who was working in this Department Store to support herself while she was fulfilling her main reason for being there – working as an assistant pastor/worker in the local Pentecostal Church with Rev Clair Mullen, the pastor.

Fern was bright and sharp. It was fun talking with her… until I found out she was one of “those” kind of people. A Bible Person… yikes! A Bible Thumper… oh no! This was the last kind of person that I ever wanted to meet again. I hated these kind of people… well maybe “hated” is too strong. I just wanted nothing to do with them. I had watched their kind in the church that I grew up in way back in Regina… and they had turned me off completely… and I ran as far from them as I could get.

My running away kind of got me messed up with some not so good stuff that had a toll on my life and being. I am not proud of what I had done but no one knew. I could act out whatever they wanted me to be… anything was possible… just not the stupid Bible Thumper Thing. That was one thing I refused to be! I wanted nothing to do with those weirdoes!

Fern seemed so nice. Not like the other freaks that I had witnessed in church. She was friendly and even kind.

The story is too long to tell all…but we ended up starting to attend the little church. My wife was pregnant and I knew that a new young family, especially one with a child, should go to church. This church was not weird like the one that I had attended… not critical…not fighting… not doing the stupid stuff that the one that I had known earlier in my life.

Fern was involved and was the pianist for the church services. That was cool! She also introduced us to some neat, down home kind of Maritimers that were sometimes odd – but always were happy.

The little church grew on me… but I would have nothing to do with the religious baloney that was talked about. No matter how happy they were, how open they were… or how accepting – I didn’t want it. That stuff that was talked about was like the old church that I had come from – those people talked about it but seldom lived it.

Do I sound like I was turned off? You better believe it I was – yet I still came back. These folks loved on us.

Behind the scenes something else was happening. Princess Fern was praying for Murray and Alida. She was reaching out to us no matter what. And to put it bluntly my world had some “matter whats” in it that Fern couldn’t understand or relate to. But she prayed for me… and showed us her love.

That happened between November 1967 and March 1969. In March 1969 my company moved me to Oakville, Ontario.

It was in Oakville that I met another group of people that picked up doing what Princess Fern was doing. They kept loving us. They started praying as well... taking over where Fern had left off.

Between March 1969 and September 1969 lots of stuff was happening inside of me. The rough edges and the attitudes were changing. I felt differently for some reason. Alida was pregnant with our next baby that was to arrive in early 1970.

The story is too long to tell it all here. I stopped running from the feelings and emotions inside. I stopped and considered God as something more than the one that drove those old people way back in those first churches. I watched them act so weird and so unloving. I realized that He didn’t like what they were doing any more than I did. He was just as disgusted with them as I was.

I accepted God’s Son as my Saviour and it all started to make sense. I had a Royal Encounter with the King of Kings. “Whoah! That is too weird for me!” some of you have just said. Sorry I don’t know any other way to tell it.

For years of growing up I saw STUPID people act in really STUPID ways. Now I saw the reality of what love was all about. I saw how it all started with people like Princess Fern praying for me… it all made sense. What a plan was being hatched all around me! What a plan!

On this past Thursday night I stood in the Deny’s Restaurant to Bless Queen Fern. Queen? You see that is what happens to Princesses after years of faithful service to the folk that they have encountered over all the years.

Princess Fern went on to marry King Les Bath. Everyone knew him as “Pastor Bath”. King Les’ wife had passed away. He found Princess Fern and married her…making her his Queen. King Less had a sparkling family of very much alive kids! Queen Fern moved in and loved them with all her heart.

King Les and Queen Fern had a son of their own… Prince Timothy… who was the prime mover and shaker behind his Mom’s surprise birthday party last Thursday night.

Hey – I love a great story like this. And I specially love it in that I was one of the people long, long ago that the Princess had been kind to… and given her very best… to one really STUPID JOKER that came into her world. She loved him even though he was so far away from knowing anything about the goodness she knew so well.

Queen Fern cried when I told the story and I chocked back the tears as well. All because one person loved me enough to show that love and make a difference.

The Rest is History…
That was a long time ago. I was transformed and everything became new. I felt a deep call from the King of Kings to become something very different from what I was. Changes happened – lots of them.

The changes were so radical that in 1994 I was invited to become the Minister in the church that I hated the most as a Young, Stupid, Joker in the court. The same people were still there and many of them still had the same attitudes. Some of them still liked a good fight and tried to get me to get involved doing it all over again. But I was different than before. Before I would have taken their heads off with my words. Instead I simply prayed for them… like Princess Fern did…

Instead of fighting back, the King that I was serving helped me to love them. I needed a lot of help from him.

It took the King 25 years to get me ready for the last place that I was to serve in – Northview Pentecostal Church in Peterborough. From the minute that we arrived I could see why I was called. Some of the “dear people” in this church loved to fight and complain just like the church that I had run from earlier in my life. Some of these folks were classic examples of what not to be… but what better person was there to love them than some one who had been from of them… and came out of that CRAP.

And one by one… the King brought more people that were just like me into the church. No not just like me…but from similar… turned off and tuned out from the stupidity that we all once saw. And together we are growing in Grace.

Queen Fern… you are partly responsible… you started it all… one prayer and then another… mixed with a whole lot of love… and stuff happens! Real stuff… not the other. Thanks!

~ Murray Lincoln ~
http://www.murraylincoln.com/