Declaring God's Faithfulness

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17

Marvin writes: My years, up to age eighteen, I spent growing up on a Vermont dairy farm. I was son number three in a family of five sons and no daughters. My home life was stable despite the fact that my parents were un-equally yoked: my mother a devout Christian and my father for all of my years at home was a secular moralist. We lived, at least on the surface, by the Ten Commandments.

Schooling for me was eight years in a three-room public school where up until the mid-1950s we had Bible reading twice per day. High school was two years in a secular private boarding school (I was a commuter from home) and two years in a public school where I was a somewhat indifferent student. I attended a Bible Institute in New Brunswick Canada for one year, followed by four years at Houghton College where I immersed myself in studying Philosophy. I strayed far from the Lord in those years when I thought that I knew better than God or my family on how to run my life. I was wrong!

God did not let me go, and through the travail of a failed marriage and some extreme poverty – both physical and spiritual, I was reminded of Psalm 51 where I cried out in repentance that God would “not take His Holy Spirit from me.”

Over many subsequent years, I worked in the insurance industry and was mentored by faithful Christian friends, relatives and pastors, I can testify to God’s faithfulness. We came to Wellsville PCA due to a job change where my services as an insurance executive were in demand. Dorothy and I have been truly blessed by our move here. We have Godly neighbors, a devoted church family, and on-going learning about Jesus Christ our Lord, and the marvelous Gospel message that is preached here each week. I am humbled to have been called to service as a ruling elder in this congregation. Christ is indeed a great Savior for this great sinner.

Psalm 71: 16-17 –

‘O God, I have been taught by Thee

Ev’n from my days of youth;

And all the wonders Thou has done

I still declare as truth.’

Dorothy writes: These words from Psalm 71 sum up influences on my life, as I reflect on my parents and my growing up in a Scots-Irish Reformed Presbyterian home in Northern Ireland. My God has been faithful. My parents were faithful, and my church congregation faithful – teaching me from my youth and enabling me, through the work of the Spirit to come to faith and to be able to “declare as truth” those teachings. An old saying about the Scots is that they were brought up on “porridge and the Shorter Catechism.” I would add to that, the Psalms. Sunday (Sabbath) School classes consisted, to a large degree in memorization of Psalms (in Scottish Metrical version), other portions of scripture, and The Shorter Catechism!! What a rich, rich spiritual heritage! I can say in the words of Psalm 16: 6 -

“Unto me, happily, the lines

In pleasant places fell,

Yea, the inheritance I got

In beauty doth excel.”

Financial and home circumstances (the seventh of nine children), the Lord’s leading, and my education, led me to a career in Secretarial work for fourteen years. This was followed by four years in college, a teaching degree, and four years of teaching in Northern Ireland. Again, as I saw it, the Lord was equipping me for a career as a single person, teaching children.

Enter Marvin! The Lord’s ways are “not our ways.” Marvin and I met at Reformed Presbyterian International Conference in Donegal, Ireland some thirty-five years ago. In a remarkable way, God removed obstacles from our paths, blessed our relationship and has blessed us with almost thirty-three years together as husband and wife.

(And, by the way, my Elementary Education and my later Reading Education degrees were not wasted! The Lord had students for me to teach - our two adopted daughters – Sarah, who came to us at birth twenty-five years ago, and Olla, who became part of our family, as an eight-year-old from Russia, twenty years ago. I home-schooled the girls until they reached 7^th Grade).

Twenty years ago we moved to Allegany County from Syracuse, NY. We have been thankful that before we committed to the work-related move, we “found” a church! We did not “church shop”. We were coming from the Reformed Presbyterian congregation in Syracuse, so our first stop was the PCA in Wellsville. We worshipped for the first time with this congregation in October 1996, and had the security of knowing that after our trip to Russia (February 1997) to bring Olla home, the sale of our Syracuse home, and our move to Fillmore, New York in June 1997, that we had a church family waiting, welcoming, and praying for us. Why the Wellsville PCA? – Because it was a congregation in a denomination faithful to God’s word, with adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and Presbyterian in its form of church government. However, in addition to these considerations, we found as we worshipped with this branch of Christ’s church in October 1996, a warm welcoming group who reached out to us with love, friendship and caring. When we arrived in June 1997 we found ourselves, and particularly our children, surrounded by loving caring adults – Sunday School teachers who accommodated our still-Russian-speaking, non-reader, eight-year-old and our precocious five-year old!! Had we found the perfect church? Maybe, but it became imperfect with our arrival!!

The Psalms always reflect our true condition – spiritual or physical! The verse which follows the one quoted at the beginning (Psalm 16), says:

“And now when I am old and grey,

O Lord forsake me not,

Until thy strength and power I have,

Each generation taught.”

Yes, we are viewing life from the blessed perspective of being “old and grey.” We have four daughters, and seven grandchildren with an age-range of almost 2 to 15 years.  And, as we sought to teach our children, we are now privileged to have some influence in the teaching of our grandchildren. It gives us particular joy that our grandson Aiden is able to worship with us and to attend Sunday School here in Wellsville. And are thankful to God for His covenant promises which extend over the generations.

*ADAPTED FROM OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING OUR NEWLETTER, PLEASE CONTACT THE EDITOR, DOROTHY ACHILLES, AT MDACHILLES@FRONTIERNET.NET