It's A ... Boy!

Fifteen years ago today, John Frederick Rabe Jr. arrived. I will always remember the way we first looked at each other -- with great curiousity and delight. This tiny person, whom I knew so well from the inside, who had consumed my thoughts and been the focus of so many prayers during the last nine months, was exquisite, a glory to God, His maker. He was a C-section baby, so his face was round and perfect. He had screamed for a full 15 minutes while they stitched me up and cleaned him up, so by the time I saw him he was serene and already wearing his little knit cap. He didn't have a name yet, and while the doctor continued to work, everybody seemed to be asking me what his name would be. This baby had a certain look around his eyes, exactly like my husband's look. I can't even describe it, but when I look at the newborn picture, I can still see it. And my husband himself said, "I think I know what we should name him." He would not say, until I said it first -- but we both knew he was John Frederick Rabe Jr. The way he has lived up to this name is uncanny. He has that same quick, logical mind and the potential to be a great thinker. He loves baseball -- Cardinals! -- and is usually bouncing a ball against a wall somewhere. He can envision the most efficient way of doing most projects if you give him a chance. He loves to laugh and appreciates the same sarcastic wit his father does. He is relentless and piercing -- which is exactly what is needed for a warrior for the Lord. John Rabe Jr., you have brought me so many surprises and joys. You have already asked me far more questions in your life, than I have ever wondered about on my own. How I've loved to see the world through your eyes. You've been a defender of right from the very start. We pray, take seriously that we are to be the means of grace in your life, and wait expectantly to see the godly man of character you will become! Happy Birthday, my one and only son.

Cheerfully and Patiently Awaiting...

"Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." -- Exodus 14:13

These words contain God’s command to the believer when he is reduced to
great straits and brought into extraordinary difficulties. He cannot
retreat; he cannot go forward; he is shut up on the right hand and on the
left; what is he now to do? The Master’s word to him is, "Stand still." It
will be well for him if at such times he listens only to his Master’s word,
for other and evil advisers come with their suggestions. Despair whispers,
"Lie down and die; give it all up." But God would have us put on a cheerful
courage, and even in our worst times, rejoice in his love and faithfulness.
Cowardice says, "Retreat; go back to the worldling’s way of action; you
cannot play the Christian’s part, it is too difficult. Relinquish your
principles." But, however much Satan may urge this course upon you, you
cannot follow it if you are a child of God. His divine fiat has bid thee go
from strength to strength, and so thou shalt, and neither death nor hell
shall turn thee from thy course. What, if for a while thou art called to
stand still, yet this is but to renew thy strength for some greater advance
in due time. Precipitancy cries, "Do something. Stir yourself; to stand
still and wait, is sheer idleness." We must be doing something at once--we
must do it so we think--instead of looking to the Lord, who will not only
do something but will do everything. Presumption boasts, "If the sea be
before you, march into it and expect a miracle." But Faith listens neither
to Presumption, nor to Despair, nor to Cowardice, nor to Precipitancy, but
it hears God say, "Stand still," and immovable as a rock it stands. "Stand
still;"--keep the posture of an upright man, ready for action, expecting
further orders, cheerfully and patiently awaiting the directing voice; and
it will not be long ere God shall say to you, as distinctly as Moses said
it to the people of Israel, "Go forward."

My World Has Been Rocked

I was sort of sad to discover that Plymouth Rock is probably a phony. In Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, he says:

"...Nowhere in either Of Plimouth Plantation or Mourt's Relation, the book Bradford and Winslow wrote after their first year in America, is there any mention of a Pilgrim stepping on a rock. Like Cape Cod to the southeast, the shore of Plymouth Bay is nondescript and sandy. But at the foot of a high hill, just to the north of a brook, was a rock that must have been impossible to miss. More than twice as big as the mangled chunk of stone that is revered today as Plymouth Rock, this two-hundred-ton granite boulder loomed above the low shoreline like a recumbent elephant. But did the Pilgrims use it as a landing place? At half-tide and above, a small boat could have sailed right up alongside the rock. For these explorers, who were suffering from chills and coughs after several weeks of wading up and down the frigid flats of Cape Cod, the ease of access offered by the rock must have been difficult to resist. But if they did use it as their first stepping-stone onto the banks of Plymouth Harbor, Bradford never made note of the historic event. That would be left to subsequent generations of mythmakers."

So what is the mangled chunk of stone that my husband and I revered in February at the Plymouth shoreline?

Philbrick says: "In 1741, the ninety-five-year-old Thonmas Faunce asked to be carried in a litter to the Plymouth waterfront. Faunce had heard that a pier was about to built over an undistinguished rock at the tide line near Town Brook. With tears in his eyes, Faunce proclaimed that he had been told by his father, who had arrived in Plymouth in 1623, that the boulder was where the Pilgims had first landed. Thus was born the legend of Plymouth Rock."

The irony is that the false relic has been nearly destroyed in our "reverence" for it: According to this book, it was broken in half in the initial extraction (the broken half left behind), then over the years souvenir hunters chiseled pieces of it away and in 1834, during another move, it was dropped and broken again. (This time they did cement the pieces back together.)

If the boulder in Plymouth Bay is indeed the "real" Plymouth Rock, it is probably better kept a secret.