A N Z A C

This is a photo of my Grandfather. He was an Anzac. His name is written in one of the Anzac books that line the entire outer inner corridors of the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia. You get your name in there as one of the men and women who fought in the First World War. He was at Gallipoli. Numerous movies have been made about war, all are emotional for me to watch, the hardest are those about Gallipoli. My Grandfather returning from this, a miracle. 130,842 would not return to their families. Many family lines ending there. 

In my research many years ago I found his war record. I had known he was in the army from the stories my Mum would share about him from her childhood. I am not going to pretend I understood all that I read in those 42 pages. It described every detail of his service record including his injuries. His record documenting the dates of when he was shot two times in one day. He was patched up after the first bullet and then out in battle again. The second would end his service career.

My mum said he never spoke of the war. Not many people do when they return. Artist Ben Quilty in his work “After Afghanastan”, created in response to his time as an Australian War Memorial artist, captures the haunting expression on the faces of service men and women that he got to know in his short time in Afghanistan. He explains he experience here. It gives a small insite to a much bigger story. https://youtu.be/OPBL78IfLY0

I Just can’t imagine living with the heaviness of the loss of mates and life coupled with the intensities of being in a war zone that must engage every part of a person 24/7. Our service men and women are the bravest people we could know.

I never met my Grandfarher personally. He died years before I was born. But I live in his impact on those who did, thanks to God. Returning from war like all other service men at that time in Australia, he was given some land in the country. He would later meet my Grandmother and together have 11 children. I am one of 30 grandchildren. At our last family reunion we filled a country hall with almost ninety of us and that was only some of us. Amongst us, farmers, nurses, teachers, artists, pastors, P.A’s, nannies, factory workers, truck drivers, business people, designers, lawyers, accountants, mums and dads just to names a few.

His story, his survival at one of the biggest told war stories, is in itself a miracle. That makes all eleven children my Grandparents had miracles and all of their thirty grandchildren miracles and all our children and grandchildren miracles….you see where I’m going with that.

God is into miracles.

I may have some significant foundation to my history of miracles. My Grandfather survived Gallipoli. This is a miracle and a gift. God’s story for his life rippling out through family growth, but more importantly what we do with our lives and how our journey ripples out to impact others and so on can’t be taken lightly. I am not saying were all amazing people and we’ve all got our lives all together. We all have the capacity, all humanity, to raise up each other or to hurt each other. But God has the capacity to bring good from these interations.

God does this with people who impact my life too. It’s the ripples of other people’s lives that have been given the miracle of life that cross over my ripples too. God has allowed people to cross my path to guide, provide wisdom, encouragement, and to love me and for me to love them. Some of them not so healthy and I’ve learned significant lesson from these encounters too. Sometimes I am the one not so healthy impacting others as I learn in my journey. I am thankful for God’s mercy, new every day, for those times. A few of my healthy people I’ve known for decades, many of them much less time. One person who crossed my path in one gallery space God was using to direct me onto the path that would impact me in ways I didn’t understand at the time. This encounter is the reason I began the degree that lead me into further study to become a teacher. It’s been a long time, but I have never forgotten that mans face. Our paths crossing twice as I looked at some of the artwork being bumped in at his graduating class exhibion. His persistence in getting me to speak with the lecturer who was there, even walking me into the space they were working in changed my life that day. That degree, I started the following year, started me on the journey to where I am today and towards where I will be in my tomorrows. 

Today is not Anzac day. But the impact of my Grandfathers miracle contiues to impact not just my life, but the lives of others everyday. I am reminded that “with great power come great responsibility”. I won’t forget this gift of life. This miracle.

Your story, whether there is a large story in your life, or you are the beginning of a larger story, rememeber you are a miracle, a gift. Our biggest miracle, Jesus, can transform the smallest gift into the most amazing life giving story. What part of your story is Jesus rippling into?