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How does God reveal Himself to a young boy? How does He help a child to understand what God wants to do in his life?
I cannot speak for everyone, but I do know how God revealed Himself to me when I was a child living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He used the things that were part of my experience. A world war. A devastating illness. A tornado. An auto accident. A lapse in a family member's loyalty.
In this account of those years from birth to the age of ten when I lived in Windsor and God was gradually showing me who He is, I have tried to share how these events played out in my family's life, and ultimately in my life. Along the way I tried to give a perspective on one of the most significant decades of the 20th century, the decade of the 1940s.
This was a decade with the world at war, and my older brother, Ron, in the midst of it in the U. S. Navy. This was the last decade before television began its relentless intercession into our daily lives. This was a decade that began with horse drawn vehicles sharing the streets even of large cities with boxy, chugging automobiles and ended with the streets filled with new, sleek cars. It was a decade that began with war, but ended with peace and a growing prosperity. It was my first decade of life.
Windsor's Child was originally published in 2007 with a Canadian publisher. However, that company was sold a couple of years ago to an American company, and the changes have not been what we want from a publisher. So, as of July 25, 2011, Windsor's Child is now available from Amazon's Create Space company. It is available world-wide through Amazon.com. It is also available through this website.
Four pictures grace the new cover designed for this new edition. The largest picture shows my mother with me by her side. I do not remember what she was taking a picture of, but I do remember the Argus twin-lens reflex camera she is holding. Whatever or whomever the subject was, both Mom and I are laughing. The picture was taken on the front lawn of our home in Windsor in the summer of 1948 or 1949. That would make me seven or eight. In either case, those were both years my mother did not laugh very much.
The reason she did not laugh was because of what happened to my brother, Ron, her firstborn, in March of 1947. Ron had joined the U. S. Navy when he was not quite eighteen, went off for training at the Farragut Naval Training Station in Idaho, and then spent the remaining time of his enlistment on board the U. S. S. Dunlap patroling the south Pacific Ocean. But by early 1947, Ron had been home just one year. His last year. Ron is pictured in his official U. S. Navy photo taken at Farragut in 1944. His picture is in the lower right corner of the book cover.
In the upper right corner is a photo of my mother, Edna, when she was eighteen or nineteen and still living in her parents' home in Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada. My mother lived to be 98 years old, so this picture is interesting to me because it shows her in her youth, before the challenges of life and time had taken their toll. And they did take their toll in my mother's life.
Finally, the drawing to the left of Ron's picture appeared in a newspaper in Detroit, Michigan in June of 1911. It showed my grandfather, William Parsons, in his attempt to bring a team of frightened horses to stop on a street in Detroit, a street where about 100 people were watching a circus parade, the street where the Parsons lived, a street where three of his four children, one of them destined to be my father, were in harm's way.
All of these stories are told in the book, but this is not a book about family stories. Instead it is a book about God and how He used the events depicted in these stories to bring me to His Son Jesus Christ. As the author, I, of course, hope you will buy a copy and read it. But I know there is more to this book than just a "good read." If you know God, you will appreciate once again how He works in our lives. If you do not know God, you will be challenged to know this One who watched over a world at war while also watching over a little boy playing in the backyard of a small house on Westminster Avenue in Windsor.
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In July of 2010, Linda and I met with an old friend of mine from my Lincoln Park, Michigan days, when we were both young adults at First Baptist Church in that city. We met at an Olive Garden restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan. Linda and I were on our way to spend a week in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula; Barb was there with her church to minister to the homeless, of which there are many, unfortunately, in the metro Detroit area. The subject of our meeting was the book that Barbara J. Gurney Forsyth had written and was trying to turn into a publishable manuscript. She knew of my experience self-publishing three books, and wanted to know if I were interested in editing her book.
She had a title and a theme, and reams and reams of pages typed in a large script font and not yet organized into her theme. I agreed to help, and for the next year as dozens and dozens of emails raced through cyberspace between her home in Ontario, California, and my home in Columbus, Ohio, her book began to take on shape and form. In July of 2011, she self-published Joy Comes in the Mourning with Amazon's Create Space.
Barb and her husband, Sid, are both retired. Barb was a teacher and Reading Specialist in the Chino Valley Unified School District, and she also served as a consultant to two publishing companies.
Barb has had a ministry to people she has known at work and in the condo community in which she and her husband live. She has especially ministered to them as they have gone through times of grief. Her poetry and stories about some of these grieving situations form a large part of the book.
Barb has not been a stranger to grief in her own life. Her father, Henry Gurney of Lincoln Park, died when Barb was just twelve. Later, the Forsyth's first child was born with a serious problem that took his life when he was just a few days old. Ministering to others in grief often transfers that grief to the one called along side to help. And in January of 2011, Barb's mother, Alice, who had moved to California to be near her four children, passed away.
Barb's book is not filled with grief and hopelessness, however. Her purpose in writing the book is to show how God turns our grieving into joy.
Not all the material in the book was authored by Barb. She has included some material from contributing authors, most of them friends and associates of hers from the greater Los Angeles area. However, she did include one particular piece written by her old friend from Lincoln Park. A chapter of my series This Little Life of Mine published here on my website, is included in the book. It is about a mutual friend of ours, Ronald Lee Beckett, whom God sent to Viet Nam in the mid 1960s. The piece is called The Scattering.
Barb and her husband and I are setting up a partnership so that we can make each other's books available to a wider audience. Barb will market her book and mine at meetings and conferences she will have in southern California. I will have her book available along with mine at this website, and in other opportunities I have. Sid will take care of the financial aspect of Barb's ministry.
I would like to encourage you to read both of these books, especially if you have or are going through difficult times. That is just about all of us, of course. Both of these books show clearly how God takes the difficulties of our lives and replaces them with the joy of the Lord.
Pictured are Barbara J. Gurney Forsyth, and the interior of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Park, Michigan where both Barb and I were part of a very close-knit young people's group in the first half of the 1960s. |
Save 20% When You Purchase Both of These Books.To order both books for just $25.00 click on the "Buy Now" button below:Both books have received favorable reviews from readers. Look at what others have said. In 2002, Windsor's Child was entered in a contest for non-fiction manuscripts held by a major evangelical publisher. It came in fourth in a field of over 150 manuscripts. Windsor's Child is a delightful book. I found it endearing and enjoyable. The author successfully draws the reader into the life of the main character by creating images and feelings that one can easily relate to. I was alongside the characters as the story unfolded and shared their emotions. As the author shares memories from his youth to present day, you will watch his trust in God grow. You will see the events in his life having a definite purpose and plan that was orchestrated by a loving Lord. The book is well written and was an encouragement to me. - John Massaro |
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Copyright © 2012, Thomas M. Parsons, All Rights Reserved. - 302 |
