Jesus Holds the Key
by Sue
When I met my lovely husband Malc and we started courting, we would spend quite a lot of our time together at his parent’s house, listening to his huge collection of LPs and singles, instead of going out. We stayed in so that we could save our money for when we got married (we knew from early on in our relationship that we would get married.)
A friend of Malc’s mum and dad, a lady named Erna, used to come round to visit. Malc at one time went out with her daughter, and I remembered meeting her before Malc was seeing her. She was in my dormitory when both Malc and I were on the same school cruise on the SS Uganda back in the late sixties. Bless her, she was so homesick. Her dad had passed away very suddenly. I think he might have had a heart attack at work. She was Malc’s last girlfriend before me. I did meet her again at her mum’s house as her mum used to love us visiting her, and was always very friendly towards us. Malc’s ex-girlfriend was by then married and had sons of her own. We had three children too and Erna enjoyed our visits. When Malc’s mum died, she still visited Malc’s dad and popped in on her way home from the shops to make sure he was doing OK. She was a good friend.
We were both serving the Lord by this time as we had come to know Jesus as our Lord and Saviour back in 1985. Around this time, when there was much trouble out in Northern Ireland. I had always enjoyed keeping up-to-date by reading the newspapers and on this particular morning, whilst Malc was at work I sat down and opened the pages, and inside was an article about a young man caught up in the trouble in Belfast. As I looked, I recognised the face of one soldier in the photograph. It was the face of a lad that I had been seeing around about the same time as Malc was dating Erna’s daughter.
Erna’s daughter had marital problems and was divorced after her husband treated her badly and she later married again and this time found happiness. So sad to see people we knew going through such difficult times in their lives.
And now I was reading about this lad I used to know – he was from London and one day he told me he had signed up for the army and had been accepted. I never did see him again after that. And sadly, now I was reading that he had been shot and killed in Belfast, leaving a wife and two children and another baby on the way.
You see, nobody knows what tomorrow holds. Here one day and gone the next.
The Bible puts it this way:
“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” (James 4:13-14)
You can see the picture James paints here – visualise the kettle when it boils. Out comes the steam for a moment - then it is gone. Never to be seen again. This life can be short and fragile but Jesus holds the key to eternal life. Whatever life throws at us we need to trust Him when things go wrong (and when they go right.)
When we first became Christians, we heard a singer called Steve Green – fantastic tenor voice - and he sang a song which really impacted Malc and me. The song is called “He holds the key” - it’s one of our favourites and we played it a couple of times as the audience took their seats at one of the eBand Fundraising evenings.
Jesus holds the key to everlasting life so do not be saddened by this life. Jesus knows our struggles and troubles and strivings. Would you like to know that peace and assurance that only Jesus can bring? You can.