Fellowship

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean"

I felt I was wandering in Longfellow's land of Arcadia, the place where his story poem of Evangeline takes place, this weekend as my husband and I walked through the forest toward the sea.

Part of our joy was seeing a young couple with their children sitting in a meadow where we stopped to rest. As we passed them I sensed they were Christians. Before we left we talked with them and found, yes, they were fellow Christians. That fact came up so casually in the conversation as we talked about their children whom they were home-schooling. We were able to answer a question they had about home-schooling since two of our daughters also home-school.

I am always amazed by the fellowship God often showers us with by sending other Christians into our lives. At one time in my husband's piano tuning Career, he went to New York to do some extra training with Baldwin Pianos. Both he and the head tuner there sensed that the other was a Christian, but waited until the end of the day to ask each other. As it turned out the head tuner was an Assemblies of God Pastor.

Later in his career and further training, this time at Steinway, my husband found that the head tuner there, the one who had tuned pianos for such people as Horowitz and Rubinstein, was also a very devout Christian and they had a wonderful time talking about the Lord.

You can read about that Piano tuner, Franz Mohr, in his book, My Life with the Great Pianists. It is co-written by Edith Schaeffer. Franz Mohr came to this country from Germany after World War II, but during the war he was filled with hatred for the Nazis and became an atheist and a communist. An Englishman spoke to his hatred. "Franz, no matter how much hate you throw at me, I love you. And there is one who loves you more, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Your heart is on fire with tremendous hate, and only one can change it. That is the Lord Jesus Christ." Sometime after this Franz Mohr became a Christian.

In the midst of a very dark world, there is the fellowship of the saints, with one another, with our Lord Jesus Christ.