Tag Archives: True North

As a child, I would walk into the kitchen early in the morning, all bed-head and half asleep, and in the quiet I would find my mother with her Bible open, writing in a spiral notebook and drinking coffee.

 She taught me volumes by catching a glimpse of her appointments with God.

I learned how to get my bearings by watching her.

Life is hard.  Storms have beaten against the framework of our family for generations. There have been seasons of nothing but heavy rain.

How do you chart a course when you can’t see ahead?

The only hope a sailor has of surviving a storm and navigating an ocean is to have a fixed reference point that enables him to discover where he is and where he is heading. The first navigators kept in sight of land, using familiar landmarks. When mariners dared to push beyond the sight of land, they still needed to find a fixed point of reference. So they looked to the heavens…the primary reference point for navigators in the Northern Hemisphere became the North Star, Polaris.

Gary Inrig, True North

My mother found her fixed point of reference when she found herself at the foot of an old rugged cross.  She met Jesus there.  She’s been keeping appointments with Him ever since.

I began meeting Jesus on the pages of Scripture as a teenager in the 1970’s.  I kept my Bible and a red felt-tip pen by my bed. I read a chapter a night for several years.  Mama taught me a great lesson without uttering a word.

I learned where True North is.  Who He is.  I learned to trust in the reliability of the One who doesn’t change.  The One who is fixed.  The One who is a “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul“.  He is my fixed point of reference…my compass, sextant, map and my destination.

It’s been over thirty years since I first saw my mother reading her Bible in the kitchen.  And this morning I remember her as I sit.  I’m reading the sixth chapter of Hebrews, writing in a notebook and drinking a cup of coffee.

Linking up with Ann and we’re all thanking our Moms..