Ezra Stories Archives - Ezra Ministry

“How Long O Lord?”

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

Within a day or two of Nola arriving home from hospital last April I found myself asking, “How long can I keep this up?” The raft of duties connected with her care hit me like an avalanche and threatened to engulf me. I really didn’t know how long I could keep up the pace. Then, a month or two later I found another “How long?” question surfacing. I was putting Nola to bed one night when the thought popped into my mind, “I wonder how long this is going to last? Will I still be doing this in a year’s […]

Not Alone in This

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

In reading what I have written of the journey Nola and I have been on these past months it would be wrong to gain the impression that we have made it on our own. Nothing could be further from the truth. We would not be where we are today without the support of family, friends and professional health workers. As perilous as it can be to single out specific cases, I want to write about a sequence of events that illustrate the teamwork that has characterised the recovery process of recent months. Three days after Nola arrived home from hospital […]

Existing and Living

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

In the early weeks of Nola’s return to live at home we learned firsthand the stark difference between existing and living. We had anticipated Nola’s homecoming with great excitement and were not disappointed in the pleasure of being together again. But the demands of daily life with its focus on Nola’s care quickly took its toll. Before we knew it we were both trapped in an existence governed by feeding, medication, personal care and household maintenance. In reality, we were doing little more than surviving from one day to the next. The defining characteristic of that period was passivity. Our […]

A Crisis of Significance

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

Shortly after the crisis I wrote about in the last Ezra Story – Nola’s despair of life and desire to be with Jesus – we faced a second of similar magnitude. This time it was a crisis of significance. Nola had come to terms with being alive and severely disabled, but struggled for a sense of worth. She was alive, but for what reason? How could she find purpose in an existence that consisted of little more than being tube-fed six times a day, toileted at regular intervals, and showered and dressed by others? Was she to be just a […]

I Just Want to Die

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

A little over a month after Nola arrived home I was awakened early one morning by the sound of her muffled sobs on the pillow beside me. “What’s the matter, dear?” I asked, immediately alert to a host of threatening possibilities. After a pause she said, “I just want to die and go to be with Jesus.” O dear! How was I going to deal with this? It was the first time in the many months of her illness that Nola had voiced that she wanted to give up and die. There had been many times when I expected her […]

Simple Pleasures

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

Friday morning April 6th 2012 dawned brilliantly sunny and clear in Auckland. It was just two days after Nola’s discharge from a six-month stay in hospital and the thought came to my mind that she might like an outing, a change of scenery after having been cooped up for so long in a hospital room. When I put the idea to her she didn’t hesitate. Although still severely limited in her ability to speak she made it clear that she would love to “go for a ride.” So as soon as her mid-morning feed and medications had been administered, I […]

Overcoming Aversions

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

Nola’s arrival home presented me with an immediate challenge. It called me to overcome a longstanding aversion to things medical. I have always been squeamish when it comes to blood and gore. Growing up on a sheep farm didn’t cure me of that. Seeing my father slaughter animals left me feeling sick; lamb docking (tailing) was a duty endured but disliked; the annual roundup of geese prior to Christmas with its decapitation of several screaming birds was the most dreaded day of my year; and as to injections and hospital visits – I shrank from them and did my best […]

Learning to Care

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Called to Care

Shortly before Christmas last year (2011) my elder daughter Katherine and I met in Nola’s hospital room with a representative of the Taikura Trust, the agency administering government funds for community health care. The meeting was to discover if Nola would be eligible for support should she recover to the point of being discharged from hospital to live at home or in some other health-care institution. In the course of the conversation the Trust representative asked, “And who would be the primary care-giver for Nola should she get home?” I looked at her blankly, unsure of what this official sounding […]

A Heart Made Strong

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Miscellaneous

“May he strengthen your hearts…” The Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 3:13) On July 14th my wife Nola and I bade farewell to our younger daughter Deborah and her husband Aaron for what will be at least a three-year stint of study at Redeemer Theological Seminary in Dallas, USA. It was a parting I wasn’t looking forward to. Prone to emotional meltdown on such occasions I sensed that things weren’t going to be different this time. Aaron and Deborah had become very dear to us in the months leading up to their marriage, and we knew that their […]

Loving Jesus

By Andrew YoungDecember 31, 2016Miscellaneous

In a men’s study group meeting recently we found ourselves searched by a simple yet probing question. We were exploring the idea of loving Jesus and reached the point of asking ourselves, “Do I really love Jesus?” We were studying the words of Jesus in John 14:15 at the time. “If you love me,” he said to his disciples just before his crucifixion, “you will obey what I command you.” A little later he repeated this thought when he said, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me” (14:21). And again, “If anyone loves […]