Towards Reformation

Some time back I was in the church office when the senior minister came through looking for someone to preach on October 26th - as both ministers would be away at a national church professional development event. "Sure - I'll do it" I am still very much a P as the ideas have been simmering away since then but nothing much on paper!

I have found some great resources including bulletin sheet cover, lots about Calvin, and the usual vast array at textweek. It all leaves me wondering about the women whose stories I haven't really found as yet. Like Katharina von Bora (pretty dodgy source I know - but it provided the best stimulus to creative thought). This one's possibly a bit better. I wonder:

What was it really like to marry a man 16 years older than yourself? When you had left the family home at the age of 5 when your mother died. To live with nuns.

How did you learn the ways of love? To parent and to raise a family? To marry a man who gave and gave, yet still expected you to somehow find food in the empty cupboard. And to watch your daughters die. One in infancy and the other only just into her teens - although you wouldn't have any idea what I mean by that. Thirteen would be almost adult in your time I guess.

How precious your Margarethe must have been to you after that. I wonder were you overprotective of this one remaining daughter? Or did you distance your self, fearing that she too would predecease you?

And no mother to talk to about your pain. My heart aches for you.

Then to lose that generous and careless giver of a husband with teenage sons still to raise. Not to mention little Margarethe just 12 years old.

What an amazing woman you must have been. Brewing beer! Buying a farm and doing the best that you could. More than anyone could ask.

So determined to keep your family together. At the cost of your own resilience. And still having to face your own personal financial resources crash. Which forced you to leave your home.

Did you know you were dying in the time after the coach incident? What did you still want to do? What did you say to your surviving children?

Could you see even then that the boys were going to complete their education well and serve their communities?

• Martin sharing his father's passion for theology, but more introverted than extroverted and academic rather than practical.
• Hans ever the diplomat - a successful lawyer advising the court. Funny that is just what his grandfather wanted your Martin to do.
• And Paul a doctor. Was he the apple of your eye? He seemed to have your attention to people and to relationships.
  

Was Margarethe already being courted by her Prussian gent in those last days of yours on earth? You know she won his heart and she has descendants living today so many centuries after you. One blessing is that you did not live to see the death of your remaining daughter before her 40th birthday.

You missed, though, the blessing of boisterous visits from Paul's large family. Six little ones Katharina. They would have loved you and you would have seen with your own eyes the joy of extended family life. But that was not to be.

Katharina I salute you. Woman of faith and free thought. Strong-minded woman giving more than anyone could ask to a passion for truth.

You lost so much in your life.

I wonder - what did you gain?