Sign posts
Read this edition online
Recently, I attended a fund-raiser at THQ, a garage sale-type event. One of our staff, Peter Hennessey, donated books; these books were previously owned by Peter’s father Lieutenant-Colonel Don Hennessey.
I eagerly pored over titles and purchased several books, many written before I was born. The authors’ names were familiar and over years I have read several of their off erings and quotes, but these particular books had a point of diff erence: they were well read and well loved. I could tell because Don had made annotations in the margins, underlined impacting sentences, left prayer cards inside the pages, corner edges were well worn and covers no longer sat flat.
Initially I was attracted to the books because of their authors: A.W Tozer, C.S Lewis, F.W Boreham, to name a few, but as I read I felt as if I was catching a glimpse of Don’s faith in these pages. His markings highlighted sentences he considered worthy of attention. It slowed down my reading and made it more contemplative.
It enabled me to dip into chapters and the highlights became a map of key points and memorable quotes. Th emes and messages of these books—holiness, sanctification, denial of
self—are not favourite topics today, but reading these books gave me a desire to dig deeper into these themes and to appreciate the sign posts left by Don Hennessey, carefully laid out for me to follow.
My hope is that the sign posts I leave along the line of my life will be read by others and my prayer is that they will all lead to Christ.
Vivienne Hill
Acting Editor
Bible verse
Romans 1:16 (New King James)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
Romā 1:16
Kāhore hoki ōku whakamā ki te rongopai: ko te kaha hoki ia o te Atua hei whakaora mō ngā tāngata katoa e whakapono ana; mō te Hūrai ki mua, mō te Kariki anō hoki.