My name is David Chester and I have the Pen Name of “Chuck.” The pen name came as a result of my writing a book entitled, “A Chord in Time.” That book was originally published in the UK version of Amazon.com and is now out-of-print there because I needed to do use the self-publishing route for its publication. This first book…another should be following as soon as Chuck gets his pants off the floor and finishes writing it…is predicated on the fact that life, despite all of its difficulties, troubles, and joys, does not oft reflect the life we, as Christians, think our lives should look. A life of Faith shouldn’t have troubles or trials, should it? We should all be finding blessing upon blessing, right? Yet, while the latter is true…we are always finding blessings from the Lord, we are told by our Lord and Saviour that there will be troubles in life…as we walk in the Light of His Truth. I suppose I should be concerned about using that word, Truth, in our contemporary world as it appears to now be defined in a radically personal context such that we can have a ‘false-‘ or ‘fake’ Truth…absurd, I say, absurd!
This book, A Chord in Time, speaks about life in the midst of the trial of my life…the death of my daughter. As a matter of fact, I finished it while living in London, UK only months after the death of my wife, Laurel…my blessed daughter, Ami’s, Mom. The second book is entitled, “Lists of a Saint,” relates to the fact that Laurel, as a Prayer- Warrior, was a list-maker. In watching my daughter pass from this life into the next, there were a host of issues I’d had to contend with: a decision to move to California…land of fruits and nuts, they call it…from New England to find a job in science allowing me to be paid versus having to write grants for my paycheck, watching as my daughter struggled with her new doctor’s proclamation that she had but one year to live, watch on as Laurel and I struggled with the fact that our daughter was not long for this life, hearing Ami say to me late one evening, “Dad, I don’t want to die in California, please take me home.” I had a job that was going exceedingly well, I was doing works of ministry at the University I was teaching and doing research at…they actually wanted me to build a research science program there…it is still running in a new science building today, I was doing ministry with my students. in my neighborhood, and in my Church. I was beginning to ‘hear‘ the internal Call to ministry which ended up in my coming to be a Pastor…at first in the Baptist Church and now as a Reformed Presbyterian. How could this go so wrong? All is so good!? And Ami is asking that I bring her home to Connecticut to die…How do I respond?
Listening to the words of Colossians 3, it is clear that, after the Lord, my family takes precedence when it comes to our walk of Faith. The idea of A Chord in Time comes from having to make these very hard decisions in time, trusting that the consequences will bare out the truth of a right ones, and the raw pain of having to live through such trials. And, yet, as life seems so troublesome and far from the “good Christian life” at its surface, the cord of Faith running through those decisions, circumstances, trials, tribulation, losses, etc. runs true…without being tattered or torn as Christ IS truth. Our Faith is not dependent upon personal virtue and proper decision making or wise thinking but upon Christ the Author and Perfecter of it.
It is with this perspective that I am starting this site…the perspective that Christ is our source of wisdom, power, authority, grace, peace, kindness, self-control, perseverance, goodness, kindness, etc. as fruit of His Spirit within us. It is that through, by, and in Christ all of our lives have meaning and value when we are struck with the terrible dichotomy of having, for example, to wrestle with our emotional selves pining for a loved-one’s presence who has passed-away in our lives while celebrating the fact that, in Christ, they are in Glory and in the presence of Glory as they are looking into the eyes of our Saviour and Lord…a journey which we are on, prayerfully, as we can only look up to our Heavenly Home where a wife, a daughter, a father or mother, etc. now resides. On this side of Heaven, is the Lord, our Most Holy God, making every provision for us as we…as I…blunder my way through life? Yes and Amen! Christ Jesus is our All in All and His light is to reflect back upon the paths our lives have taken as but sojourners in this world so we are less concerned about the appearances of life and more about our Walk, daily…moment by moment, with Christ as our all sufficient Saviour and Lord. Chuck is struggling to walk rightly trusting the truth that, in some way…and to steal a phrase from a song by Laura Story, “Blessings,” “What if your blessings come through rain drops, what if your blessings come through tears, what if takes a thousand sleepless nights to finely know you’re near, what if trials in life are your mercies in disguise?
What if?
Looking Into The Eyes of Christ and His Word 