While we're waiting for Dr Brendan Nelson OA to respond, I thought some of you petitioners might be interested in my 5th (and very last work) - 'In God's Garden- an Allegory'. It is not for everyone, being audience-specific (Christians). But it is sure to evoke some reaction and introspection as all my work does especially in this time when we are watching the advance of Islam and witnessing the deafening silence of the Christian church. Anyway, if anyone is interested in a gift for a Christian or a Pastor or church member, you can contact me at: wart_69@yahoo.com, or via PM on Facebook (Donald William Tate). It costs $25 and that INCLUDES postpay and postage anywhere in Australia. Perhaps these extracts from Chapter 61 of my memoir, 'The War Within' will stimulate your interest.... CHAPTER 61 The Sovereignty of God There came a time when I finally felt comfortable about myself and my life to a certain extent, and had settled into something of a rhythm, just rolling along like an old aimless river coming to the end of its journey. While the rapids and snags had slowed me down, and forced me to change course here and there, I thought they were mostly behind me. It was more boredom than anything else, but in that I enjoyed a sort of peace. I often found myself holding Carole closer and tighter than I ever had, as if our days together were rushing to an end. I luxuriated in her presence, and our world was a lot calmer than it had ever been. It was like we’d survived the storms, and were in for some plain sailing, at last. I should’ve known better. There came a night when I found myself in uncharted territory, with no lights to show the way, and no compass to find a direction. I was in a hospital, sitting with a lifeless little body in my arms, rocking her gently. Darkness enclosed us. The night had drifted past. It was midnight, and the lights were dimmed. I held her close against my chest, and even though there was no life in her, not a solitary breath, she seemed to breathe in unison with me. If I hadn’t been there when she died, I would have thought she was just asleep. All around me, the blackness swirled, stirred once more by hands unseen. So many thoughts came rushing in, like barbs from the dark, about life and death and circumstance, about the vagaries of chance and fate, and about the indiscriminate nature of death. I held in my arms a perfect child, who had not taken in one breath of the foulness of this earthly air, or felt a pang of sorrow or regret. She showed no sign of hurt. She was still warm, an angelic being, a delicate porcelain doll of exquisite form. She was all things pure—love and joy, hopes and dreams, the embodiment of innocence, beyond reproach. She was my daughter Joanne’s first child—Jessie Lee Isaac—and hadn’t survived the birth. As I nursed her in my arms, the only time I ever would, I watched those little eyes closed forever against this world and all its ugliness. And right there and then, looking at that beautiful child, with her lips pursed as if in some rare song, I suddenly made sense of this world—it was like a divine revelation. I realised that this child was all that I wasn’t. No frown had creased her sweet brow; no spite had left her mouth. There had been no pain that I knew of, save for the dreams unfulfilled, and the life unlived. The pain was borne by others who should have known her, but now never would. Looking at that precious face, I realised I’d once had all that she’d been denied, and I’d wasted it on enterprises of no great consequence. Love. Time. Life itself. All wasted. I felt like I’d had so much to give the world, but given naught. So many gifts left unwrapped. So many opportunities wasted. Save for giving life to my children, which any man could do, and having fought for my country, which many other men had done and proved nothing at all, there was nothing I could hold on to with any real pride. Few accomplishments of any great worth, and the things I had achieved, small in scale, and of little consequence. It was as if I’d spent the greatest part of my life in vain pursuits, and in doing so, felt like I’d lost the very essence and meaning of life itself. My greatest treasure had been the wife and children I’d been blessed with, and to a large extent I’d failed to fully appreciate them. While each of my children had grown into a fine adult with a professional career, with not a single black mark against them, mostly they’d forged their own way. I’d been too concerned with figuring out my own path, making excuses, looking for answers. Sure, I took pride in them, and in their successes, but it was all their own doing, nothing to do with me. In that alone, I realised, the cycle had been broken. The sins of the father had been appeased. But me? I could only conclude that I was no more than my father’s son, after all. All that I’d despised about him, I’d become. That night in the hospital was the only time I’d ever seen Carole truly rattled. The death of that beautiful child had torn the very fabric of the faith she’d clung to, ever since my brother Garry had turned up on our doorstep with his message of salvation, years before. She couldn’t escape the fact that all her prayers for the safe birth of this child had gone unanswered. She’d been ignored, or forsaken, by the same God I’d dismissed years earlier. It broke her heart. But even as we sat in the cold hospital ward, alternately cradling that lifeless child in our arms, it was as if she knew the arguments I’d propose in the days to come. She turned to me, waiting. She was haggard and drawn from the trauma and shock, and the tears streamed down her face, as if there would be no end to them. ‘So much for God,’ I said, mustering up all the animosity I could gather. ‘So much for the power of prayer.’ Carole gave me a withering look. ‘I can always count on you, can’t I?’ she said, struggling just to speak. ‘You’re consistent, I’ll give you that. Even at a time like this, you’ll put a knife in me.’ ‘Well, explain it,’ I said. ‘You’re not alone in this. I’ve lost a granddaughter, too.’ ‘It’s your timing,’ she cried. ‘We have a dead baby here and Joanne is battling to survive upstairs. Don’t you think it’s hard enough for me to handle all this without you trying to strip me bare of what faith I do have?’ She was raw. She had sobbed when the doctor gave us the news, and walked up and down the length of the hospital corridor in shock and grief for hours while I nursed the child’s body. She had already asked her own questions, and knew her faith had been put to the test. I could’ve kicked my own arse for being such an insensitive bastard. ‘Don, no matter what you say, no matter what anyone says, yet will I believe,’ she said, simply. ‘Like Job, I will not allow this tragedy to undermine my faith. I will not let the enemy have another victory over my family. Only by God’s strength and grace will I get through this.’ She was a strong woman, my Carole. Certainly made of sterner stuff than me, that’s for sure. Even as we sat there in our grief, she turned her prayers towards Joanne, that she would survive the surgery. And she did. It was some consolation. At the same time, sitting there with that child in my arms, I cried for other reasons too. For the first time, I saw clearly that I’d never grieved my own loss—the loss of the use of my hip, the loss of my youth, the loss of my independence. And the loss of my own innocence, too. I’d never cried about those things, because I wasn’t allowed to. But I did that night. The tears I shed for the loss of that child mingled with the tears I shed for myself. It came much too late. There’d been too much damage done to be healed by a few tears. But even when you think there can’t be any more, try as a man might, to run, to dodge, the God of my mother and Carole came calling, one more time. Our daughter Lisa, pregnant with her first child, learnt that her baby was dying in the womb. The news came at a routine ultrasound. The procedure had taken an inordinate amount of time. ‘Lisa, I need to talk to you both about something,’ said the nurse. ‘There is something very wrong. There is fluid everywhere under the baby’s skin.’ ‘That doesn’t sound too dangerous,’ Lisa said, her heart in her mouth. ‘Probably just something to keep an eye on, then?’ ‘Well, no, not exactly. There is a problem with the heart.’ Lisa’s whole world faltered. ‘But nothing too serious?’ ‘Lisa, your baby is very ill. Often a baby who shows these symptoms has a syndrome, such as Down’s. In this case, the baby has foetal hydrops, caused by the baby’s heart beating in spasms, at about 280 beats per minute. It’s very serious. You need to see Dr Davis tomorrow morning. He’s the best obstetrician on the entire South Coast. He’ll be able to tell you more.’ Lisa went to the toilet, locked the door and got down on her knees. She couldn’t pray. Instead, she begged God for mercy, and begged for the life of her child. It was me back in Vietnam all over again, in front of those machine guns. ‘Please, please God, fix it,’ was all she could say. Over and over again. That night, her husband Adam called, and asked Carole to pray for the life of their baby. Carole rose to the challenge, her face aflame. ‘It will not happen again,’ was all she said, her eyes ablaze, and told me what was going on. ‘Don, stand with me this time,’ she said, her faith rising. ‘We will not lose this child.’ And I did. I stood with her while she prayed the house down. I felt like a hypocrite all right, but there was no time for self-analysis, or doubt. I agreed with everything she asked. And believed that the healing would come. She also contacted Ron Thomas, the senior minister of a small, unpretentious church in North Wollongong. He didn’t baulk either. He promised the full support of his church, and its prayer team. Lisa and Adam cried all night. The next day, Dr Davis didn’t hold back. ‘In all likelihood, the chances of your baby dying are very high,’ he said. ‘In thirty years, I have never seen a child survive past this point.’ It was a week of tears for Lisa and Adam, a week of prayer and fasting for Carole. I went along with it, but more with a heavy heart than a believing one. Lisa rang us only once, a few days later. She said her tears had run out. ‘A shift has taken place in my heart,’ she said quietly. ‘I have a peace about it.’ A week later, Lisa and Adam went back for the results of an amniocentesis. The nurse offered to turn the screen off so they wouldn’t see the dead baby. They said no. Dead or alive, they wanted to see their child. Moments later, almost breathless, they could see that the fluid around his body was gone. Dr Davis was stunned. He shook his head disbelievingly. ‘It’s not possible. Your child is still alive.’ Lisa and Adam wept openly. ‘It’s been a miracle,’ Lisa said, hugging him. Dr Davis nodded, then shook his head, perplexed. ‘There’s certainly no medical explanation,’ was all he could offer. Thus our ‘miracle baby’—Elliot Thomas Rainford, my first grandchild by blood—was born perfectly healthy in my fifty-seventh year. Carole and I rejoiced. I had nowhere to hide after that. I thought I should make an appointment to see Ron Thomas at his little church in North Wollongong—Citylife. Perhaps there was one Christian man with some integrity in the region, after all, I thought. Surely. END EXTRACTS