About Eleanor
The God I love has shown His kindness to me time after time in providing for our family for nearly four decades. With a large family on one income, we saw His providential care for us in the smallest of details, from custom-made draperies at a bargain price, to needed employment, to the impossible dream of owning a home in the country.
I couldn’t have known that learning to trust Him in the daily things of life would be practice for trusting Him in the frightening, the disappointing, the painful, and the tragic. In 2012, our 18-year-old son Paul was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
In confusion and grief, in agony and loss, I learned that Jesus is a shelter in the storm. I cling to the promises in scripture because He has proved ever-faithful. His truth holds fast, His love holds me and His grace never fails.
Me, enjoying the tub in our drafty old farmhouse. (Notice the vintage kitchen!)
My sister’s birthday party. Four-year-old me pouted until I was allowed in the picture wearing my beloved “X’s-Texas” dress.
High school graduation
Three sons in three years!
Seriously, I really do sweep up a lot of demolition/construction debris in our ongoing house renovation.
Dad, Mom, my siblings and 4-year-old me, unable to hide my jealousy of my adorable baby brother.
A glamour shot with Mom’s roses and my precious Smokey-cat.
Monsieur and me, July 17, 1981
2003 – adventures in country life!
Our 25th anniversary - God’s goodness to us!
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A Message from Eleanor
Launch out into the far reaches of the universe. Delve deep into the intricate wonders of creation’s minutest particles. The farther humanity explores, the more awe I feel at the God whose power and genius spoke it all into existence. As a very young girl, I relished the delicious thrill of feeling tiny in the face of vast power, whether under a giant prairie sky, or failing in my count of the sparkling night stars. Like holding hands with a grizzly bear, God’s thundering bigness against my feeble smallness terrifies and quiets me.
That shivery awe fills the pages of the Bible, where God’s mighty power and fearsome holiness are vividly on display. There I read of a majestic King, both perfectly holy and utterly sovereign. That’s the terror part! He governs every detail of history, and every detail of my life.
But layered within that message is the constant harmony line of God’s pure goodness and the astonishing message of His never-ending love for sinners like me, in the sacrificial death of His Son Jesus in my place.
“And from my smitten heart with tears
Two wonders I confess --
The wonders of His glorious love
And my unworthiness.”
(Elizabeth C. Clephane, Beneath the Cross of Jesus)
More than anything, I long to convey these twin wonders -- God’s holiness and His mercy. I’m flooded with joy knowing I belong to a trustworthy, loving God who forgives me and never leaves me!
If you'd like a listening ear, or a word of encouragement, email me at bertinhome [at] hotmail.com
ELEANOR BERTIN
Eleanor Bertin holds a college diploma in Communications and worked in agriculture journalism before leaving the workforce for thirty years of raising and home-educating a family of seven children. What felt like the sacrifice of career and recognition gradually became a joyful calling.
But children have a way of growing up and she returned to writing with her first novel, Lifelines, followed by the memoir, Pall of Silence, about her late son, Paul.
She writes to convey the ways that God’s grace pierces through the armour of even the hardest heart, softening and transforming people, both real and imagined, into true worshippers.
Eleanor lives with her husband and youngest son, who has Down syndrome, amid the ongoing renovation of a century home in central Alberta where she reads, writes, sweeps up construction rubble and blogs about a sometimes-elusive contentment at jewelofcontentment.wordpress.com.
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