Many of us are privileged to call Frederick John Harbidge (May 2/1899-May 23/1975) by the name of Grandpa. Just recently, my husband and I received a priceless gift, a chair that once belonged to Grandpa.
I suppose one of the reasons we acquired this is because Rick was born on his Grandpa's birthday and was given his name. This chair will now grace our new log home where we will be able to remember Grandpa in a whole new way!
It arrived in a state of needed repair so I decided to take on this project, not realizing the joy it would bring me in doing so. As I peeled off layer after layer of materials, I found several kinds of fabric, vinyl, burlap and even straw. Stripped down to the naked frame, it was made of quarter sawn oak, which was a common way of cutting wood in that era. It took hours to sand each part of the frame which gave me plenty of time to do some thinking about Grandpa and some other things.
He used to sit in this chair at the kitchen table while he looked out the window in his Calgary home. I wondered if he did a lot of remembering as he sat there, or did he have dreams or make plans too? Did he hold his children and grandchildren on his knee there, or did he even hold Nana on his lap in that very chair? It was likely a very useful piece of furniture that served him well.
I got to some deeper thinking as I started to see some changes during this restoration process. We all should come to the time and place when we realize our need to be restored. Sometimes years go by before we realize that we need Someone to peel away the layers until we're stripped naked of all that is ugly and useless. We need to go through a time of painful sanding when the Master Builder can smooth out the rough edges and reshape some areas. Sometimes deep scars remain, just like in Grandpa's chair, but even they can be made to be beautiful. In fact, the Master Builder, through His Son, Jesus, is very familiar with scars!
Perhaps Grandpa sat in this very chair while he prayed for all of us! I know he read verses from the Bible like these that remind us of our need, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10) And then this verse, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! " (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Thank You, Grandpa, for still speaking to us today through your old oak chair!
- by Beryl Harbidge, June 16, 2008
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