The Weak and the Strong of it

If you’ve been paying attention, you may recall that I am currently drafting a novel set against the backdrop of the Great Halifax Explosion of 1917. I’ve lost count of the books and articles I’ve read (kudos to our helpful and efficient local librarians!) or the websites I’ve visited in my attempts to bring historical accuracy to my fictional characters. It’s a crazy business, figuring out which parts you can invent and which parts you can’t. I like this definition: history books tell us what happened to people, while historical fiction shows us how they felt. I want readers to walk away from my books believing my story “could have happened.”

The following story, I’m sorry to say, is a true one.

Charles Upham, a Halifax harbor yardman, finished his night shift on December 6, 1917, and returned home. After eating a big breakfast and stoking the furnace for the day, he burrowed under the covers to sleep for a few hours. In the next bedroom, his daughter Millicent, nine, was staying home from school sick. Her brother Archie, seven, was visiting her for a moment before leaving for school.

Suddenly, the children heard a huge rushing wind tear through their house as shards of glass flew from the windows. Glass lodged into the back of Archie’s head while Millicent’s face was sliced to shreds. Their screams roused their father.

Although he’d been protected under the blankets, Charles ran barefoot into the next room, cutting his feet on glass fragments strewn about the floor. Seeing his children cut and bleeding, he led them out of Millicent’s room only to discover the entire east side of their house gone. The explosion had knocked out their staircase, trapping them on the second floor of a building about to collapse. The long strip of oilcloth that had covered the stairs, still attached at the top, flapped in the cold December wind.

Charles used the oilcloth like a rope to let himself down, then pulled it taut. He persuaded the children to slide down, even as beams and walls were caving in. Both children, though covered in blood and oily soot, did as their father urged and slid down the oilcloth. Immediately, the house went up in flames.

Charles carried Millicent piggyback and led Archie by the hand to safety. Though Millicent lost an eye and Archie later had twenty-two pieces of glass removed from his head, all three survived thanks to a humble oilcloth. All over Halifax, the strongest and most important parts of buildings (beams, joists, bricks) often became instruments of death while lesser, weaker items (like oilcloth) became lifesavers.

Throughout the Bible, God used humble and weak people to make a difference for good in this world. He used a shepherd boy to put an end to a giant bully. He picked a man with a speech impediment to lead his people out of slavery. He chose a peasant girl to become the mother of his son, our savior. I’ll bet you can think of others.

God delights in demonstrating his strength through our weakness, and that’s good news for us. A simple oilcloth possessed the properties to do what nothing else could that day. You and I have unique qualities God can use, too, in his way, when we say yes to him.

God told the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul’s response? “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me…. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (II Corinthians 12:9-10 NIV)

You can’t make this stuff up.