70 Rich Years in Christ and Now at Home with Her Lord

September 15, 1930 – November 22, 2022

Editor’s Note:  I am privileged to be able to say this dear 90-year-old Christian, is also my Godly and faithful mother-in-law. P.Ramsay

When people think of Prince Edward Island (Canada) many think of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s best-selling novels entitled Anne of Green Gables. But at age 90, as I reflect on PEI, my memories revolve around the first thirty years of my life.

My Early Life

I have happy memories of my childhood growing up in a little farmhouse in Southport – now known as Stratford. I wasn’t born into wealth, but I had more than so many others. Our little farm kept us busy and my father, Lorne Kelly had a milk-route around Charlottetown for many years.

Given my age, you might think I can remember the days before the electric light bulb or running water. But we definitely had those luxuries in the 1930s – even if we didn’t have indoor washrooms.

As far as I know, we were the only Protestant Kelly family on PEI. We attended the Clifton United Church in Bunbury. My great grandfather had donated the land for the little church.

Going to Church

I always liked going to church. Although I never sang in a choir and I never considered myself to be a singer,  I remember loving to sing the Sunday School songs like ‘Jesus Loves Me’. I owned my own Bible and among other things, I learned the Ten Commandments in Sunday School.

At Easter time we often got a piece of new clothes and maybe a new Spring hat for church on Easter Weekend. Some Sundays my mother would have the minister to our home for dinner. So we were that kind of family. My mother, Charlotte (Lottie) Kelly (nee Smallwood) instilled in my young mind a reverence for God and the Bible. I remember, as a young girl, colouring one of my sentences with “Oh, Heavens!” – and she immediately told me I was swearing.

Clouds Early in Life

I was only six when my first cousin was struck by a drunk driver as she ran across the road chasing a ball. Shirley was just nine. I inherited her doll dishes. Of course, I was too young to think about the seriousness of death and eternity. I only felt sadness. But growing up, if anyone had asked me about where I would be after I died – I just assumed I would go to Heaven.

I remember the sadness in our home when my older brother went off to war. Like every family, we were fearful of what could happen at war. The very mention of Adolf Hitler’s name or the sound of planes in the sky frightened me. The war song “The White Cliffs of Dover” brings back so many memories of those difficult years.

Wholesome and Healthy Fun

I always enjoyed outdoor activities but in the winter months, I particularly liked to skate. At that time, the Hillsborough River between Charlottetown and Southport would freeze over and I regularly skated to piano lessons in Charlottetown.

Reading the Bible – A Religious Teen

My mother always encouraged me to read the Bible, just like she read hers. When I was twelve, I remember reading a verse that caused me to really think about its meaning. The words of Jesus made an impression on my mind. I was reading that no one could see or enter the Kingdom of God unless they were born again. This is the verse that caused me to stop and think:

Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. John 3:7

What did the Lord Jesus mean when He told the religious Rabbi Nicodemus that he himself must be born again? Even though I often joined my mother as she faithfully listened to radio Bible preachers like Charles E. Fuller and Perry F Rockwood, the requirement of being born again for even a good living person was something I did not understand.

Looking back on it now, I suppose people would have called me a religious teenager. Every second week, when our little Clifton Church had no services, I would walk two and a half miles [4kms] alone to attend services and the Sunday School at the large Trinity United Church in downtown Charlottetown.

Aspiring Math Teacher Changes Course

I had every intention of becoming a math teacher when I started at Prince of Wales College. I loved math but illness changed my intentions and my path in life. In my third year at college, I had to be hospitalized for strep throat. As the penicillin injections were administered every three hours, I began to think of a nursing career and the possibility of helping people in their sickness.

I started the three-year Nursing Program in Charlottetown. We studied and worked long hours on the hospital floors each day. We were also required to live in the ‘nursing residence’ so we became a closely-knit group. There were 23 in our graduating class. Annually we still get together, although our numbers are being depleted. One fellow nurse, Louise Gillis, became a lifelong friend.

Horse Races and a Street Meeting

I loved to go to the horse races at the Charlottetown Raceway. My father, brother, and uncle were all horse race drivers. My mother would never allow me to bet on the horses. For me, the thrill was just watching the horses race. It was a favourite event for me. Craving to go the races one night, I begged my friend Louise to come with me. With absolutely no interest, she obliged and came along with me.

One Saturday evening in September I had nowhere to go for entertainment. The races had finished for the season. By this time, Louise and I were in different nursing residences, but I had heard that Louise had been saved two weeks earlier. I asked her: “What is that?” And then I asked her what her plans were for Saturday night. She said she was going to a ‘street meeting’. I decided to go along with her, but I really didn’t get much out of it.

Running to Churches

I certainly wasn’t indifferent to spiritual things. During the annual week of Prayer, another nursing student and I would quickly change out of our nursing uniforms and literally run to whatever church was having the service that night. But I never really thought of myself as ‘searching’. I thought I was okay. How wrong I was!

On another occasion, an evangelist was speaking at the Trinity United Church. Again, we ran each night to those services. My roommate said to me: “I bet you went forward.” “No, I didn’t,” I said. “I don’t think I have the time right now.”

Booklets Were No Coincidence

Louise had given me two little booklets after that street-meeting I attended with her. “Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment” was the title of one and the other was “God’s Way of Salvation”. Was it nothing more than a coincidence that those were the exact same booklets I already had in my possession? I had cleaned out the bedside table of a patient who had been discharged and I saw those two booklets left in the drawer. I took them back to my room always intending to read them, but I never did. This was about to change.

Louise kept asking me if I ever did read the two booklets. My response was always the same – “No, not yet.” One night I went with her to a Gospel tent meeting in Cape Traverse to hear Albert Ramsay and John McCracken. Like the street meeting I attended, I didn’t get much out of their sermons either. But two hymns sung that evening touched my heart. “There’s a Line that is Drawn by Rejecting the Lord” and “Thou art Not Very Far from the Kingdom of God.” I found the hymns very searching.

One day, I had an extra hour off from working in the Operating Room and my mind went to those two booklets. Reading them became a must for me. I could not put it off any longer. I started with Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment, but I didn’t seem to get very far with that one. So, I turned to God’s Way of Salvation.

Not Prepared for Heaven – Facing the Reality

Despite my frequent attendance at church services as a young woman, I could not remember ‘hell’ being mentioned in a sermon. Up until this time, I just assumed that good people like me would surely end up in Heaven. But now I wasn’t so sure. The fearful thought of being shut out of Heaven gripped my heart.

As I read God’s Way of Salvation, there was no doubt about it. I was not saved. I was not a Christian. I was not born again. I decided to try reading the other booklet again – Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment.

The booklet illustrated the death of Christ for sinners by using an example from the Old Testament that went like this:

But every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb; and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck… Exodus 13:13 NKJV

I knew I needed to be redeemed. I read the story of the lamb dying in the stead of the donkey. Then I read the words of John the Baptist who pointed out Jesus to the people:

Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29

The New Christian

That Wednesday afternoon I understood the Lord Jesus died for me. He, the Just One, died for me the unjust. (1 Peter 3:18) With that realization, joyful happiness flooded my soul. I went back to work later that afternoon with a song in my heart, singing, “I’ll Do it All for Jesus.”

Knowing that Christ died for my sins brought much joy to my heart. But I wasn’t sure that the peace I now had was technically the same as what Louise called ‘being saved.’ All I knew was – I had been changed and I was filled with happiness.

Two weeks went by and I hadn’t told anyone. One day Louise and I went over to my parents’ home and I was playing a few hymns on the piano. I commented to her just how meaningful the words of the hymns had become – hoping she might ask me what I meant. But she didn’t.

That same night, Louise and I were reading together. I don’t recall what I said but Louise exclaimed: “Kelly, are you saved?!” I said: “Yes!” That verbal confession of faith in Christ immediately gave me real joy.

Joyful Reflections

This year I celebrated my 90^th birthday with so much to thank the Lord for. What a tragedy had I reached this stage in life, still just assuming I would end up in Heaven because I was a good God-fearing, church-going person!

God saved me in September 1950. I celebrated my 90^th birthday in September 2020. For seventy years I have enjoyed the peace of sins all forgiven and a personal relationship with the Lord and the absolute assurance of Heaven as my eternal destiny – all because Christ died for my sins.

In 1952 I married Floyd Stewart of Long Creek, PEI. Four of our children were born on PEI. In 1960, we moved to Nova Scotia where our two youngest were born. We lived in Springhill and then later moved to Amherst where I live today.

Floyd worked as a door-to-door salesman, but the deepest desire of his heart was to tell others about Christ. I wonder if many sales were completed without the customer also hearing something about the Lord Jesus. For many years we enjoyed having a children’s work in our home with our basement filled to capacity. In later years, Floyd left his sales job and worked full-time in the Gospel.

The years have come and gone. Many smiles and many tears. But seven decades in Christ is a good test of the reality of God’s wonderful salvation and joy of knowing Christ personally as my Saviour and Lord.  I can’t imagine the emptiness of those seventy years, and the loneliness and even the lack of comfort had I never received the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour. What a secure anchor He has been over the many years!

Life’s Storms – Christ is the Anchor of My Soul

The Lord has been so good to me. When our oldest boy Stephen was suddenly taken at age 24, I could not get over how the Lord comforted me. He also blessed so richly in salvation. The phone rang after we returned from the cemetery. Bonita Elliott was the young step-mother of Stephen’s fiance. She asked us to come to her house and explain how she could be saved from her sins and prepared for Heaven. The following week Bonita trusted Christ and a number in that family circle trusted Christ. Bonita and I became very close friends until she went home to Heaven in February 2020.

A few years after our son’s death, my husband Floyd died at age 58 from cancer; and again, the Lord comforted me in such a wonderful way. And He has been so good to me ever since.  I thank Him so many times for being near me.

I love the Word of God. The Bible means everything to me.  There are so many precious promises in His Word.  One that has been precious to me over years since He saved me, is:

I shall never leave thee nor forsake thee… Hebrews 13:5

Even when I read it backwards the message is equally comforting. “Thee forsake nor thee leave, never will I.”

Over the years, there have been times when I have failed Him and I haven’t been as faithful as I would like to have been, but He is always faithful and He has never failed me.

My future is secure. Heaven is my home. I can tell you that Christ satisfies completely. There is nothing that can be compared to knowing Him.

Praying for You

My prayer for all my loved ones and all others who may read my little story is that you will find the real meaning in life, the fulfillment and the joy that I found in Christ in 1950 and continue to enjoy. I’m ninety. I don’t know how much longer I will be here. I wish I knew for sure that I will meet you in Heaven. But that choice is yours. I can only pray.