Biography
Dr. James L. Kidd is Senior Minister of Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut. Following in his father's footsteps, he was called to the Ministry and pursued a seminary education at Andover Newton Theological School and Chicago Theological Seminary. Jim is one of the most dynamic ministers in the Northeast. His popular sermons and creative leadership have made the historic Asylum Hill church the fastest growing Congregational church in all of New England.  [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Chinese Checkers" 
This past week a young woman came to see me in my study. She is a woman who has had terrible problems in her life. When she was in college, she was in a horrible automobile accident that took the life of her fiancé. She herself had traumatic brain injury and her body was damaged in multiple ways. She went from one hospital to another and experienced terrible pain and anguish for the next nine years. Finally a year and a half ago, at the end of that nine year period, she was able to get an apartment on her own and to try to live independently.

She came from a very fine family. Her father was a top executive at a major bank in Connecticut. Her eldest brother was a graduate of Harvard Law School. This last summer her sister was a beautiful bride. But this young woman is never going to be as beautiful as her brother nor a beautiful bride like her sister. A few months ago she started coming to our church, and then last week she came to see me to share her story.

She told me that from the time of the accident, she hadn't been to church because she felt that God had abandoned her. God hadn't protected her; God hadn't taken care of her the way she thought God should. She said to me, "How am I going to live my life? How am I going to look at God after having had these experiences that have so changed my life?" The question really is, "How do I live my life when this very tragic thing has happened to me?"

It seems to me that is probably the most basic question anybody ever asks. It is a question that inevitably comes into every single life. It has probably come to your life as it has come to my life and the lives of anybody I've ever known.

My wife and I think that preparing children to know how to answer that question is one of the most important tasks parents have. We tried to prepare our children for that question by playing a game called Chinese Checkers. Chinese Checkers is a board game; you have a little triangle with all of your marbles in that one triangle. The purpose is to jump other marbles in order to get into a triangle on the other side of the board. When you play the game with two, three or more people, you make a plan to move your marbles and jump one way. Then somebody always comes along and messes up your move.

It happens every time, and even though we know it always happens, we get very angry when it does. When it happens the first time, the children become angry. They tip over the board and say it is a terrible game. They say they are not going to play it any more; they don't like the game; or they may just get up and walk out of the room. They cry.

We had three children and all three of them responded in the same way as they tried to learn how to play the game. We tried to teach them that if they were going to play Chinese Checkers and have fun, they had to make two decisions. First, they had to realize that every time somebody messed up their move, a potentially better move was opened up. Second, they had to look for that new opportunity and take it. Our children began to do that. As soon as they learned the secret, they began to enjoy the game of Chinese Checkers.

After we played the game, we would always raise this question with them, "What have you learned about this game?" One of the things they discovered was that they had to make the decision to believe. If they didn't make the decision to believe, they would never look for the other opportunity. If they didn't look for it, they would never find it. And if they never found it, they would never discover the necessity and the importance of first deciding to believe that an opportunity would be there if they looked for it. They also discovered that if they made the decision not to believe, that when their planned move was messed up and an equally good move would be made available, they never would learn to enjoy the game of Chinese Checkers or be able to win at it.

Our two sons had a disease called cystic fibrosis, which is fatal and incurable. Both of them have died, but they learned the lesson of Chinese Checkers. They learned that when the moves that they had planned for their lives were blocked, other opportunities were made available to them if they would just look. They were able to reach out and live their lives so long as they were alive. Life came along and said, "No," here, but said, "Yes," over there.

Our oldest boy, Bruce, died when he was only thirteen years old. He learned that life had said to him, "No, you can't be a football player," but at the same time life said to him, "You can be a leader." He was the president of the student council of his grammar school and he won a city-wide contest for science here in Chicago. He and another little friend made the longest gum-wrapper chain ever made in the history of the world. For many years that gum-wrapper chain was in the Ripley Believe It or Not Museum. Then he died. For all the time he lived, he believed that when God said, "No" in one place, He opened doors in another place.

The same thing was true with our son, Peter. God said, "No" to him in a lot of ways, but he was still able to go off to college and make something of his life. He was on the debate team and the dean's list. He was a wonderful young man. And then he died.

One of the things that we learned about the lesson of Chinese Checkers is that this message has been around for a long time. In fact, it is one of the basic messages of the Scripture.

In the Old Testament, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. Later, as things developed, his brothers came into his control. They were terrified because they thought that Joseph was going to get revenge on them, but Joseph said, "No. You meant to do evil against me but God meant it for good."

The message of Chinese Checkers is that there is a reality, a spirit, which is at work behind the scenes. When life says no in one place, this spiritual reality, this reality of God, provides an opportunity to live our lives in an even better way than we had thought possible before we became aware of it.

Saint Paul wrote that in Jesus Christ all things work together for good, for those who love the Lord. When we first learned about our boys, we had a plaque in our home with those words from Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord. We used to look at that all the time because it was so hard for us to believe it. Having made the decision to believe that God was behind everything, that God could take the tragedy of our children and transform even that into something good, taught us to embrace our children and to love and affirm the goodness of life.

When this young lady came to see me this past week, I told her about the game of Chinese Checkers. I took her over to the mantle and I took down a plaque which had the words of Romans 8:28 -- "All things work together for good to those who love the Lord."

So my friends, the way things are in Chinese Checkers and in life is the way things are: that all things in Christ work together for good to those who love the Lord. Amen.

Interview with James Kidd
Interviewed by Gunther Knoedler

Gunther Knoedler: Thank you for your message. You shared some very personal things with us tonight about the death of your two boys. I understand you have had a problem with cancer. Would you tell us how you dealt with it? How do you deal with it?

James Kidd: I don't think I have cancer any more, but eight years ago I was diagnosed as having lymphoma. God has used that affliction in my life to enable me to minister to a lot of people who have had cancer. It seems to me that it is almost epidemic. So many people have come to me with that problem.

The one thing that I have been able to communicate to them is that I have been able to find peace. During those times when, in the middle of the night, I was possessed by terror over the possibility of my death and the loss of control, I prayed a prayer of surrender and said, "Lord, I surrender myself to you in the same way Jesus did in Gethsemane. Lord, I would like to get well, but I surrender myself to your care. Whether I live or whether I die, I give myself to you and I entrust myself to your care." Then I found I had some peace. As I have shared that with others, they, too, have had the same experience.

Knoedler: Jim, in this matter of faith that you talked about tonight and that you are expressing now, why does faith grow in some people and in others it doesn't seem to take root at all?

Kidd: It is a very interesting and difficult question. My perception is that people who don't have faith are people who are resisting confronting the truth about their life; namely, their own vulnerability and their own needfullness. Until we are aware of our frailty, we are not aware of our need for God.

Knoedler: Thank you. I wish we had more time, Jim.