"You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me!" Psalm 139:5-6
August 7, 1942 is a date, for most people, that has little to no meaning. For the Tabbut family it has everything to do with the sovereignty of God and life.
Sgt. Perry Tyler Tabbut was part of one of the battalions that were the first to land on Guadalcanal in what would become the beginning of the offensive assault in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
For two months the Marines waged war on the Japanese before they took the high ground which became known as Bloody Ridge. They were shelled nightly by Japanese ships that were off shore.
Not long after the ridge was secure they received orders to move operations to the low lying area around Henderson Airfield to keep it secure from the enemy. They were, now, more exposed to direct hits from the enemy
Foxholes! The shovels flew as they dug holes in the dirt up to three feet wide and more than 6 ft deep. Fortunately, the dirt was softer so the digging went fast. They needed to get the job done quickly because they knew the enemy was relentless. The ships in the harbor and the planes that flew overhead regularly were a constant threat to their very lives.
Perry was a simple, quiet man. He grew up on the farm in Northern Minnesota. He spent a lot of his youth cutting down trees and digging out stumps. He knew the value of hard work. The night before he set sail for Guadalcanal, he spent his free time quietly making two purchases, a watch and a map, before he went back on ship. He wanted to get an idea of where he was going and understood the value of keeping time. In time, both purchases would become extremely useful.
As Perry stood on the beach that warm October day, scanning the terrain, he noticed the number of downed coconut trees from previous skirmishes. Thinking back to his tree cutting days on the farm, he said to the boys," If I only had an axe I could chop those trees to use for a roof over the foxholes making them safer." He had not seen an axe since he had left Minnesota. Looking down at the ground one of his buddies immediately replied,"Look, over there, in the grass, its an axe." Little did he know, it would become an axe that changed the course of Tabbut family history. He never saw an axe again for the remainder of the war.
If we don't stop, look carefully and reflect, we miss the evidence of God's sovereign care in our lives. For Perry, that day, the sovereign axe meant protection of life. Though their foxhole took on shrapnel, if they had not put the coconut tree roof over their heads Perry would have not made it out of the hole alive. The Japanese planes flew low dropping bombs through a partly cloudy sky with good visibility.
That was 1942. Perry continued as a Marine through the remainder of the war. He nearly died of Malaria, but recovered, and went on to fight in more bloody battles in the South Pacific. He returned home in December of 1945 to his waiting bride to be.
Perry and Margaret raised a family of three children, Mary, Susan and Byron. His health was never the same. Frequent bouts of Malaria would change the course of his life and work. Perry died in February 1981 at the age of 66. He has been long remembered as a wise, but simple soft spoken man.
On this Father's Day may we thank God for our fathers and the legacy they leave. A sovereign axe laying in the grass nearly 70 years ago meant that Mary, Susan, and Byron would be given life and families of their own, who have gone on to have families of their own. There are no chance encounters with God!
