GROWING SEEDS: The Cure

 

 

 "The Cure"

This morning as I was preparing to write this article....visualizing the blind-man-turned-begger-turned-hopeless, sitting on the side of the road and wondering what God needed to say to you and me about this story, I receive a text from my friend Robin who simply said, "Good Morning My Friend....LONG LONG LONG time no hear!!  I am going to send you a book you MUST read.....from the moment I cracked the cover, I thought of you.  It's called, 'The Cure'."

"The Cure:  What If God Isn't Who You Think He Is And Neither Are You"

Robin doesn't know it yet, but God just used her to write this bulletin article.  The title says it all, doesn't it?  The Cure.  The disciples just automatically assumed this man....let's call him Dave.....that Dave had sinned in the womb (??) or else his parents had sinned somewhere along the way that caused his blindness from birth.   He longed for a cure....longed to see what the sky looked like.....longed to live a normal life.

"My Grace is Sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness."
2 Corinthians 12:9

But God had other plans.  He planned on using Dave to teach YOU and ME some 2000 years later that His grace....oh yes, His wonderful Grace.....happens smack-dab in the middle of our massive weakness.  And Dave, who puts his hands in the waters of the Pool of Siloam....brings them up to his empty eyes....and slowly opens his now baptized eyes, and sees the reflection of his face in the water for the first time ever.  He - Was - Cured.

"I entered this world to render judgment -
to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see -
that - they - are - blind." 
John 9:39

BAM!  We are ALL blind....no different from Dave-the-Blind-Beggar.....but are we willing to baptize our eyes (heart) in the Grace of God just as Dave obediently baptized his eyes in the Pool of Siloam so many years ago?  Is your blindness getting in the way of seeing God in your reflection?

GROWING SEEDS: JOURNEY OF GRIEF

 

"The journey of grief has mile markers. 
The first mile marker is:
 Believe - It - Really - Happened." 

My friend, Mike Tucker, wrote those words above.  Mike knows a thing or two about Grief.  He is smack-dab in the middle of his Grief as the days tick by.......bringing him closer and closer to the first anniversary of his deeply loved wife's death.  You never saw Mike when you didn't see Gayle.....you never saw Gayle when she wasn't talking about Mike.  She was given a little less than a month from the time the cancer was revealed to the day he stood at her grave saying goodbye.  That one-year deadline is quickly approaching.

Gayle's death broke Mike in a million pieces that day. 

And as I've watched this man grieve over the course of this past year through the words of his journal......felt the moisture of his tears as they fell on words he bravely wrote on his journey to healing....I've discovered that Grief is as necessary in this life as Happiness.  Reread that, friends.  Whether this grief that breaks our hearts wide open comes from the death of a loved one, or maybe we find ourselves broken from the sheer brokenness of this evil world we live in.......It - Is - Necessary.....for a time. 

The woman at the well the day Jesus showed up in Samaria....she knew about Grief.....and she knew the pain of Brokenness.   Married multiple times, living with a man not her husband, the women in town gossiping behind her back.....the constant wondering, "Why can't I find the right person to share my life with".  It was in her brokenness that she met Jesus. 

But here's the deal:  God LOVES the broken.  Christ CAME for the broken.  It's the broken and breathless who long for the Spirit to blow life across their wounded hearts.

“In Gethsemane, the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from Him.
It did not.”
― C.S. Lewis

GROWING SEEDS: The Hands and Feet.....OF THE CHURCH

 

The Hands and Feet......OF THE CHURCH
Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote in this white space on the back of the bulletin about a retired couple who had come through The Flood of two Christmas' ago.  You may recall, my friend Cheryl and I had met them at the local laundromat while they washed the lake out of every item of clothing they owned and LIFE felt as though it had slapped them in the face and left them, ALONE in the mud.  They were living without an oven or dishwasher; had no carpet on their stairs and the one thing that brought them joy and communication....their computer....had been destroyed.

Because this community we live in know the meaning of being "the hands and feet of Christ", they now have carpet on their stairs that, just two weeks ago, was simple rough plywood thanks to a couple who sit in the same pews of this church as you. 

Today, they will once again listen to classical music through the new computer, fully loaded with their favorite composers....that once brought them so much JOY and REST before it drowned in the flood waters of Lake Cypress Springs, thanks to someone quietly sitting across the aisle from you who knows the importance of JOY and REST in a mud-filled world. 

And today......today they are fixing breakfast in their brand new oven instead of the crockpot sitting on their yellow laminate countertop that they have prepared every meal for the past 16 months in......and are washing those breakfast dishes in their brand new dishwasher, because there is a company in our town who cares.....who gives a flip.....because they know the importance of giving back the blessings they themselves have received.

These are the QUIET hands and feet of Christ from members of this church and community.....who met this couple in the mud.  Met them right where they were....and discipled them by loving them....throwing them a lifeline.....and giving them HOPE.  Who practiced what Jesus had TOLD.....not asked.....us ALL to do in John 15:12:

"This is My commandment; that you love one another as I have loved you."
John 15:12

GROWING SEEDS: Brokeness & Backpacks

 

I once had a dear friend who always sat on the front row, right-side-aisle most every Sunday at our church.  She always sat alone and, its pure speculation on my part, but I think she sat on that front row to avoid the distractions that come from sitting anywhere else (plus, it put her close to the side door where she could make a quick exit when church was over). 

It's been a few years now since Di Ann gave me this cross made out of rusty metal.....old nails really.....that has hung on the side of my hutch in the dining room.  The day she handed it to me, she was smiling big.  She was so proud to give it to me....thought I needed it.....and rushed it over to my house, complete with pretty paper in a bag and ribbon surrounding it.  We had just finished a home study on Eucharisteo.....the act of giving Thanks.....thanks for everything.....even the massively broken things in our lives.....and Di Ann had a lot of broken things in her life.

She passed away last summer....unexpectedly.....and silently.  I pray she knew Jesus was climbing that broken mountain with her and that He carried a backpack with her name on it to put all the broken pieces from her life into. 

I wish I had been a better friend and helped her transfer those broken pieces from Her back to His.

I wish......

But my wish for you, my friend, is to know the whole purpose of the empty cross is so you no longer have to carry the sharp, cutting broken pieces of your life anymore.  If you just call out to Him...."Come quick, Lord, I need You"....He'll carry the burden & weight of your broken pieces in that specially made & personalized backpack with your name on it.

Because He loves you.