GROWING SEEDS: "There Is A Story That Survives Fire"

"Now is our chance to CHOOSE the right side.

God is holding back to give us that chance.

It won't last forever.

We must take it or leave it."

C.S. Lewis

When the steeple finally fell from a burning Notre Dame this Holy Week, it was like 3:00 pm, two-thousand-years-ago on Good Friday once again.  I could almost hear the words, "It Is Finished" as it fell in slow motion and the skies grew dark from the heavy smoke and eerie sadness.  The choir of voices from behind the police barricades...in one of the least spiritual cities in the world...could be heard singing the words to Ava Maria.  At the same time, my atheist friend sends me an email, "Say a prayer for me when you attend Easter service, Liz."  But to "who" I ask... if you don't believe in God?

The Friday He died...the day that changed the world...when the curtain in the temple was miraculously and lovingly ripped from top to bottom and opened the door to Salvation for you and I, oh, to have lived in that time and witnessed what happened that day!  Where would I have been in that crowd, I ask myself?   

Would I have been one of those in the group that yelled "Crucify Him", or would I have been one who bowed my head when I heard Jesus cry out, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing?

Would I have denied Him like Peter or would I have run and hidden like the other disciples? 

 

So where would you have been in that crowd?  Would you have had your arm around Mary as she watched her Son being stripped and beaten, then forced to carry his own heavy cross?  Would you have stared...or looked away...as the nails were hammered into His wrists and feet?   

It's a fear of mine...not knowing where I would have stood in the crowd that Friday.

And today is Easter....a day we remember to stay rooted in His story...because His-story has to become OUR story.  And the words that should burn through our soul every-single-day should be "How am I spending His blood?"