Devotional 5-28-10

The Realization

My relationship with God has been quite a process over the years. As a teenager, I attended a small Presbyterian Church in my hometown. We had a strong youth group in those days that I enjoyed very much. As a young adult in college, I did not attend church very often. God and I did not talk very often. Then my dear mother became ill. I used to lay my hand on her heart and pray to Him. It seemed that He did not answer my prayers. As she became worse, I became angry with God. Events happened in my life that were sad and hurtful in addition to my mother’s illness. So I became angrier with God. It was not until the night before my mother’s heart surgery that someone said to me that God was tough and could handle my anger. I got down on my knees and prayed for my mother with the understanding that I must put my mother in His hands. I felt peace for the first time in years. My mother lived 12 more years and I thanked God for everyday.

When I went to Israel in 2005, I still felt that I needed to be emotionally touched sometime during that trip. I was always searching. I was at the Olive Grove where Jesus prayed before He was to die, when I heard my mother singing , “I come to the garden alone while the due is still on the roses..” My mother was ok!

A friend of mine recently died. An acquaintance of hers told me that my friend was very anti-religious and was an atheist or at least an agnostic. Then it really hit me—the realization of how sad it would be to not believe in God and a life after death. It would seem that life would have no meaning. Life, Death, and then nothing! How sad to believe that. Sometimes it takes quite a process to get to be where I am. How simple it is…the realization of what it is all about!

Carolee Brown

Devotional 5-21-10

Wanna Be Friends?
I recently spent a day at Carter Caves with my daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, Loretta, 5, and Thurston, who was 3 on that very day. It was a beautiful spring day, and we had such a good time. We toured the Cascade Cave, had a picnic next to a playground then walked to the natural bridge where we crossed the creek almost without getting our feet wet. On the way back, we ran into a woman and her two children who we happened to know, but had not seen in years. These children were wading in shallow water. The little girl, Anna, looked at Loretta and said, "Wanna catch water spiders?" Loretta was more than willing, and the two of them took off, hand-in hand, with buckets ready to scoop up unsuspecting spiders or any other critters they might encounter. You would have thought they were life-long friends, but the last time they were together was four years ago. I'm sure neither had a memory of the other, but what a precious sight to see them traipsing off through the water.

Several years ago my Sunday School class watched a video about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At one point it showed an apartment building in Nazareth (I think) where both Israeli and Palestinian families lived. An Israeli woman and her Palestinian neighbor were interviewed, both stating that they had never spoken to each other. I found that to be such a sad situation. How can you be neighbors for years and never stop to pass the time with each other? What lost opportunities for understanding! Those women could have learned something from watching two little girls, strangers one minute, wading in the water arm-in-arm the next.

Jesus said, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Luke 18: 16-17). I think I glimpsed a little piece of heaven that day at Carter Caves.

Anita Gardner Farrell

Devotional 5-14-10

Stop the Hate

Have you ever hit the forward button in your e- mail and then wished you could take it back? Maybe the message was funny, but the more you thought about it , a little mean or a little degrading. Maybe it was a serious message that was purporting to give you facts, but the more you thought about it the facts seemed a little too good or too bad to be true. The internet is an amazing tool. But just like everything else it can be used for both good and evil.

The hate that seems to have invaded our society has been bothering me for a long time. No party or group is innocent--all have participated. Messages get reduced to sound bites that often are very misleading. We get so caught up in our own agendas that it seems ok to take liberties to persuade others to our point of view. My husband and I have even gotten e-mails that once featured Bush and now the name and the picture have been changed to Obama, but they contained the same hate filled message. We have received ‘infomercial’ e-mails that contain at best misguided or out dated information and at worst out right lies and skewed facts. Sometimes there is a combination of truth and fiction. These seem the most insidious because they give you just enough truth to be believable until you check them out. (Often they claim to have already been checked!) All too often we assume that the printed word is fact and forward the message without checking.

As Christians we are called to love, not hate. We should be able to disagree without resorting to half-truths and innuendo. We complain about people who give Christians a bad name. If we do not want to fall into that category our e-mails should reflect our beliefs--both religious and secular. They should not put down any group in our society and they should be factual.

Dave Pelzer wrote, “Hate is a cancer that spreads one cell at a time.” It is also spread one e-mail at a time. You can help stop the hate by pausing, thinking, and checking the facts. You can stop the hate one click at a time.

Margaret Williams

Devotional 5-7-10

Look Ma

Look Ma, no ---ma. Mother’s Day and no Mom. It feels weird to type the words and quite unnatural to hear them coming from my mouth. Being among those who exist on this planet without their mother is a club to which I never thought I would belong. Not to be confused with the childish behavior I currently exhibit, but I, for a long time into adulthood, was naïve enough to never consider that someday I would be here without my mom. Mom’s passing is still fresh enough that stories surface from people who I have not seen since she died but who want to share something they remember about her. It’s funny what the mind conjures up. I can picture, on Mother’s Day, the scene from the commercial “I want to teach the world to sing…” We won’t be singing about COKE, but we will be arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder singing and telling of our moms. I heard a member of our church whose family had been dealt a nasty hand by Alzheimer’s say, “We said goodbye to Mom twice.” I echo those words. I watched as the keen, sharp mind forgot, as the bright eyes faded into stare and the cleverly concealed wit and humor went cold. I’ll never forget the day that the harshness of reality settled in to stay and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that even though she looked at me, my mother did not know who I was. Whether the memory was made in childhood or on the day before she left this earth, each one is precious and immensely valuable. The phone rang in the wee hours of the morning August 16th. Somehow I knew. The voice on the other end did not say “Steve?”, or “It’s Dad.” I said “Hello,” and he said, “She’s gone.” Instant club membership. Mom tolerated her children but LOVED her grandbabies. I would like to think that a part of her remains through those that remain. That the lessons learned, the bad words shushed, the ‘not so clean’ jokes nipped off as she entered the room and the love in her smile, her hug, her simple pat on the arm that said “It’s ok” will carry on.

There is someone special in our lives now. Maybe it’s a mom, maybe it’s a mom-type someone. That person that you want to be proud of you – regardless of your age. That person you don’t want to hear what you say when you smash your finger in a drawer. That person whose smile makes your day better. That person who’s hug takes you back and makes you feel loved and secure. When you see that someone next > tell them.

Steve Matthews

Devotional 4-30-10

A Child Is Born
{Ryan Lavalley is a sophomore at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He has spent this semester in Nicaragua, taking classes and working on mission projects. He stays with a host Nicaraguan family. I have been privileged to receive e-mail reports of his adventure. This one screamed "devotion" to me. He gave me permission to share it with you. (Anita Farrell)}

Hello all!

Some wonderful news. This Monday at 10:40 in the morning, the son of my host-niece, Paublina was born. Fernandito was almost 8 pounds and healthy. He has some very healthy lungs because as soon as he was born we could hear his crying from the waiting room of the clinic we were in. It was beautiful moment when the doctor brought the new baby boy out into the waiting room, father proudly following. When his father took Fernandito in his arms, it was a testament to the beauty of new life and the innocence of childhood. In that moment I realized this child had no sense of language, no sense of nationality, no sense of religion, no sense of prejudice, hatred, poverty, jealousy, wealth, or race. He simply felt the loving arms of his father wrapping around him in a protective embrace. His father stared down into his small frail face and simply smiled with love.

It reminded me that we can find love or we can be taught hatred. In the end much of the ugliness in this world is taught and conditioned while most of the good comes from a place deep within us, a place of childhood and innocent love. When we reach for this part of our inner core, that place that connects us to the pure love that comes from a child, this is when we can find true peace and true strength within ourselves and within this world. We are born a package of genuine original love. We are like no other being on this earth. Our humanity, our human nature, cannot be evil, because how could this child be something other than love. I was reminded through the small glistening eyes of an infant that what makes me human is the ability to love and the ability to choose love. So congratulations and good luck to Paublina and her husband, and I pray that Fernandito feels the love I saw in his Fatheŕs eyes for the rest of his life. Fernando has safely come home today and is surrounded by his loving family. Gracias a Dios.

Paz y Amor
Ryan