Devotional 8-28-15

VISITING MARY’S HOUSE

High on a mountain outside of the ancient city of Ephesus there is a small stone house that is known as Mary’s house. When my husband, Steve and I visited it a couple of years ago, we knew very little about it. We only knew that the Apostle John was reported to have taken Mary with him to Ephesus after Jesus’ crucifixion (John 19: 25-27) and that this was where many believe she spent her final years. Our tour bus was the first to arrive there that day. Steve and I were among the first people off the bus and the fastest walkers by far! This made us the first people to enter that day and gave us a few minutes alone before the crowds started to arrive.

It was a simple 2 room house. The first room was a very small chapel lit by candles. There was a table altar with a Turkish rug on the floor. A circular alcove containing a statue of the Virgin Mary was built into the wall behind it. On the left side of the altar in a small brick alcove is a Turkish Bible open to John 19:25-27. On the right side of the altar, in a similar alcove, is an icon of Mary. 

These details I looked up later. At the time I had only the impression of a simple chapel and an overwhelming sense of the presence of Mary! The feeling was so strong that I just started talking to her in my head. I have never experienced anything like it before or since. She was there! We went on into the second room which was set up as a small bedroom--again very simple. Then we went out. We had not spoken since entering the house. I looked at Steve and asked if he had felt it. “Oh, yeah!” was his heart felt reply. This confirmed my feelings, To say that Steve is a skeptic about such things would be an understatement. This was not my imagination.

In my last devotional (August 8) I quoted an article about how Mary’s house was discovered. God used a poor, uneducated, German nun. He gave her a vision of where Mary’s house was located. Nobody listened when she spoke in her own language. So  God made her speak in Aramaic. God finally had the church’s attention! The foundation of what had been Mary’s house was discovered and rebuilt. This was a true miracle!

Steve’s and my experience was our own personal miracle. Would our experience have been the same if we had been part of a large group? I don’t know. I just know that it was a powerful “God moment” in both of our lives.

Margaret Williams

Devotional 8-22-15

WILL I EVER GET IT RIGHT?

Ephesians 2 :4-8

Courtesy of my dear little cat, Calli, there was a carpet stain in a very obvious  place in the hallway. No big deal you say.  I found I had a spray can of carpet cleaner in the junk cupboard along with a lot of other stuff, tile cleaner, tub cleaner, furniture polish, etc. (If you need any kind of cleaner just come and see my seldom used supply).

Okay, let's get to it. Read the directions first. Now this is my problem whether it is a spray can of some kind of cleaner or a recipe card. I read the directions carefully, not once, not twice, maybe three times. Even a recipe I have used many times, I have to keep reading the directions. Really stupid, right?

Sometimes I even wonder about my faith. Am I getting it right? The Upper Room scripture today was from Ephesians 2:1-10. After reading this passage I found my answer to getting it right. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast".

We don't have to get it right. Jesus has taken care of it. All we need to do is to believe and keep on believing even in our weakest moments. Oh, the wonder of God's grace.

PS. The carpet cleaner worked!

Jean Dean

Devotional 8-14-15

God, It’s Me

Proverbs 3:5-6  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

God, it’s me, Becky. I’m in trouble. Can you help me? I don’t know what to do!

Now just calm down. What seems to be the problem?

I’m ...anxious,EXTREMELY anxious!  I can’t sit down. I can’t lie down. I can’t even sit still for a foot rub! That never happens. SOB, SOB, SNORT, SOB...

When did your problems start?

Earlier in the week I noticed that my blood pressure medication was a different shape. I checked the label and it was the right generic name, so I thought nothing more of it. Later I felt dizzy a few times, but I blamed it on the heat. I am getting up there, you know. I felt claustrophobic in my own house, but going outside didn’t make me feel much better. And the crying! I sobbed during Last Comic Standing. That’s just not normal!

So when these things happened, what did you do? Did you go to the doctor to check it out? Did you go to the pharmacy to be sure you had the right prescription? 

I prayed to you... I figured you could fix me much faster than those other guys. Don’t you remember me asking for help? I was the one weeping in the Walmart parking lot.

As a matter of fact I do recollect something about that now. I also know what I answered. You know, prayer is a two-way conversation. If you ask me for something, wait for the answer!  In your case, I told you to see your doctor! Now you’ve waited until late evening, so you’ll need to go to the ER. I’ve seen your tithe, so I’m fairly certain you don’t need to be spending that kind of money.

Will you go with me?

Do you really need to ask? I go everywhere with you. But Don’s going to have to go, too. He will wait in the waiting room, wait when you fall asleep in the hospital room, and then wait to pay the bill. It’s a good thing you listened when I answered about him! Now let’s go get you straightened out. We all need our beauty sleep.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, you have given us everything we need to have a wonderful life. When we are anxious and ask for your help, don’t be afraid to put a neon sign and arrow next to our brothers and sisters. The sign might say, “ Because I love you, I trained these people to help you. Let them. Your loving God.”

Amen
Becky Warren

Devotional 8-7-15

Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. (NIV)

“The invalid German nun had never traveled outside of her home country. The daughter of 18th-century peasants, she was no scholar. Yet, awaking in a trance, she was speaking in a language no one knew.

A linguist was called on the scene. The nun, he revealed, was speaking Aramaic. And she was describing the house where the Virgin Mary spent her final days.

This was not the first vision of Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, who conversed with the Child Jesus and received the stigmata. But it was the first time that many began to give credence to her descriptions of a house near Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey) where Mary spent her final days — descriptions she had previously given in her own dialect.

What she described, recorded in a book called “The Life of The Blessed Virgin Mary,” was a small stone house, built by the Apostle John who, according to popular belief, brought Mary with him from Jerusalem to Ephesus. The house had a fireplace, apse, round back wall, a bedroom for Mary, and a spring that ran into her bedroom. After Mary was taken to heaven, said Emmerich, the house was turned into a chapel.

Sure enough, a late-19th century expedition to Nightingale Mountain (near Ephesus) revealed a site with holes in the ground for a cistern and a well, along with a destroyed chapel whose foundations likely dated from the first century. In the minds of many, Mary’s house had been found.

Today pilgrims from all over the world travel to Bülbül Dag (Nightingale Mountain) to see the site where Mary may have spent her final days. They come as faithful Catholics, as Christians, as Muslims (who revere Mary as Jesus’ mother), as curious tourists. They come to pay homage to the Virgin Mary, to attend Mass in the chapel built at the site, to drink the waters of the spring, and to leave heartfelt petitions — on handkerchiefs, scraps of paper, even leaves — at a wall constructed for the purpose.“*                                                  
God used Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich. By earthly standards it would seem a strange choice. But God often uses people who would seem a strange choice by our standards. What about you and me? God uses each and every one of us. Maybe not in quite as dramatic a way as he did Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich. But, He still uses us. When I pray I sometimes feel God pushing me to do things that take me out of my comfort zone--sometimes way out! More often, I think God  puts us in situations where we help someone and may never know the difference we have made. Embrace God, pray, and let God work through you!

Source

Margaret Williams