Devotional 4-27-12

Scars of His Love

He sat outside,

the heat of the day beating into his skin.
The wall at his back was rough
digging into his tunic.
The ground where he sat was hard
Parched.

As he had been
Eight days ago,
when he had left the other ten,
When he had struck out alone,
in desperation.
He had been empty,
scarred,
and he had sought emptiness.

Upon his return to the Upper Room
he had been told that his Master had returned
Risen from the dead.
That he had been alive and with them.

The news had been like
tales of rain in a drought,
thoughts of healing for a leper,
Unbelievable.
Unacceptable.
Unimaginable.
The scars of loss had been too parched
to admit any possibilities of grace.

He had held on to the loss.
It had been safer.
And he had been unwilling
to hear the sound of anything else.

Now, today, Thomas sat outside
having encountered the risen Lord.
He had seen the Rabbi’s scars,
Heard his voice.
And Thomas had believed.

He stared at his own hands,
remembering the look of the Master’s hands
where the nails had pierced the flesh.
The scars of the Master’s love
had left him breathless,
and finally,
he had opened his heart
To the flood of the grace offered.

He had believed.
“My Lord and my God.”

Inspiration from John 20:24-28 and from the line, "The scars of your love, they leave me breathless" from the song Rolling in the Deep by Adele.

Kim Matthews

Devotional 4-20-12

The Man I Never Knew

April 7^th, 2012 should have been a Saturday like any other -- hectic and full of the errands that didn’t get completed during the week. It should not have been a day for the news that was about to come. But come it did. The phone call said that my cousin had died the day before. My youngest cousin. My 43 year old cousin. What?? “This can’t be” was my first thought and most likely the first thing I also spoke out loud. John Matthew, dubbed Johnny Bugs by his Aunt Judy (my mom) when he was very nearly the size of a bug, was gone.

Society has a self imposed litmus test for success. Grow up, get married, have kids, retire, get a hobby. And there are ages that correspond to each stage. If an individual does not marry or works into his seventies or eighties we ask “What’s wrong with him?” The answer is simply this – absolutely nothing! Johnny was not married nor did he have children. Johnny chose a path that kept him in the hometown that he loved, allowed him to work in a place with immediate and extended family and gave him the freedom to travel and spend time with family and friends not living near.

The week approaching promised joy at seeing so many of the family and heartache at saying goodbye to one. I was not the first to arrive at the viewing nor the last to leave, but I did watch a three and a half hour steady line of people wait patiently to pay their respects to the family – the family that had just lost so much. I watched this family arranged in a horseshoe with Johnny’s casket closing the loop on one end. They graciously received each of the visitors. No member of the family, although each strong in their own way, could have single handedly borne the weight of that evening. But together drawing strength from each other, the stayed the course.

The celebration of life folder gave the agenda for the funeral service the following day. I read the list of speakers in disbelief; lifelong friends, his nieces and nephews, his sisters and his brother. I wondered how they would manage it, knowing full well that if I were placed in a similar situation I would crumble into a heap on the ground. But manage it they did with strength and composure. Classmates, teammates and friends spoke of friendships built so long ago. Nieces and nephews shared what Uncle Johnny meant to them. He was never too busy. One sister shared about Johnny’s “great laugh”. It was contagious. And his smile infectious – when Johnny smiled, the room smiled. And the eldest, his other sister, talked of acceptance. Johnny didn’t care about background or circumstance, Johnny took you just as you stood – baggage and all.

God has a funny way of getting our attention (or he does with me anyway). Music is a primary tool. On an August day in 2009 as we drove to the funeral home for Mom’s service, a song popped on the radio that almost stopped me in my tracks. Mom had battled Alzheimer’s for several years. Alzheimer’s is a disease that robs its victims of memory and cognitive thought – at first. Then it deprives them of remembering how to eat, how to breath and how to live. It had been months since I had seen her awake. She had withered into a wisp of herself and now the battle was over. The song was sung by Jeremy Camp and the particular section of lyrics that spoke to me was this:

There will be a day with no more tears, no more pain, and no more fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place, will be no more, we’ll see Jesus face to face.
A relief to think of no more burdens for her.

On this April Friday as I steered into the same driveway of the same funeral home, this time for Johnny, these words came over the radio.

To everyone who's lost someone they love
Long before it was their time
You feel like the days you had were not enough
when you said goodbye
There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary…
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus.
Many cries going out this week. Comforting words.

God also puts people in our path who teach us things. When Jesus walked the earth, he preached and taught – by word and by example. Scholars can only point to one or two instances where Jesus actually wrote. They kind of agree that it was with his finger or the point of a stick and that it was in the dirt. He didn’t keep a journal. Fortunately those that were around Him found it important enough to document what went on. Today those words and actions are bound into a single volume and are our blueprint for life. They require study and reflection, but there they are. What if there was a person, now, 2000 years later, living those actions of caring and accepting and helping? Wouldn’t we try or at least want to try, to be like that? We may even tag them with the title of role model. That was Johnny. Never flashy or boastful but always there when needed. We find ourselves muttering, “I wish I could be more like that”, or “I would like to be like him”.

No one that spoke on Friday ever mentioned anger, malice or hatefulness. That wasn’t Johnny. The relationships they described are the kind forged in a fire of trust and respect. The kind that weather all that time imposes upon them. I have more respect for Dave than I can say in these paragraphs. He is a gentleman and the epitome of class. He used the words ‘best friend’ to describe his brother. I feel confident that those are not words he attaches to a person easily and they are not words I take lightly. David and Johnny were brothers by birth – not much choice in the matter. They were friends because they wanted to be. That was ALL a matter of choice.

To say that Johnny touched lives would be to dilute the true power he had on this planet. He impacted lives. To be helped, cared for or befriended by Johnny was to be changed forever. Johnny was six years my junior yet I can only hope that someday I grow into the man he was.

Godspeed Johnny Bugs. You will never know all that you did here on earth. Those of us that remain, that knew you and loved you, will do our meager best to pay forward your legacy.

Steve Matthews

Devotional 4-13-12

Siamese Fighting Fish

Several months ago I went to Wal Mart to get dog treats for our spoiled dogs. While I was there I passed by the fish area and saw the Siamese fighting fish. I had had one a long time ago and knew they were aggressive fish that could not tolerate being with other fish especially their own kind. There was one fish that I saw that day that was in a plastic cup with very little water. He was lying on his side just trying to get enough water to live. I felt sorry for him so I bought him home with the food to take care of him. I put him in a tall container and he began to thrive. I went online to learn about Siamese fighting fish and learned their behavior. They are really mean. They will kill each other for no reason at all as that is their nature. They really do not require all that much care, just some water and some food, but they do like a safe place to hide from harm. I did learn that the male fish make a bubble nest and take care of the eggs from the female and stay with those eggs until they are hatched. I did not provide a safe place for my fish to hide, and he was always flitting around in his container. He was always hungry and searching for safety.

It finally occurred to me that he needed a safe place to be. I put a conch shell in his container that was just the right size for him to hide and seek safety. It took him awhile to learn that the conch shell was there for him to be safe. He finally figured it out. He will now come out to eat occasionally and flits only so often, he then immediately returns to the safety of his conch shell.

Wow, I learned a lot from this fish (I named him Napoleon because he is red and Napoleon always had on a red jacket in his pictures and was a mean fighter, too.). What I learned is that we all need the basic things (food and water), but we still have to have a safe place to really be content in our lives. We may be like that fish and fighting for life with just enough water to get by the best we can, but we need to know that Jesus is our conch shell. Once we realize this, we too can feel safe in His haven that he provided for us. He gave it to us on the cross. We need to thank him everyday for his great gift to us.

Jean Ramsey