Today my great-niece Aubrey is one year old. From a Christian standpoint, that is singularly one of the strongest statements of faith I have ever written.
God has allowed us to unite one of a millon cells of a man with a tiny part of a woman, and participate in the creation of another human person.
I know that God is the true creator, but this is His letting us in on the joy He felt as He created the world all those years ago. Imagine what a couple feels knowing that they are encouraging growth and life. Or any of us who cannot conceive a child and are witnesses to this incredible growth. Now multiply that by millions and billions. This is what God has experienced and then blessed us with.
When I hear someone say that there is no God, that creation is just a coincidental result of a chain of events (of course these same people can't cite a source of that chain) or that we are foolish and naive to believe that there is anything greater than us...I think they should look at a baby. Watch a child - watch the growth, the learning, the discovery. You can explain the physical process to say how, but what about the why? What about looking past the medical and into the spiritual? What makes my child different from all the others? Why are there children who don't grow the same way as others? And why they are still loved? Watch and see the time that a parent is truly depended on and the time they are forced to let go. Watch how the parents become observers in their own child's life.
There is more than science and medicine to define a child's presence in our world. There is faith because we know that all the unanswered questions are because God has deigned it that way.
Today Aubrey is one year old. Happy birthday precious child of God.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Old People Rock!
On Sunday the choir sang the worship service at Luther Manor.
They have a beautiful chapel and it filled with old people who walked in on their own; people with walkers; people in wheelchairs. We saw people get guided in because they wanted to worship and didn't want to be confined to their roomsfor worship on a rainy Sunday morning.
Whatever their health, these people got up, got dressed and came to church. How many healthy people stayed in bed yesterday and skipped worship? How many self-titled Christians didn't even remember to pray yesterday morning? How often has that been me?
Sometimes in retrospect we find faults with something that we enjoyed in the moment. This experience had no fault.
Yesterday I went to a worship and could feel the faith, see the people praying, hear the Lord's Prayer said in strong voices, weak voices, voices that didn't sound at all but eyes that shone while they heard the words Christ gave us to pray...this is why we were there.
Our faith wavers and our vision gets blurred, but every now and then we see our commitment in action. We faced more years of faith than we could possible imagine and felt the joy of the worship. We saw eyes that couldn't read or see clearly, yet could see God in their own lives every day. We were thanked by men and women - the older and very old - by nodding heads and held hands. We saw smiles and received hugs.
We made a difference because God led us to Luther Manor and helped us serve Him.
THANK YOU, LUTHER MANOR!
They have a beautiful chapel and it filled with old people who walked in on their own; people with walkers; people in wheelchairs. We saw people get guided in because they wanted to worship and didn't want to be confined to their roomsfor worship on a rainy Sunday morning.
Whatever their health, these people got up, got dressed and came to church. How many healthy people stayed in bed yesterday and skipped worship? How many self-titled Christians didn't even remember to pray yesterday morning? How often has that been me?
Sometimes in retrospect we find faults with something that we enjoyed in the moment. This experience had no fault.
Yesterday I went to a worship and could feel the faith, see the people praying, hear the Lord's Prayer said in strong voices, weak voices, voices that didn't sound at all but eyes that shone while they heard the words Christ gave us to pray...this is why we were there.
Our faith wavers and our vision gets blurred, but every now and then we see our commitment in action. We faced more years of faith than we could possible imagine and felt the joy of the worship. We saw eyes that couldn't read or see clearly, yet could see God in their own lives every day. We were thanked by men and women - the older and very old - by nodding heads and held hands. We saw smiles and received hugs.
We made a difference because God led us to Luther Manor and helped us serve Him.
THANK YOU, LUTHER MANOR!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
where have I been?
Someone, at my request, has read my blogs and commented on the length of them. Immediately, and because it was someone I respected, I started to second guess my ramblings. I was sure that if anyone else would read them, they would think me nauseous and boring...but then I remembered that I am not blogging to be a world famous blogger. I am blogging because I have a zillion thoughts that I can put into words and that I may need to look back on them some day.
Funny how the moment I hear a comment from someone I start rethinking my words and forgetting my motives.
I am using a blog format because there are people out there who know me and have asked me to put my prose and poetry down on paper. Although BLOG is a cute short word, my devotions are usually 4-5 minutes and my poetry goes till I run out of rhymes. Yes, I am an iambic pentameter person - or at least I have a rhythm and cadance that is balanced throughout.
So while I am trying to write to please any reader, I am not producing a product. My friends and family know that I do not use one word when I can use a number of them, and I never use a sentence when a paragraph will do.
Bear with me, everyone. I warn you now that if I mention a devotion, it is going to read aloud at 4-5 minutes. If it starts as a poem, it will run a full page. If I just recount my day, it'll be a rambling of events that really mean a lot to me...
I am glad there are bloggers who have turned it into an art form - people who have mastered their words and inspired and reassured others. I have a goal and I will read their works and learn and someday I will produce a blog that is concise, interesting and easy to digest. But not today.
Funny how the moment I hear a comment from someone I start rethinking my words and forgetting my motives.
I am using a blog format because there are people out there who know me and have asked me to put my prose and poetry down on paper. Although BLOG is a cute short word, my devotions are usually 4-5 minutes and my poetry goes till I run out of rhymes. Yes, I am an iambic pentameter person - or at least I have a rhythm and cadance that is balanced throughout.
So while I am trying to write to please any reader, I am not producing a product. My friends and family know that I do not use one word when I can use a number of them, and I never use a sentence when a paragraph will do.
Bear with me, everyone. I warn you now that if I mention a devotion, it is going to read aloud at 4-5 minutes. If it starts as a poem, it will run a full page. If I just recount my day, it'll be a rambling of events that really mean a lot to me...
I am glad there are bloggers who have turned it into an art form - people who have mastered their words and inspired and reassured others. I have a goal and I will read their works and learn and someday I will produce a blog that is concise, interesting and easy to digest. But not today.
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