I was told of a woman in a nearby church who went to visit her husband in prison. As she was leaving, an older woman was being released. The woman being released was carrying a sack with a little bit of clothing and, inexplicably to me, had no shoes. A little later in the morning, the woman from the church encountered this same older woman in a McDonalds. Instead of simply getting her food and leaving, the woman from the church went and sat down with the older woman and they talked for awhile. Before leaving, the church woman gave the older woman the shoes off her own feet. I don’t have any further details, but I found the wholly unselfish actions and love demonstrated to a complete stranger both moving and inspiring.
Revolting Beauty
A Letter to God about Child Sponsorship
Its blogger month at Compassion International, and a group of bloggers are banding together to raise awareness of children in need. The goal is to get 3,108 additional children sponsored this month. You can read more about sponsoring a child in a previous post I wrote (“Sponsor a Child through Compassion”). Each week Compassion is giving the bloggers an assignment or “theme” about which to blog. This week the challenge is to write a letter to God about child sponsorship. Not being quite certain how to go about this, I just began to pour out my heart to God concerning this topic. Below are the words that spilled out as I talked to God about the issue.
Overwhelming Love
Geoff Moore has long been one of my favorite songwriters, and his most recent CD carries on his tradition of writing heartfelt songs about his walk with God. One of the tracks on the disc is called, “Overwhelming Love”, and it just floors me every time I listen to it. The heart of the chorus says, “Let us be ruined by Your overwhelming love”. For those of us aspiring to live lives wholly dedicated to Christ, this is the cry of our hearts. What would our lives look like if we were truly ruined by the love of God?
Awesome
I grew up in the early 80’s, so the word ‘awesome’ was ingrained in my vocabulary. Every generation seems to have its catch phrases, and this was certainly the way many expressed themselves in those days. Over the past few years, I have been working to systematically eradicate the word from my speech. Those of you who grew up in the 80’s can appreciate how difficult a task this has been! My reasoning stems from the actual definition of the word. I don’t want to get too technical, but to paraphrase Webster, awesome simply means something that inspires awe. To complete the picture, the dictionary defines awe as “an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime”.
Giving
I debated on writing a specific Christmas post this year. On the one hand, it’s what Christian bloggers are supposed to do; I’m pretty sure there’s a rule book somewhere that covers stuff like this. On the other hand, this blog is about living unconventionally in a way that flies in the face of the establishment. But when it comes down to it, the core of the message I write about is the amazing gift of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. This gift would have never occurred had it not first been for the birth of a Savior into our world; we would be lost without hope had God not sent His Son to be born as a baby over 2,000 years ago. There is no cross without the manger, no redemption without revelation.