Tag: Compassionate

Want to be the Greatest?

Posted on by Dorci

“Then He (Jesus) placed a little child among them; and taking the child in His arms He said to them, ‘Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name is welcoming me, and anyone who welcomes me is welcoming my Father who sent me!’” Mark 9:36-37

Jesus and His apostles had just traveled through Galilee and had come to a house in Capernaum.   I can just imagine all the things twelve men might discuss on a long, hot, dusty journey. Jesus found one discussion on this journey of particular interest.  Once they were settled, Jesus asked them what they had been talking about along the way.  Of course He already knew.

“But they were ashamed to answer, for they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest!  He sat down and called them around Him and said, ‘Anyone wanting to be the greatest must be the least—the servant of all!’” Mark 9:34-35

And there it is.  The answer to the question we all ask.  We all long for a purpose in life. We all want to be great, to be important in some way, that is, to contribute, to leave our mark on the world.  To know that our life has meaning.

Jesus says God’s way is different than the world’s way. It’s a 180 degrees opposite, in fact, than the way world seeks to find meaning. It’s not about being the richest or most famous or most influential or most good looking or hanging with those who are.  It’s not about climbing the ladder, or being one of the elite so that others will serve us.

It’s about bending down.  It’s about noticing the least of these.  It’s about loving and serving and providing for those who are in need, for those who are most helpless and most dependent on the mercy of others.  Jesus says lead by putting yourself last and being the greatest servant!

Only when we’ve humbled ourselves enough to serve the likes of a child—one who has no ability to give us anything in return–it is with this same humbled attitude that we can then truly submit ourselves to Christ and receive Him to ourselves. Then we will find meaning and purpose for our life.

And when we do feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, Jesus said in Matthew 25:40 “When you did it to these my brothers, you were doing it to me!”

Jesus says that when we serve others, we are serving Him.

And when we do serve these precious ones, like the one Jesus held in His arms, we are most like Christ.  We are His arms and hands and feet.

Samaritan’s Purse, headed by Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, gives us an opportunity to do just that through Operation Christmas Child.  Every year they collect shoeboxes that people like you have filled with toys, school supplies, hygiene necessities, clothing, shoes, and all kinds of goodies, and then present them to children all over the world for Christmas, along with the good news of Jesus Christ.

And Christmas is right around the corner!

In order to have time to ship the shoeboxes to where they’re going, National Collection Week this year is November 17-24.  That’s only 9 weeks from today!  You can look on their website to find the collection location nearest to you.  The cost for shipping is $7 per box, and you can even donate that online if you want to find out where your box(es) is going. You can find all the information on their website.

What a joy to serve these precious children and bless them in not only practical ways, but to help make a difference in their lives with the love and message of Christ.

Blessings!

 

A Mother’s Day Message A Lifetime in the Making

Posted on by Dorci

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8

This won’t be your typical “my mom’s the best mom in the world and everything I am I owe to her” kind of Mother’s Day message.  Nope.

This will be a different kind of message.

These words are, though, a lifetime in the making, and I fought hard for them. I clawed my way through a mountain of pain to find them, and I struggled to find my way back out again.

You might have guessed that growing up I didn’t have a “normal” mother-daughter relationship.  My mother didn’t teach me all the things a mother should teach a daughter.  She taught me things a mother should never teach a child, like how to hold a grudge, and how to mistrust people.  How to take daily criticism and stuff it way deep down inside until it turns into unrelenting insecurity.

As I grew up, I took all those things and so much more, lifted up the ol’ metaphorical rug and swept it all underneath.  Nevermind that the rug was miles high and anywhere I went I had to climb over it.  Nevermind that half the time I couldn’t make it to the top, and instead slid all the way back down again.

As the months and years went by, some of that pain began to seep out from underneath, so I kicked it back under there where it belonged.  As hard as I tried, it kept spilling back out again.  Furiously I kicked and swept and shoved and struggled and sweated and cried.

Slowly I began to realize that it was God standing there lifting up that rug.  He was the one letting me see all that pain.  And He didn’t just let me see it, He gave it to me.

After a lifetime of my own pain and struggles, I’ve had time to reflect on her life through eyes not much different than her own, not just as my mother, but as a human being.

I heard more stories of her painful childhood; I gained more of an understanding of mental illness; I saw that she had been misunderstood and criticized by family, friends, doctors; I saw her struggle with all that under the weight of living with an alcoholic, wayward husband and trying to raise two daughters, one of whom had a very difficult to manage neurological disorder.

And the picture I had of my mother became more and more detailed.  The colors went from black and white to living, breathing, heart-wrenching reds and blues and purples.

I saw that all that time she was crying out for someone to love her, for someone to help her. She just didn’t know how.  The pain and fear and insecurity came out as anger and it pushed people away.  It pushed all of us away.  And I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I couldn’t see that then.  I’m sorry, Mom, that no one ever saw that.  I pray that now you have someone who is able to look past the walls you’ve built up around your heart and love you anyway.  I pray you know Jesus does.

The words I searched and struggled for all my life are this:

I forgive you, Mom.

From the bottom of my heart I forgive you, and hope you can forgive me.  I hope you know the forgiveness of Jesus so that one day you will have the peace and love you’ve longed for all your life.

I forgive you, Mom, and I love you.

 

The Rescue

Posted on by Dorci

I walked through his apartment in a daze, sifting methodically through his keepsakes, his memories, his life, trying to decide what I dared throw away, what I gave away and what I kept.  I was on a time crunch and for the most part I resisted leaning back to read the slew of papers left everywhere with his private thoughts, his struggles, his journey.

But sometimes the words called out to me from the pages and I gave in.  Faces from black and white Polaroids stared at me and I stared back, wondering just who they were.  How had my dad known them?

As I made my way around his bedroom, I looked up and there in a relatively dark corner was a survivor, a cutting from a Pothos.  A rescue with one or two small leaves in a clay pot.

My dad liked to rescue plants.  He was always taking cuttings from plants and giving them a fresh start.  I think in his heart of hearts he wanted to rescue something. He wanted to do something good.  He couldn’t rescue my mother, or my sister or me, or even himself.  So he rescued plants.

I lifted it from its place and laid it aside in the pile of things I would keep.

I brought home my little adopted friend and tried to find just the right spot where it would get enough light to grow.  It’s been all over the house in the years since.  Right now it has a cozy home by a sunny window in my bathroom.

For a long time I put off transplanting it into a bigger pot with new soil, even though it desperately needed both.  Still, it held on.  Every once in a while a leaf would turn yellow and drop off and I’d be afraid I was watching my dad’s plant die.  But another leaf would soon take its place.  It didn’t really grow, though.  It just held steady with those two or three leaves.

After scouring brick-and-mortars and the internet for a pot deserving of a plant my dad had taken the time to nurture during its teenage years, I finally found just the right pot for it and replanted it with some fresh new soil.  And what do you know, it began to grow like crazy.

Still, it only had the one stem.  And it just kept getting longer and longer.  Somewhere along the way I had developed my dad’s love of gardening and I’d learned a thing or two about it.  I knew that if I wanted the plant to be healthy, to develop multiple stems and bush out rather than remain leggy, I’d have to prune it.  I’d have to cut some off the end of the one stem it had so that the energy would be redirected to the roots and it would grow a new stem.

I put it off for a while.  It wasn’t just a stem I’d be cutting.  It was my dad’s rescue. Strangely it seemed part of him.  But I wanted it to grow into a healthy, beautiful, thriving plant, so I went to the drawer for some scissors, stood in front of it, told it I was sorry, and cut a few inches off the end.

And within a few weeks it began to grow another leafy stem.

Recently those two leafy stems with their big, shiny leaves had grown so long they were hanging on the floor.  Still, there were only two stems.  I knew it was time to prune it again.  And I dreaded it.

I went to the drawer for the scissors and stood in front of it with slightly bated breath.  This is silly! I thought.  It’s just a plant.  Again, I told it I was sorry, and I snipped off several inches this time, just adjacent to where a leaf emerged from the stem.

And suddenly something occurred to me.  Does the Lord feel this way when He prunes us?  He knows it’s for our good.  He knows just where to cut and how much to develop healthy, new growth in our lives.  Still, He knows it’s going to hurt us.

I wonder if He stands for a moment with slightly bated breath before He allows us to hear that diagnosis.  Before we hear the news about our loved one.  Before we find out we’ve lost a job or a home, or a child.

Jesus wept.

John 11:35

Of all the times the New Testament tells us of someone crying, this instance of Jesus weeping with those who wept over Lazarus’s death is the only time the word dakruo is used to describe it.  It means to weep silently or to shed tears. All other instances were of people crying out loud.

Jesus knew in just moments He would give Lazarus new life and still, His compassion for Mary and Martha and the rest was overwhelming, because He is not an uncompassionate God.  Our pain is His pain. He wept for their immediate suffering, but also for the sin nature they were caught in which ultimately brought death–the sin nature He came to overcome.

My plant is not the only rescue in this house.  I am God’s rescue.  When He plucked me out of my dark corner of the world, I was barely alive, barely growing.  Since then God’s pruned me back many times.  And I’m not always as compliant as my plant.  I’ll argue He’s taken too much or it’s too soon to take more.  And there are times I’ve wondered if He cares how much the pruning hurts.

And I look at my plant, and I know He does.

Somehow that makes going through the pruning, the struggle of it all, just a little bit easier.  Knowing God isn’t at all cavalier about the pain He must allow in my life, knowing He has a purpose beyond what I can see, knowing He’s right beside me, weeping when I weep, makes it all just a little bit easier.

When I grow up, I want to be like my plant.  I want to allow the cutting without a peep.  I want to bounce back and quickly begin to produce new growth.  I want to be content and even flourish where the Lord sees fit to put me.

Today would have been my dad’s 75th birthday.  If he were here I’d give him a jar full of jelly beans and a trip to the Desert Botanical Gardens.  Maybe a new fishing pole. Nah.  He’d rather keep the one he’d broken in.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  You rescued me more than you know.

Love and Blessings,