She Hath Done What She Could

Mark 14:8 “She hath done what she could…”; Mark 12:42,43 “…this poor widow hath cast more in than all they which have cast into the treasury…she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.”

“Ummmm!” There is nothing that smells and tastes as good as a freshly brewed cup of java…especially if the beans are ground fresh. My husband Brant and I have had coffee in many places as we have traveled overseas and in America. We are willing to try almost any coffee that is offered to us.

One of the most priceless cups of coffee we have ever had we received in a most unlikely spot. The date was October 23, 2000. With the Baptist International Missions team of eight others, Brant and I were privileged to take at least 10,000 Armenian New Testaments to the country of Armenia.

The Bible verses quoted above come to my mind when I remember our special cup of coffee. After arriving in the country, our bus driver took us several miles outside the capital of Yerevan to a snow-covered area that was the devastated town of Spitak. On December 7, 1988, an earthquake destroyed the entire town of Spitak, killing more than 20,000 people in minutes. Since the building infrastructures were so unstable before the quake even came, the people in them had no opportunity to escape during the earthquake.

As we drove over the snowy mountains towards Spitak and stopped along a ridge, we could see acres of tombstones. On the stones, which rose above the snow, there were full-sized etchings of people – men, women, and children – whose death dates were all December 7, 1988. The dark, granite stones and the snow gave a feeling to our whole team of deep sadness.

But we were on an important mission.  Hundreds of displaced people were living in the huge metal containers that carried the aid sent to Armenia by over one hundred countries. Doors and windows had been cut in the sides of the containers and curtains hung. The Armenians had done their best to make homes out of almost nothing. When our bus stopped, people poured out to greet us. As our team went from container to container giving out Armenian Bibles, we were greeted with hugs and kisses on both cheeks. Many had never seen a Bible before. We were giving them LIFE.

After spending several hours with the people of Spitak, walking from home to home, we were loading up the bus when someone said: “Look!” Down the snowy, dirt road came an Armenian woman carrying a tray with cups on it. We welcomed her onto our bus. There were four coffee cups - chipped and stained - filled with coffee. She had probably brewed those grounds many times, and the “extra layer” on the top we would have discarded in any other place.  But SHE DID WHAT SHE COULD…SHE GAVE ALL THAT SHE HAD! All ten of us graciously passed the cups around, sipped the coffee, and conveyed our thanks to a lady who did not understand our language but could see our love for her by our actions.  We know that the Bible we left with her will show her the way to eternal life. How wonderful if one day she greets us in Heaven – what a priceless cup of coffee! Let’s make sure we “have done what we can…given all that we have” for others and for the cause of Christ.   

(Maylou Holladay)

Let Us Love in Deed and in Truth

Let Us Love in Deed and in Truth

“I want to go to church, but I can’t find a church that welcomes me.  I went to a church in Atlanta where the pastor came and clapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Son, we’re glad to have you here!’  I said, ‘My name is Cindy.’  He dropped his hands and wiped them on his pants as if to wipe off the contamination.”

            This was part of a speech given in one of my classes this semester.  Let me describe Cindy to you.  She looks like a male, wears her hair in a short butch, wears men’s clothing, has masculine manners.  But she’s female. 

            What if Cindy showed up at Grace Baptist Church?  Would she be welcome?  Would you wipe off your hands to remove the contamination?  I am convinced that I wouldn’t do that, nor would most of you.  But I judged Cindy.  I was convinced that she was involved in an “alternative” lifestyle that most of us would reject.  But I was wrong.  As she learned to trust me, she told me that she had always felt like a boy, that she was in the wrong body.  She even had a girlfriend, but she knew that God condemned sex outside of marriage.  She wanted me to know that she was keeping herself pure because she wanted to please the Lord.  She and her partner were abstinent, in her words.  I have felt rebuked for my instant judgment and have confessed it to God and asked Him to change my heart.

            I have just come from the very moving prayer and worship service at the church.  Again I must confess my failing to you.  Scotte Staab shared with us the story of the young man who came to our church this morning looking for help.  He was desperate and  people here this morning worked to meet his needs.  They fed him, gave him a place to bathe, offered him a job, prayed with him, and dealt with his spiritual needs.  I realized that I had seen that young man, probably when he first arrived at church.  I saw him in the hall, looking lost.  But I was in a hurry, late to choir practice.  (I am not indispensable to choir, by the way!)  I spoke to him, said hello, and rushed past him.  On some level I knew I should stop and see if I could help him, but I didn’t.  I failed him.  I am grateful that there were others here who did not fail him, who actually saw him and met his needs.

            On a personal level, I would not have made it through a very difficult period in my life without the members of the body here at Grace Baptist.  They met my physical needs, cried with me, prayed with me, loved me.  I am a member of Grace Baptist Church because members of this body embraced me in a desperate time of need.

            I acknowledge to you that I need God’s help to make me sensitive to others’ needs and to help me to act to meet those needs.

            I wrote before about the ID card of Christians being our love for each other.  I have just returned from a trip to Israel where an Armenian Jew who was our bus driver told me that he liked best to work with Mormon groups.  His reason was because of the love they showed each other.  They took care of those who were elderly, who were weaker, who had special needs.  He saw that they loved each other.  It broke my heart to hear that.  He didn’t say it about evangelical Christians; he said it about the Mormons.

            Oh, God!  Change my heart and my actions.  Let others know I am yours because of the love I show to your children!  Let others see Grace Baptist as full of Christians who love!

          Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth.

                                                                                I John 3:18

                                                                                ~~Faith Himes Lamb

WHO AM I?

I’ve had a rather difficult week this week.  My thoughts, although I bribe them with shopping and eating, seem to keep returning to the afternoon my husband passed. It could be that we would have shared our 28th anniversary this week or that it’s simply the part of the grieving process.  So, I accept these thoughts, cry and continue on.  But the particular memory that both haunts and comforts me is the hushed stillness that came upon his thin, pale, almost unrecognizable face, the instant after he drew his last breath.    

“He’s with the Lord Mom”, my son said. And I silently gasped. The horror of death had given way to victory for Dan but had thrown me instantly into a world of widowhood, kicking and screaming, mind you, but in that world nonetheless.  At that exact moment, and for just a moment, standing beside the body of the man with whom I had spent 28 years and the friend I loved dearly, I had never felt such a deep, almost indescribable loneliness, an emptiness that was so dark that it swallowed the short lived relief that I felt that he was no longer in pain.  Who I had been was no longer.

In one way or another, there will be a time, if even briefly, that most women will feel an emptiness within themselves, a loneliness that defines all other loneliness - whether its menopause, death of a spouse, a divorce, empty nest or just a hormonal rage that offsets the tsunami in Thailand, we may struggle for purpose.   I think some men have the right idea about a mid-life crisis - purchase a new Ford Mustang, get a few hair plugs and be done with it.  Meanwhile, we women are enduring our “loss of selves” by  tolerating hormonal overload, plucking chin hairs that grow like crabgrass, "girdling up” just to go to the grocery store and attempting to defy gravity with forms of elastic and fabric known only to the black market.  It’s horrendous! And all of this on top of trying to figure out our place in life during those few sane moments when we aren’t in tears.   

However, when everything that has defined who you are has been pulled from beneath you, there is a sudden realization that what defined you to begin with was only the mercy of God.  Through these past months I've had to begin the process of rediscovering who I am and I have come to know that it can't be done without the Lord.  My significance lies strictly in Him and His Word and although I’ve had head knowledge of that for years, I had never identified with that fact until the moment my hand was in Dan’s for the very last time on this earth, that moment when it was just me and God and His truth.  

 

When the "empty" time comes and the worthless mounds of chocolate has left us, once again, zitty and bloated, and still void of purpose, cry out to the One who created you with a grand purpose in mind.  It's most difficult to sit back and allow Him to work, but necessary.  "For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Philippians 2:13) and "I will cry out to God Most High, To God who performs all things for me.(Psalms 57:2),  and as He promises, He will do. 

 

Who knows??? Maybe my life long desire to become a ballerina is in my future after all! :)

 

~Joy Dilts

Remembering

What a lovely Easter week we had!  I know the unusual warmth this year has made things bloom early, and there is a part of me that doesn’t want to enjoy it too much for fear it’s not going to last.  Still, by Easter, I find myself relaxing a little and loving the spring.  The dogwoods are my personal favorite, and they were absolutely magnificent this year!  Every chance I got, I stood by the one in my yard and just soaked up the beauty.  It is possible, I find, to store away beauty for future use. The poet John Keats had it right when he said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

Dogwoods are also a great reminder of the cross.  When I was a little girl, someone I have forgotten showed me the “blood stains” on each of the four petals—a reminder of the wounds of Jesus on the cross—and pointed out the spiky middle of the plant reminiscent of the crown of thorns. I like these reminders of truth that help me focus my thoughts on Christ in many different settings.

The reenactment that our deacons gave of the Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples was also a great reminder.  We often think of the divinity of Christ, but this event pointed out his humanity as well.  The picture of friends sharing a meal reminded me that Jesus is glad to be called the friend of sinners.  In John 14, he says to the disciples, “You are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.” 

Hebrews 2: 11 (NIV) says this: “Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.”   What a precious thought.  The living Jesus not only died and rose again for my justification, he is also willing to be associated with me, to acknowledge me as part of his family. I loved seeing our deacons laugh and talk and realizing that Jesus and his disciples had a similar relationship of learning and fellowship. The next time I’m around a table with dear friends or family members, I will recall that I am both a friend of Jesus and a member of his family.

What reminds you of our special relationship with Jesus?  Share your own thoughts in the comments area.

--Sherry Poff

JUMP, JUMP, JUMP

 

I love watching babies bounce in the jumpy thingy in the nursery! Sometimes, they jump and it starts the music. Other times, the music starts, so they start jumping. It always results in giggles and squeals...and the babies laugh too!

Yesterday, we celebrated Palm Sunday. It's the day we remember that Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the people praised with palm branches. It's the day our Savior came!

They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Matthew 21:7-9

 The Hebrew word, "hosanna", was used in the Old Testament only one time with the meaning, "please save" (Psalm 118:25). Like many of our words do today, it began to take on a different meaning in the New Testament, "Salvation has come" (Matthew 21:7-9).

The cry of "hosanna" in Psalms was a plea to save. The cry of "hosanna" in Matthew was a cry of thanks and praise for the Savior who had come. Our Savior has come. He has saved. It's past tense!! So sing "Hosanna" loudly this Easter week! It'll make you wanna jump, jump, jump!!

~Rebecca Phillips