Alice

I learned so much in that half an hour.

Her health doesn’t allow her to venture much further than the nursing home across the street to visit the man who shared 56 years of her life. Every day she sits by this man who doesn’t even know who she is. She tells us over and over again that he isn’t her Billie any more. While there, she reaches out to the others in need. The nurses who bustle through the facility with pain in their eyes, she sees them. She prays for them and tells them about God. A God who has the man she adores trapped in a mind she doesn’t recognize. Every night when she returns, she cries, and gets a little angry, and then begs the Lord to take her husband home.

Sitting on her coffee table is her husband's Bible.Small notes from children are tucked between its yellow pages, just as he left it. Its binding is cracked from age and use and its Words are more dear to this woman than the dusty knick-knacks and photo frames surrounding it.

This saint kneels on hobbled 82 year-old knees by her couch in the lamp light on Sundays. The pastor’s voice wavers over the radio as she prays for the world. She prays for a world who doesn’t care and a generation that has turned their back on this sweet warrior of the faith.

She smiles at me, pressing her stub of a hand to her cheek, and she calls me child. “Child,” she says, “You know, God never gives us more than we can bear. Oh, there’s tears…and sorrow. But it always ends up okay and right in the end.” There’s no arguing with a woman who has experienced so much and has touched the hand and heart of God. There’s nothing to be said other than a whispered amen.

“Ms. Alice, can we sing with you? Do you have a favorite?”

Her lips press together and her eyes are bright with life as she replies, “You know an old one? Leave it there? Because when you lay all those burdens at His feet, you know, you aren’t supposed to pick them back up again.”

So we sing and give her a hug and leave her little house and I mostly just want to cry. Because in that half an hour, I feel like maybe I’ve been in the presence of the love of God. The strong, silent sort of love that just keeps on loving despite the fact that it has been chosen to thrive alone, that was her. I pray for her strength and her passion in serving the Saviour to be cultivated in my own childish heart.

God bless you, sweet Alice, for you have taught me much and you are so precious in His sight!

Note: I wrote this post two years ago and just recently dear Alice has slipped on from this world in to the next and in to the presence of the Lord. We know she is now rejoicing in Heaven with her Saviour!

 

Oh, Martha

 
Martha, I have always empathized with you. I know the panic and pride that squeezed your heart as you felt you were doing it all alone. That finger, calloused from labor, which stretched out to accuse your sister is also my own.

Oh, Martha, I relate to your self-pity. I relate to your frustration as you bustled about. I know the desperation in trying to stick to the plan. You tried to make everything perfect for the Lord but you forgot the most important thing. This Jesus was your Friend, your Saviour, your God, and you failed to take the time to learn and listen from the One who knows your servant's heart best. After all, He formed those talents within you. Christ was not condemning your labor, only your lack of finding rest in Him.

Dear Martha, your service wasn't criticized but your timing. Your holy Friend did not need your hostessing, but rather, your hearing acutely tuned to His words. He did not desire your endless work but your eyes on Him.

Martha, did you learn your lesson? Did your heart sink when the Redeemer turned His eyes on you? As He beckoned you to sit at His feet and just be with Him, did you drop your serving platter to fall on your knees? Or did you turn back to the kitchen with a lump in your throat to cry into the dishwater?

Oh, Martha, your mistake is mine as well. May I continuously remember that God does call me to be in service for Him, but only after I have spent sufficient time at His feet.

                                                                                         




"But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” - Luke 10:40-42

He Did

( via pinterest )

You read every post of theirs on Facebook.

You put up song lyrics in your status thinking of that someone all the while.

You sit there and blabber on about how great so-and-so is and how they bring so much purpose and meaning to your life.

You'd even go as far to sign up for a site like Twitter to follow them.

But how far would you go to follow Christ?

That “interest” of yours, the one you devote all your time and thoughts to, they did not die for your soul. They did not deny their worthiness for respect and awe in order to become despised. They did not lower themselves to the lowest of low to become a sacrifice for you. They did not hang suspended between heaven and earth to call you free. All the weight of sin and the emptiness of death did not bear down upon them while their own Father refused to look because of the shame and anguish. They did not redeem your sin-sick and rotten person and call you a child, a son, a saint, perfect, clean, and ransomed.

He did.

Maybe if we devoted a little more time to seeking to know the One who gave it ALL for us, rather than trying to figure out our next fickle, earthly relationship, we would find the satisfaction and peace we all desire.

I'm not saying that friends and relationships aren't important. They are.

I'm saying this, He is the most important.

Don't let Him take second place to that new guy in your class or to that “cute” someone that you don't even know their name. He knew your name before you were born. He knew who you were when He breathed the universe to life. Don't forget about the Saviour in your endeavors for whatever happiness you think you want.

Disclaimer: Dear sweet teenage girls who are my friends on Facebook, please, don't take offense, this wasn't written against you, only to encourage.