The honor and privilege were mine this morning to watch a segment of God’s Family wander around a room looking for their needed place to belong. Those of us charged with welcoming this flock of “Church Going Believers” into the small group of their choice received far more than we offered. The treasure of witnessing our fellow Christian siblings reach out for God’s nourishment confirmed while the worldly might be malnourished of life giving waters, our Heavenly Father’s creations, walking this planet, seek to feast on the true Bread of Life. Who were these “got it right” people? They were plain ordinary children of God, possessing extraordinary hearts and souls. May I introduce you to a sampling of those who blessed my morning?
With deep shyness, a heavy heart and great love for those who call her grandma, this sweet soul stepped out of the crowd and into the radiance of SONlight. The direction she was seeking was not for herself but, rather, for the sake of her dearly loved granddaughter. A tear trickled down her cheek after discovering there was, indeed, a sisterhood in her Master’s earthly home waiting to walk side by side and folded hand in hand with her to pray her granddaughter into God’s loving arms. The media posts mankind only slanders, envies or kills each other. However, the GOOD NEWS, and those who subscribe to it, pen an opposite reality. Evil might be alive, but God is not dead. “For where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I among them.” Matthew 18: 20 (ESV)
Then there was the young man, I’d guess in his mid-thirties, who escorted (and supported) a little old lady and her cane. In one hand he held a Bible. His other hand was a safety net whenever the senior matriarch let go of her cane to delve deep into the huge satchel, she was lugging around with her. Believe me, to most they were a whimsical duo. His patience, her persistence was an unusual combination, but it truly was held together by God’s Golden Rule. “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself’.” Matthew 22: 37-39 (ESV)
As this pair was walking away from me, I stopped the young man. Thanking him for the gift of Hope for the future he personified through his following behind and (literally) uplifting a veteran child of God, he bowed his chin and simply replied, “she’s family”. As his eyes look up, a watery film covered them. Would that somehow every disillusioned sole could have witnessed this young man’s soul testifying that family still leads God’s calling to all He created when life first took a breath.
My being was renewed this morning. Though the fierce storms of many nights have battered and tattered so many, the reflection of the SON, His followers and leaders still penetrate the darkness. It’s more than time we, each and every one, stop blindly seeing only what is trying to fill us with despair and, instead, open our eyes, hearts and souls to the Hope seeded all around us.
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 