Faces

Rodney Griffin doesn’t know who I am but I know him.  He’s a songwriter and a singer with Greater Vision.  Their albums were often all that kept me from jumping off the cliff of “I don’t care anymore.”  Their songs went with me every day to radiation treatments, followed me to work on days I felt like death warmed over, and rocked me to sleep at night when all I could do was cry.  While I didn't experience the side effects of radiation and chemo therapy as doctors expected, I was worn out from the impossible schedule I kept trying to keep it all together.

Rodney has no idea what his songs have done for me. I am one of those faces he will see when God shows him the lives of the people he has unknowingly touched with his ministry. I'm one of the many he has touched without knowingly having done so.  But I treasure the songs he writes because they keep me going, even as the enemy tries to tear me down again, piece by piece, threat by threat.

There were so many songs on Greater Visions albums that kept me going – God Wants to Hear You Sing, The Source of My Song, He’s Still Waiting at the Well, He Is to Me, Pile of Crowns, They Should Have Cried Holy, With All the Many Miracles, Just Ask – but of all of them the one that most taught me how to see cancer through Jesus’ eyes it is He’ll Carry Me, reproduced for you below:

HE’LL CARRY ME

Rodney Griffin

He took the lifeless body down from Calvary

Struggled just to stand beneath the load

The blood spilled on his hands and on his clothing

Still Joseph sang as he stumbled down the road

I’ll carry him upon my shoulders

I’ll bear the marks, endure the shame

I’ll serve my Friend till life is over

And that is when the world will see

He’ll carry me

With every step his mind replayed the memory

Of the day the Lord had made his life anew

So this load on Joseph’s back was not so heavy

Compared to the promise that was waiting at the tomb

I too have walked beneath a heavy burden

Stumbled down a dark and lonely road

Trying hard not to be discouraged

Knowing victory awaits when I reach home

So I’ll carry him upon my shoulders

I’ll bear the marks, endure the shame

I’ll serve my Friend till life is over

And that is when the world will see

He’ll carry me

He’ll carry me when he calls me from my sleeping

He’ll carry me toward the land of perfect day

Across the golden veil into the glory

Where he’ll set me safely down inside the gate

Until then I’ll strive to walk and not grow weary

I’ll gladly bear my cross for all the world to see

I’ll count it joy to carry Christ my Savior

For very soon he’ll carry me

When I heard that song for the first time, it was as if Jesus was standing next to me, holding my hands, and reassuring me that it really would be all right.  Maybe not in the way I expected but in the way he had planned long before I came down this road.  After all, he’d borne pain far worse than mine, died a cruel death, and rose again.  If I believe in his promises, I will see his glory.

That cross I carry may be called cancer.  Healing it totally may not be in God’s plan for me on this earth.  But it doesn’t stop me from serving him every day in every way I can, no matter what the cost.  And cost me it will if I truly desire to follow him.  Following Jesus isn’t all that simple – he journeyed to places no one wanted to go and did things he wasn’t supposed to do.  He’s still sending people outside their comfort zones and asking them to do things they don’t want to do.  I certainly didn’t want to “do” cancer.  I certainly didn’t want to go down that road of total faith in God’s ability to take care of me.  I wanted to deny cancer existed and had no intention of releasing control of my life to God.

That’s simply not the way faith works; you have to believe in the unbelievable, see the invisible, and do the impossible.  Until I take my last breath I have to live every day inside his embrace and follow his plans for my life.  My journey with cancer is designed to bring glory to my Savior in a way that I couldn’t possibly have imagined.  In fact, it was the only way he could get me to that place where the impossible became probable.

I suppose there are some folks who think I’m stark raving mad.  One doctor told me he had no studies to prove that depending on God for healing was worthwhile; that not taking their treatments was a very unwise decision because he had studies that proved he was right.  Unfortunately for them I have lots of studies to prove that depending on God is the only way to be healed; in fact, there are 66 books to prove it.  I have a choice – I can believe man, or I can believe God.  I choose God. Deliberately.  Thoughtfully.  Joyously.

Healing in this life no longer matters because I know God has plans for me before he takes me across to heaven’s side.  I’ve watched as people all around me are taken, yet I am not.  Three people at work were taken within a month.  I’m still here.  My physician was taken suddenly one weekend.  I’m still here.  Why am I still here?  Because God has a plan for my life and he’s not finished with it yet.  When he is, he’ll carry me to the other side of that gate and walk with me.  I will see his glory.

So thank you, Rodney Griffin, wherever you are.  You have absolutely no idea what an inspiration and healing balm to my soul your songs have been. There is a balm in Gilead – his name is Jesus Christ, my Lord. I thank God for Rodney Griffin and all of those who have made my way a little lighter.

Snow in My Heart

It began snowing in the middle of the night.  It’s still snowing.  There is no wind to speak of; even the chimes on the front deck are quiet.  Snowflakes are dancing down to land softly on the white carpet already laid across the ground.  I never used to think much about snowflakes, except perhaps as a nuisance because they landed everywhere I had to drive.   It was a lot of bother to shovel the SUV out, make a path from the back deck to the driveway, and shovel off a place to lay down birdseed.  It was even more worrisome to get out on the roads with people not used to driving in snow.

Snow is, however, a grand excuse not to go to work, to church, to town, to anywhere.  And sometimes it does keep us from doing things we think we need to do.  I’m beginning to think God uses snow to slow us down, to make us think.  Maybe he’s using the snow storm to teach me patience and how to have joy on the journey in spite of whatever I’m seeing right in front of me in one time and place.

Today I’m watching the snowflakes dance and it occurs to me that God chose to make each one a little different from every other snowflake, just like he made each one of his children different from every other human being.  It amazes me how God causes each snowflake to work the other until a carpet of white covers the ground.  Maybe God was hoping for the same effect with human beings – that together we would cover the world for Christ.  Seems we’ve missed the plan somehow, dancing to the wrong piper, waiting for God to save us from the path he never told us to go down in the first place. 

I was struck by the peaceful falling of the snowflakes as they danced down to the carpet of white.  Each one so delicate. Each one so intricate. Each one so pristinely white. Each one so exquisitely beautiful.  Separately, and together, they create a breathtaking picture of God’s beauty and of the extraordinary care he took to create them.  How much more beautiful are the children he created in his own image.  Yet, there are so many who view themselves as less than beautiful.  I was always the smart one, my sister was always the pretty one.  From much of humanity’s viewpoint smart does not outweigh pretty and never has. 

I watch today’s supermodels and I wonder when we decided that looking anorexic equates with being beautiful.  I wonder when we decided that a size eight in women’s dresses was “plus size.”  I wonder when we decided that we needed to go on a starvation diet because we are a size ten and society says we have to be a size zero to be considered beautiful.  I watch diet plan commercials and wonder why men and women who don’t appear to be obese think they have to buy into such plans.   Not too long ago my general practitioner told me I was obese.  She defined obese as being above a size six dress size.  She recommended I go on a very strict diet before my obesity killed me. 

I thought about that conversation as I watched the snow fall.  Who was I trying to impress?  The fashion industry?  My family and friends?  Church members? Coworkers?  For most of my life it mattered a great deal what others thought of me.  I tried to fit in but it never really worked.  Folks made sure I knew I wasn’t beautiful.  People made fun of my proclivity for wearing Christmas sweaters from December 1^st to December 25^th in honor of the season.  I was plainly told I didn’t have any fashion sense when I wore white after Labor Day and refused to wear spiked heels with every outfit.

I watched as suddenly a male cardinal flew onto the front deck.  He was large and bright red.  He contrasted starkly with the white snow and forest evergreens.  I think the beauty of his bright red against the carpet of white and the softness of the evergreens pleased God.  It occurred to me that the only person I need to please is God.  So, maybe I’m not a size zero.  So maybe I don’t have the perfect figure.  So maybe I’m not going to win the Miss America contest.  I’m a child of the King, made in his image.  I’m beautiful because he says so. 

In a lot of ways I thought I had to be transformed into beautiful raiment according to the world's viewpoint in order to be used by God.   I can’t speak to a crowd of people without being outwardly beautiful according to societal demands, can I?  I can’t come alongside someone and help support them without wearing the latest fashions, can I?  I can’t teach someone how to live for Christ without being a scholar, can I?  I can’t be female and do things that don’t involve the nursery or the kitchen for the church, can I?  Excuses, excuses, you hear them every day …

I have a lot of excuses for not doing things.  I can be quite adept at dreaming them up.  Unfortunately, God’s not buying my excuses.  He doesn’t care how common my garments are.  He doesn’t care how non-exciting and boring my daily routine is.  He says he can still use me anyway.    I’m not very good at that.  As a matter of fact, I’m pretty awful at it.  I often go chasing after rabbits when I should be standing guard at home.

I keep forgetting that God will never give me more than I can bear.  I always assume he’s going to make me do something I’m terrible at doing – like cook for people. I keep forgetting that God knows my strengths better than I do, and that he knows where he needs to use me.  I’m bad to dream up fame and fortune as a great Christian leader when all God is asking of me is to be there to comfort someone who’s hurting.  I’m looking for neon lights when God says go where there is no light.

I’m busy carrying my great Christian torch around but I’ve forgotten the Match.  I’m running around spouting mounds of theology but I’ve forgotten the Writer.  I’m imagining great hordes being saved by my speeches but I’ve forgotten the Word.  It is painfully embarrassing to figure out, at last, that it’s not all about me. 

As John 1:1 says:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It’s all about God; it always has been.

Boundaries

People set a lot of store in boundaries.  Don’t cross this line or that will happen, and it won’t be good!  Don’t do this, or you’ll be sorry!  There are those with whom you’re almost afraid to speak because you aren’t sure which unseen line your fixing to cross unintentionally.  Reactions often range from surprise to outright anger and rage.  Little wonder that some folks have trouble when God asks them to cross the line.

Our God isn’t a safe God.  He asks the impossible from the improbable.  He asks us to walk through the valley of death and fear no evil.  He’s the One who can strike thousands dead with a whisper and the one who can raise them from the dead.  We are his children but we are also his warriors.  The battle may be fought on earth and in our hearts but it belongs to the Lord.  He is the God of the wilderness – the God of thunder and lightning as well as a gentle rainfall. 

For all that we know of God and everything that he is, we still try to put boundaries around him.  Oh, I couldn’t do that, Lord, it’s not my place!  You want me to be a missionary?  OK, but I can’t go there.  We bring God down to our level of abilities and try to make him fit into the box we have on the shelf.  We limit God by not being obedient to his calling.  We stick him in a closet in our personal life; he never sees the light of day at work.

Our God is a boundless God.  He has no limits.  There’s nothing he can’t do.  There is no change he cannot effect.  There is no situation he cannot handle.  As long as we limit God to what we think he can or cannot handle we will never be complete in Christ.  You can’t say on one hand that you believe God will heal you and on the other hand hold on to the rope of medical practice that says it know better than God does and you’ll die if you don’t do as the doctor says.

Don’t get me wrong.  Medicine has its place.  God uses doctors, nurses, hospitals, and all the other medical personnel to heal our physical bodies and to keep us healthy.  But medicine only goes so far – we may have an idea of what may work to cure cancer but we have no real proof that it does.  We have established methods of working with particular diseases and drugs that alleviate symptoms, but there are always side effects (some not so very pleasant).  Chemo therapy, for example, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I wonder, though, if putting deadly chemicals into your body is really the best thing to do.  I wonder if pounding your body with radiation and suffering the side effects isn’t almost as bad as the disease itself.

I do appreciate the input of all my doctors.  But I don’t make decisions based solely on what they say.  I check with other doctors, read information on the Internet sites, and talk with other patients.  The most important thing I do is check in with God.  Many times what God speaks to my heart follows what the doctors want to do.  Sometimes it does not.  Sometimes God says, “Do it.”  Other times God says, “No.  This is not my will.”  I have a choice – I can follow what man says, or I can follow what God says.  I’m pretty sure not obeying God would be my worst choice.

All My Tomorrows

People ask me why I still speak of the possibility of the cancer coming back.   The reason is that I want them to understand God’s gift of healing.  I’ve been given my tomorrows by God.  God has healed me according to his plan for my life.  What those tomorrows and that healing holds depends on God’s plan.  Me, I’m waiting in the wings to act out the storyline he’s set for me.

God holds the times of my life in his hands.  He knows the talents he’s given me, the abilities, the gifts.  He knows when I need to show up; he knows when I need to stand still.  I’d like to think I’m a grand orator but I’m not; I work better one-on-one or in small groups.  I’d like to think I’m a great singer but I’m not.  I love to sing but I don’t think anyone would ever ask me to make an album.  I’m a great eater but there’s no one I know who will ask me to provide burnt offerings at meal time.

So maybe the gifts God gave me are small.  They aren’t insignificant to his plans for my life though.  If I don’t use them as he directs, he’ll have to get someone else, who may not be able to fit the plan as well as he intended with me.  Not that I’m all that important because I’m not.  But I like to think that God has a purpose for my life beyond where I live and work, my normal earthly routine. 

There have been times when I’ve felt like an outcast and people have drawn a line in the sand they dare me to cross.  I stand in the shadow of God’s plan and wonder if I have the courage to step across the line.  It isn’t easy to do, especially when you face condemnation from a world that thinks you’re crazy to believe in God at all.  The way the world sees it, God is a myth told by fools who needed to believe in something, anything, beyond themselves to explain why things are as they are.  God, to them, is an empty promise, the Bible a work of human fantasy, literature to salve the human conscious.

Daring to be different, I sometimes feel like I’m at a standstill.  People are so hard and so cold.  Hurting people have been misled by false Christians to the point where believing in God is nearly beyond them.  They are difficult to reach, harder still to restore to relationship with God. Some days it feels like the mountains I face are too hard to climb.  I am determined to stay on the same road, despite the hardships, the name-calling, the ill-favored looks, the taunting, and the disbelief.   I will guard my heart and mind and soul in Christ Jesus.  I will lift the pieces of my heart, broken by life’s hardships, to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  And I will keep walking. 

Jesus told Peter that lions are roaming the land, seeking to destroy.  It was true then and it is true now.  People are still dying for the Gospel.  If things keep going the way they are today I may be one of those whose dare to be different costs them their life.  It’s already unsafe to declare yourself a believer in some companies of people.  You are scoffed at, laughed at, made fun of, disparaged, and treated like an alien.  Which is okay because you are an alien in this world; you belong to the Kingdom.  You are different by nature as well as by belief.  For some people it’s enough reason to hate you and more than enough reason to kill you.

God is an all-consuming fire.  I pray that he lights the fire in me again and again and again.  That burning flame keeps me running to him.  Running to him keeps me honest and sets me on the path he has for my life.  God’s fire purifies me for his service.  It brings me peace and understanding.  It gives God the chance to do something new in me because it clears away any cobwebs in my heart and mind that were helping me cling to things no longer important.

Today it is December 15^th, 10 days away from Christmas.  I have a habit of wearing holiday garb from December 1^st to December 25^th.  I do it to remind me that I am not celebrating Santa Clause or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but rather Christ’s appearance on earth.  I do it to remind myself that it’s not about me, it’s about the blood of Christ, and what it took to set me free.

Today I am wearing a pin with bells that ring whenever I walk.  It’s fun to watch people search for the sound of the bells.  Someone said it reminded her of the bell that Salvation Army volunteers ring during this season as they collect donations.  For me, the bells are a reminder of Christ’s coming with peace and hope.  I think of the angels rejoicing and the Father’s love – so great he sent his beloved Son on my behalf. 

God was thinking of my tomorrows when he sent Jesus to pay for my sins.  He knew how much I needed him.  He knew I wouldn’t survive without him.  I look out my window at work and I see a cold, snowy world.  Believe it or not, it’s below freezing.  Snow is on the ground, the powdery, dry kind.  There’s a slight cold wind blowing through the upper tree branches.  The sky is gray and gloomy.  Was it on a morning like this that God looked down on earth and said, “My people need a Savior.  I will send my Son.”

For me the miracle isn’t whether or not the cancer is gone.  The miracle to me is that God cared so much about me that he sent a tiny, helpless baby to draw me into the Kingdom.  You see, the healing I needed most had nothing to do with cancer.  Having or not having cancer isn’t the point at all.  For me, the healing is all about being complete in God.  It’s about being made whole spiritually.  The question wasn’t at all about whether or not I will live or die with cancer – the question was all about whether I live and die in Christ.  Like the song says, it’s all about the Blood.

My Place in His World

Looking for God is always an interesting adventure.  Knowing what his Kingdom looks like gives me reason to search for my place in his world.  I always believed that getting there was the most important part of the journey.  Lately I’ve come to understand it’s the journey that’s important.  I know where I’m going to end up – with the Lord, forever.  There’s no question about my final destination.  The question is what I’ll do before I get there.  It’s really all about the journey.

I live in a very small town; we don’t even have a mall.  Oh, we have a few strip malls, but not one of those indoor gigantic complexes.  We may get there eventually but it will be a while.  Meantime we drive an hour or so to reach one of those gigantic complexes.  In this day and time I can simply order it online and have it delivered to my doorstep – we do have UPS!  Most of the cities Jesus visited weren’t all that large.  He met people where they were, just as they were.  So why am I so worried about my place in his world?

My place, I’ve decided, is wherever God says I need to be.  Big city, small town – doesn’t matter.  Big job, small job – doesn’t matter.  All I have to do is be willing to follow God’s lead, to help him get his Word out wherever I can.  It doesn’t seem to take much to accomplish that – an e-mail telling someone how much you appreciate them will suffice.  I guess I keep looking for the spotlight when all the real work that needs doing is in the darkness.  That’s where I need to take my Light.

I’ve had people tell me that cancer is not part of God’s path, that I must have committed some terrible sin to be punished with cancer.  Of course, I’ve also heard that about being single and not having children.  What bothers me isn’t that people say those things but that they don’t see the path, much less understand it.  Granted, cancer isn’t a nice thing, but it has taught me so much about the Father, about his plan for me, about his church (and I’m talking about the people not the building), and about what’s really important.  Sure, you’re right, I’m a terrible sinner.  So are you.

The journey is important.  Where I’ve been informs where I’m going.  Having struggled I can empathize with those who still struggle.  Pastor G says that everyone has famine in their lives, a time when the shadow of death haunts you, a time when you’re empty, broken, and filled with sorrow.  What matters is whether I remain in the valley or run to Jesus with my brokenness, knowing he will take care of me.

There is joy in the journey, even if you have to go through cancer – even if you have to die.  Christ knew that, and though he suffered much, he was joy incarnate. James 1:2-4 says,

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Jesus counted it all joy.  So did Paul.  So did the disciples.  So should we.    Joy will carry us through; we will persevere.  I endeavor to persevere – because Jesus did, even when dying on the cross I nailed him to.

Perseverance isn’t something to which people desire to aspire.  Perseverance takes a lot of work.  It’s hard to go on when the going gets tough.  It is far easier to give up and try something else, or to simply give up entirely.  People deal with marriage that way; if I don’t like it, I can opt out any time I want for any reason I want.  Marriage isn’t seen as a “rest of my life” kind of thing but temporary for as long as I am satisfied.  Work is becoming much the same.  If I don’t like this job, I’ll move on to another, with exactly the same high level of pay too.  How many people have learned this simply isn’t the truth in today’s economics?

Paul persevered through beatings, the bite of a viper, jail, and beheading.  Paul was one man but he had a large effect.  It gives me hope that I, too, can effect change.  Looking at cancer is akin to being beheaded – either way death is the main objective.  The difference is that death has no victory; death is not the end, it is only the beginning. Cancer is nothing; God is everything.  I’m betting my life on it.

Perseverance doesn’t mean you won’t see trials.  As Pastor G reminds me, there will always be famine in your life.  It takes many forms – mental, physical, emotional, financial, etc.  When it seems like you’ve hit a brick wall, call down the Rain.  Next thing  you know, there’s a way out of the wilderness.  Press on, don’t give up.  Remember that where you travel, God goes with you.  Always.

Always is a comforting thought.  I never have to worry when God will show up.  I turn around and there he is, waiting for me.  It doesn’t matter what time, what day, what year.  It makes my heart hurt to know how much he loves me and how much he longs to be with me every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year.  Human comfort is often fleeting, not readily available.  God’s comfort is a blanket that covers you forever.

 

My place?   Right in the hollow of his hand.  Then, when I’m on my journey through this life, I have the light of Christ dead center (pun intended) to follow. From what I understand, Bethlehem was a small, mostly uninteresting village outside Jerusalem.  No one thought much good would come from there, or from Nazareth either for that matter. Yet, that same Star of Bethlehem still lights the way.  Through any darkness we may enter, through any valley we’re caught in, through any mess we’ve made, it still shines out to show the way. 

Courage

I’m not very courageous.  It scares me half to death to speak in front of a crowd, so much so that I lose words completely.  They fly right out of my head, and there I stand hunting furiously for them and not finding anything to say but, “Ummmmm.”  I’m fine teaching one-on-one or to a small group of co-workers, but let my supervisor or the CEO of the company step into the room and I’ve suddenly lost all vestige of professionalism.  I stammer and stutter as if I had no idea what I was talking about. How embarrassing! 

No one will ever accuse me of being crazy enough to bunji jump off the top of a tower.  It’s not the stepping off I dread, it’s the landing.  I’m pretty sure my head is no match for the hard-packed ground or cement I’d find once I landed.  I feel the same way about going to sea in a dingy.  No, not me.  I ain’t getting’ in no boat (or no dingy either).   It’s a long, long way to the bottom and there’s no way to hold my head up above water so I can breathe.

Remember the story of the disciples and Peter’s walk on the water?  I’d have missed it entirely because I wouldn’t have gotten in the boat in the first place.  I’d have missed out on something important because I was too scared to leave the safety of land, which for all I know could be destroyed in seconds by a tsunami I didn’t see coming.  I could have walked on water with Jesus, if only I’d gotten in the boat.

How many times have I missed God’s blessings because I wouldn’t get in the boat?  Or because I wouldn’t get out of it?  How many years have I sat around waiting for God to heal me, when all it required was to give him complete control?  I don’t want to think about it – too many years wasted for no real reason outside of the fact that I was too scared (and too anal) to give up control.  What if I started sinking?  Truth is, without God in control I was already sinking anyway.

        Healing, by the way, doesn’t only cover physical and mental needs, it also covers spiritual needs.  Healing, any kind of healing, requires God.  It’s that simple. I needed to be healed of my inability to see beyond my humanness.  I needed to be taught how to live a Kingdom life, requiring that my entire thought process change.  Instead of acting like a spoiled child, I needed (still need) to start acting like a child of the King and be about my Father’s business.  Instead what I did was worry about what I did or didn’t have, what God did or didn’t do for me, and other silly things that made no difference at all in Kingdom living.

Walking on water is all about the boat – being willing to get in and go out to sea and being willing to step out in the middle of nowhere, on an open sea, in the deepest part of the ocean, and trust God to hold you up.  We sing lots of songs about our Almighty God but we’re hardly ready to let him be one.  It took cancer to teach me what it means to step out of the boat and walk on water.  It’s the difference between real life and death.  I’d rather live for Jesus than give in to the threat of death. 

After all, I’m going to die one day or another.  It’s a sure thing.  The moment we begin living we begin dying.  The difference is in what we do in between the living and the dying.  It doesn’t take courage so much as it takes trust and faith in a God who created everything, right down to the number of hairs on my head.  Courage is nothing; God is everything.  What in the world took me so long to figure that out?  Forgive me, Lord, sometimes I can be incredibly obtuse. 

I don’t think of myself as being brave.  I know I’m highly dependent on God.  I heard “cancer” and started crying.  God heard “cancer” and started healing.  Nothing is impossible with God.  Even the fact that doctors say it’s cancer can be changed by God.  And so what if the cancer comes back and I die (the chemo therapy folks practically guaranteed that’s what will happen) – even if it kills me, there’s still Jesus, right there, waiting for me.  All roads, in the end, lead back to the Father.

I remember being “brave” as a human being about one time – when someone tried to steal my brand-new Singer sewing machine (I called it Bing because it was a Singer – no one under the age of 50 will get that joke.).  I pulled up to my house during lunch break.  There was a strange truck in the driveway.  I noted the license plate and thought, wonder who that is.  I heard voices as I came closer to the front door, and realized it was broken open.  Some dude in the house was talking about taking my sewing machine.  I grabbed the closest thing I could find that was sharp, which happened to be a pitchfork.  (You don’t want to know why it was next to the front door.)  I yelled in the house for them to exit before I came after them.  They saw the pitchfork and a crazy lady standing in the door and hauled off out the back door.  I chased them.  They got into their truck and blew out of the driveway, clearing a path in the yard as they went.  Thankfully, they missed my VW bug. 

Only later did it occur to me one of them might have had a gun.  I was the talk of the sheriff’s office for quite some time, since it also didn’t occur to me to call the cops until afterward.  Of course, in that day few folks had cell phones, so I would have had to go next door to call.  Pretty dumb thing to do, risk my life for a sewing machine.  The question still is:  Am I willing to risk it all for the Lord?  Are you?

It used to bother me when people called me names, and I’ve been called everything from an animal in the zoo to ugly and useless.  I was afraid to say much for fear I’d get called a few more names.  Truth is, people can call me what they will.  As Shakespeare said, a rose by any other name is still a rose.  People call Jesus a lot of names too; doesn’t change who he is.  Scoffers are loud with name-calling, quick to taunt and boast about what they don’t need.  Sadly enough, for all their name calling, what they need the most has been there all along.  Jesus is all they will ever need, if only they could see so.

I used to react in anger when people called me names, ready to fight to the end, until one day I realized that the names they called me (and still do) don’t matter at all.  I’m still a child of the King, still call him Abba Father, still worship the only true and living God.  So go ahead, call me a few names.  Give me a reason to smile. It will give me a chance to show you the Father and teach you about the names that should matter to you – Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Holy God, Almighty Father, Prince of Peace, Loving Friend, Redeemer, Savior, Everything.