Read Isaiah 58:6-12
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
-1 John 4:12 (NRSV)
A year after Hurricane Katrina, I went to New Orleans with other students in my campus ministry group. We spent a week hanging drywall, spackling, and sanding in Alice's home. Alice was an older woman who had lost three siblings in the year after the hurricane. As she served us peach tea and showed us her paintings of Jesus and Mary, she told us about her life.
By the end of the week, Alice's warmth, gratitude, and faith had inspired and strengthened our faith. Before we could thank her for sharing her life with us, she put her arms around us and told us, with tears in her eyes, "Y'all have been God's presence in my life. You don't know how much you've blessed me. God has been good to me by sending you."
That night during our evening devotions, we reflected on the reciprocal nature of God's rich blessings. Alice had taught us about faith, hope, and love as much as we had helped her as she rebuilt her house and grieved her losses. God truly does become present through the people in our lives; God lives, heals, and loves through our interactions with one another.
Alison VanBuskirk (New York, USA)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
"Maybe Yes and Maybe No"
Read Proverbs 3:1-7
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
-Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
YEARS ago a little girl in our preschool class would always sit up front next to me for our morning "circle time." When I'd show the children's name cards for the helper chart, she'd blurt out, "What about me?" Or she would ask, "Is it my turn today?" I finally began telling her, "Maybe yes and maybe no." For some reason, that answer seemed to comfort her, and she would smile and echo my words.
Over and over again, I'm reminded of my words to her. If I want to know if something is going to happen in the future, I'll think, Maybe yes and maybe no. If I want to know if certain prayers will be answered, I'll repeat those words to myself.
When I do this, it somehow comforts me as it did that student. I realize that it does me absolutely no good to try to figure out all the little details. I just have to trust in the Lord. I repeat the words over and over - "maybe yes and maybe no" - until they are planted in my heart to stay. They remind me that I can trust any decision to an all-powerful God who loves me.
by Beth DeLong (Hawaii, USA)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
-Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
YEARS ago a little girl in our preschool class would always sit up front next to me for our morning "circle time." When I'd show the children's name cards for the helper chart, she'd blurt out, "What about me?" Or she would ask, "Is it my turn today?" I finally began telling her, "Maybe yes and maybe no." For some reason, that answer seemed to comfort her, and she would smile and echo my words.
Over and over again, I'm reminded of my words to her. If I want to know if something is going to happen in the future, I'll think, Maybe yes and maybe no. If I want to know if certain prayers will be answered, I'll repeat those words to myself.
When I do this, it somehow comforts me as it did that student. I realize that it does me absolutely no good to try to figure out all the little details. I just have to trust in the Lord. I repeat the words over and over - "maybe yes and maybe no" - until they are planted in my heart to stay. They remind me that I can trust any decision to an all-powerful God who loves me.
by Beth DeLong (Hawaii, USA)
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