My Heart is Not Broken Any More

It's Christmas Eve. Hallelujah! Time to focus on Jesus. Like every single day. No day is time to focus on me, but I had been. My heart was broken. The day that letter came and I had to come face to face with what my relationship with my parents really was and always had been.

God had been preparing me for that day for so long. First He sought me out and saved me. Then He gave me Ron to nurture me and help me know that people were honorable and faithful. Then slowly He helped me come face to face with my damage so that I was able to look the inevitable squarely in the eye - so that it wouldn't completely devastate me when I did.

What I realized in all of this is that God sustains. He allows you to get up in the morning and do your job no matter how crushing your insides feel. He allows you to put one foot in front of the other and walk from one place to the other. He allows you to smile and meet people even when you cry yourself to sleep at night. God is sufficient through all things even when your heart is broken.

This fall old passions began to return. I wanted to pull out crafting materials that had lain dormant and gotten dusty, I started to write again - not for lessons or web sites or school, but for me, to express myself as I'd not in ages. I got mad over injustices at school. I . . . well I'm doing all kinds of things that I haven't done in ages.

I'm not brokenhearted any more.

The Rich Man in Hell

I can't let this go.

We've been studying parables. Typical LifeWay fashion - there was a worksheet with references and titles to match. Such a challenging lesson ;0. So, I picked about a dozen for us to look at more closely.

Most I picked at random. I picked the new wine in old wine skins just so the students would know that not everything is easy to interpret.

This one though, the rich man in hell. It's been bugging me. Every one I've mentioned it to, they remember the part about the rich man wanting Lazarus to place a drop of water on his tongue. They don't remember the part about the rich man asking Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers about what was in store for them if they didn't believe. Abraham's response? Why would they believe a dead man standing in front of them when they had the words of Moses and the prophets? You didn't believe!

Now the students, they said, "OH, I'd believe a dead guy if he came to tell me about hell!"

"Oh really?" I said, "The Bible clearly says you won't."

One of the counselors gets a remarkable picture in an email. I do wish I had the picture because it was absolutely awesome. Truck driver saved in a wreck. He drops off the road facing in the opposite direction on a sheer incline. He'd have surely died if he'd been facing the other direction, off just inches. It was miles down the cliff. The first response was, "If he didn't believe in God before, he'd have to now."

BUT he doesn't, does he? Because if the Holy Spirit is not working, no event, no person, no words are going to make a difference. The thing is that we don't know on who, at what place, at what time God is at work and our part, our obligation is just to be ready to share.