The Body

This blog will be shorter than usual, but this could not go without writing. A couple in our congregation experienced a great loss this weekend. The wife was pregnant and was very close to her due date (not sure on details... sorry) and on friday she gave birth to a still-born. Our pastor rushed to the hospital in the very late hours of the night and prayed with them and dedicated this sweet life to the Lord. The woman told our Pastor that all she wanted to do was get to church on sunday, knowing that the Lord would bring her through. That is an amazing story of faith and strength in and of itself, but that isn't the amazing part

Today in the 9am service at my church something amazing happened. Our pastor told this story and then asked the family to stand so that they could be prayed for. He then instructed friends to come around them to lay hands on them and hold them up in prayer as a body. This happens a lot in church, but normally just a few people nearby will grab a shoulder while the rest of the congregation stretches their hands toward the person in agreement. Today was different. When Pastor gave that instruction people from all over rushed to the couples' side. Including most of the choir running down to be with them. I just stood on stage in amazement. I have never seen such beauty in grief in my life. The church was truly being the body of Christ. They ran to show love in the midst of their own schedules and own agenda for the morning. I have a close friend that plays in the band with me on sundays and after the service we just shared with eachother about how beautiful that was. His exact words to me were "that's the body..." How true! The body of Christ holds is held together with love. I don't know what else to say about what I saw today, but I know that it will stay with me... that was beautiful love...

Grace

I normally make a feeble attempt at witty titles for these things, but with this one... not much else can be said. Today I was in the car and a random memory popped into my head. You know... like when you're driving and you see a place or hear something and it is a trigger that sets off an explosion of memories. It is as if your past was bottled up somewhere in your mind just waiting to infect your consciousness  Anyway... something like that happened today and I thought for a moment... wouldn't it be great if life had an eraser? Not necessarily a do-over,  just an eraser. Life would go on as it is, but your past never happened. It has no way of creeping up on you and making you feel all of the negative emotions that comes with it. It just doesn't exist. I then thought about how this would be nice, but it is not the case. 

Then I remembered that grace is that eraser. I know it is a cliche' Christian view of life... but it's true... Not only does grace allow us to be forgiven, but it allows us to get away from our past. We learn from the past of course... but it has no hold on us. We don't get to do it all over again, but we get to move on. We get to move forward. The sad thing is we often hold onto our past. Were too stubborn to just accept grace. We think we owe God something or that we deserve the continued pain of what we've done. The truth is we can never do anything to deserve Grace... so no matter what you think you owe God you'll never repay it. Thats what Grace is... unmerited favor. Allow God to help you to deal with the hurt that your past lifestyle brings and allow Him to erase it. There is a great new life ahead of you... embrace it.