“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NKJ)
A man once found a cocoon of the emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but couldn’t seem to its body past a certain point.
Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon. The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled.
He expected that in a few hours the wings would spread out in their natural beauty, but they did not. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings.
The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are God’s way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings. The “merciful” snip was, in reality, cruel.
Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need.
Spiritual Maturity is being able to look at yourself with divine perspective and know what is needed, why it is needed, how it is needed, and then actually does the what, why and how.
Reflections
What are some things you’ve discovered in your walk with God that are imperative for you to participate in on a consistent bases to continue to be challenged, transforming and spiritually alive?
What’s your strategy for making these effectual realities in your daily walk with God?
Have you shared these things with anyone else? How might doing so enhance your desired result?
“But we who would be born again indeed,
must wake our souls unnumbered times a day.”
George MacDonald
Too often people think about their “spiritual lives” as just one aspect of their existence, alongside and significantly separate from other aspects of their lives such as their “financial lives” or their “vocational lives.” Periodically they try to “get their spiritual lives together” by praying more regularly or trying to master another spiritual disciple. It is the religious equivalent of going on a diet or trying to stick to a budget.
The truth is that the term spiritual life is simply a way of referring to one’s life – every moment and facet of it – from God’s perspective. Another way of saying it is this: God is not interested in your “spiritual life.” God is just interested in your life. He intends to redeem it.
Recommended Reading
The Life You’ve Always Wanted, John Ortberg
A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer
Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell
Friday, April 28, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Inside-Out
“do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind.”
(Romans 12:2)
The word transformed is the word metamorphoo, from which comes the English word metamorphosis. You may remember this word from seventh-grade science. It’s the process a creeping caterpillar goes through to become transformed into a soaring butterfly. Just as the former caterpillar is barely noticeable once it has been transformed into a butterfly, Paul says that we, as children of God undergo a change that makes us barely noticeable to what we once were.
For a follower of Christ, when this morphing process happens, we don’t just do the things Jesus would have done; we find ourselves wanting to do them. They appeal to us. They make sense. We don’t just go around trying to do right things; we become the right sort of people. We, like the caterpillar, are ordinary people who receive power for extraordinary change.
Reflections
What is one area of your life you know God wants to transform but you honestly don’t want to change (or have given up hope of ever changing)? Take time to pray for the Holy Spirit to give you a renewed desire to be changed in this area of your life and to give you hope in his power to bring transformation.
Imagine a caterpillar. What stages does it go through? What does the caterpillar do to be transformed into a butterfly? What does the caterpillar not do? How does these relate and parallel to our spiritual transformation?
"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way."(J. R. R. Tolkien)
but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind.”
(Romans 12:2)
The word transformed is the word metamorphoo, from which comes the English word metamorphosis. You may remember this word from seventh-grade science. It’s the process a creeping caterpillar goes through to become transformed into a soaring butterfly. Just as the former caterpillar is barely noticeable once it has been transformed into a butterfly, Paul says that we, as children of God undergo a change that makes us barely noticeable to what we once were.
For a follower of Christ, when this morphing process happens, we don’t just do the things Jesus would have done; we find ourselves wanting to do them. They appeal to us. They make sense. We don’t just go around trying to do right things; we become the right sort of people. We, like the caterpillar, are ordinary people who receive power for extraordinary change.
Reflections
What is one area of your life you know God wants to transform but you honestly don’t want to change (or have given up hope of ever changing)? Take time to pray for the Holy Spirit to give you a renewed desire to be changed in this area of your life and to give you hope in his power to bring transformation.
Imagine a caterpillar. What stages does it go through? What does the caterpillar do to be transformed into a butterfly? What does the caterpillar not do? How does these relate and parallel to our spiritual transformation?
"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way."(J. R. R. Tolkien)
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Metamorphous
“So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed
maturity in you.”(Romans 12:1-2 The Message)
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”(Romans 12:1-2 NKJ)
“The primary goal of spiritual life is human transformation” writes John Ortberg, “It is not making sure people know where they’re going after they die, or helping them have a richer interior life, or seeing that they have lots of information about the Bible, although these can be good things. Let’s put first things first. The first goal of spiritual life is the reclamation of the human race.
Not only that, but this goal can be pursued full-time. For a long time in my own life a very bad thing happened: I had reduced my ‘tools for spiritual growth’ to a few activities such as prayer and Bible study or a few periods of the day called a quiet time. I took an embarrassing long time to learn that every moment of my life is an opportunity to learn from God how to live like Jesus, how to live in the kingdom of God. I had to discover that there are practical, concrete ways to help me turn aside.”
“My children, with whom I am again in labor
until Christ is formed in you”(Galatians 4:19)
The Greek word for formed here is morphe Interestingly, there are two words in the Greek, which Paul could have utilized. One is schema and the other morphe Sometimes, if we understand the word(s) which the author chose not to use, we can better understand what they really meant, by choosing the word(s) they did.
First of all, schema signifies “external form” or “outer appearance.” Schema a molding on the outside that doesn’t transform the inside. This is not the word Paul chose to use. He was not looking for an outer appearance of Christ or even an external formation to Christ. Paul chose the word morphe for his emphasis on Christ being formed. Morphe refer to “an internal reality.” Morphe is a molding on the inside that transforms the outside. “Morphe speaks of a change in character, becoming conformed to the character of Christ in actuality, not merely in semblance.”
Reflections
What are some elements of Christianity that can easily become schema (outward form without inward reality)?
Are there certain patterns & practices (spiritual disciplines like prayer, Scripture, etc) that you are currently doing because you “should,” but if honest would admit that they aren’t morphe (producing life within you)?
What are some ways you can participate in the patterns & practices helpful for spiritual formation, all the while, maintaining a morphe perspective, and not allowing them to become mere schematic route?
maturity in you.”(Romans 12:1-2 The Message)
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”(Romans 12:1-2 NKJ)
“The primary goal of spiritual life is human transformation” writes John Ortberg, “It is not making sure people know where they’re going after they die, or helping them have a richer interior life, or seeing that they have lots of information about the Bible, although these can be good things. Let’s put first things first. The first goal of spiritual life is the reclamation of the human race.
Not only that, but this goal can be pursued full-time. For a long time in my own life a very bad thing happened: I had reduced my ‘tools for spiritual growth’ to a few activities such as prayer and Bible study or a few periods of the day called a quiet time. I took an embarrassing long time to learn that every moment of my life is an opportunity to learn from God how to live like Jesus, how to live in the kingdom of God. I had to discover that there are practical, concrete ways to help me turn aside.”
“My children, with whom I am again in labor
until Christ is formed in you”(Galatians 4:19)
The Greek word for formed here is morphe Interestingly, there are two words in the Greek, which Paul could have utilized. One is schema and the other morphe Sometimes, if we understand the word(s) which the author chose not to use, we can better understand what they really meant, by choosing the word(s) they did.
First of all, schema signifies “external form” or “outer appearance.” Schema a molding on the outside that doesn’t transform the inside. This is not the word Paul chose to use. He was not looking for an outer appearance of Christ or even an external formation to Christ. Paul chose the word morphe for his emphasis on Christ being formed. Morphe refer to “an internal reality.” Morphe is a molding on the inside that transforms the outside. “Morphe speaks of a change in character, becoming conformed to the character of Christ in actuality, not merely in semblance.”
Reflections
What are some elements of Christianity that can easily become schema (outward form without inward reality)?
Are there certain patterns & practices (spiritual disciplines like prayer, Scripture, etc) that you are currently doing because you “should,” but if honest would admit that they aren’t morphe (producing life within you)?
What are some ways you can participate in the patterns & practices helpful for spiritual formation, all the while, maintaining a morphe perspective, and not allowing them to become mere schematic route?
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Surprised by Change
“Spirituality wrongly understood
or pursued is a
major source of human misery
and rebellion against God.”
Dallas Willard
“Hank, as we’ll call him, was a cranky guy. He did not smile easily, and when he did, the smile often had a cruel edge to it, coming at someone’s expense. He had a knack for discovering islands of bad news in oceans of happiness. He would always find a cloud where others saw a silver lining,” writes John Ortberg in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted . Ortberg continues with his description of good ole Hank.. . .
Hank rarely affirmed anyone. He operated on the assumption that if you complement someone, it might lead to a swelled head, so he worked to make sure everyone stayed humble. His was a ministry of cranial downsizing.
His native tongue was complaint. He carried judgment and disapproval the way a prisoner carries a ball and chain. Although he went to church his whole life, he was never unshackled.
A deacon in the church asked him one day, “Hank, are you happy?”
Hank paused to reflect, then replied without smiling, “Yeah.”
“Well, tell your face,” the deacon said. But so far as anybody knows, Hank’s face never did find out about it.
There was a period of time when Hank’s primary complaints centered around the music in the church. “It’s too loud!” Hank protested -- to the staff, the deacons, the ushers, and eventually the innocent visitors to the church.
The pastors finally had to take Hank aside and explain that complaining to complete strangers was not appropriate, and he would have to restrict his laments to a circle of intimate friends. And that was the end of it. So they thought.
A few weeks later, a secretary buzzed John Ortberg on the intercom to say that an agent from OSHA- the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – was there to see him. “I’m here to check out a complaint,” the man said. As Ortberg tried to figure out who on the staff would have called OSHA over a church problem, the agent began to talk about decibel levels at airports and rock concerts.
“Excuse me,” Ortberg said, “are you sure this was someone on the church staff that called?”
“No,” he explained. “If anyone calls – whether or not they work here – we’re obligated to investigate.”
Suddenly the light dawned: Hank had call OSHA and said, “The music at my church is too loud.” And they sent a federal agent to check it out.
By this time the rest of the staff had gathered in Ortberg’s office to see the man from OSHA.
“We don’t mean to make light of this,” Ortberg told him, “but nothing like this has ever happened around here before.”
“Don’t apologize,” the man said. “Do you have any idea how much ridicule I’ve faced around my office since everyone discovered I was going to bust a church?”
So, sometimes Hank’s joylessness ended in comedy; but more often it produced sadness. His children did not know him. He could not effectively love his wife or his children or people outside his family. He was easily irritated. He had little use for the poor, and a casual contempt for those whose accents or skin pigment differed from his own. Whatever capacity he once might have had for joy or wonder or gratitude had atrophied. He critiqued and judged and complained, and his soul got a little smaller each year.
Hank was not changing. He was once a cranky young guy, and he grew up to be a cranky old man. But even more troubling than his lack of change was the fact that nobody was surprised by it. It was as if everyone simply expected that his soul would remain withered and sour year after year, decade after decade. No one seemed bothered by the condition. It was not an anomaly that caused head-scratching bewilderment. No church consultants were called in. No emergency meetings were held to probe the strange case of this person who followed the church’s general guidelines for spiritual life and church membership and yet was non-transformed.
The church staff did have some expectations. We expected Hank would affirm certain religious beliefs. We expected that he would attend services, support the church financially, pray regularly, and avoid certain sins. But here’s what they didn’t expect: We didn’t expect that he would progressively become the way Jesus would be if he were in Hank’s place. We didn’t assume that each year would find him a more compassionate, joyful, gracious winsome personality. We didn’t anticipate that he was on the way to becoming a source of delight and courtesy who overflowed with “rivers of living water.” So, we were not shocked when it didn’t happen. We would have been surprised if it did!
Reflections
Are we more often surprised by change or are we more surprised by lack of change within an individual or community?
“I could not quiet
the pearly ache in my heart that
I diagnosed as the cry of home.”
Pat Conroy
or pursued is a
major source of human misery
and rebellion against God.”
Dallas Willard
“Hank, as we’ll call him, was a cranky guy. He did not smile easily, and when he did, the smile often had a cruel edge to it, coming at someone’s expense. He had a knack for discovering islands of bad news in oceans of happiness. He would always find a cloud where others saw a silver lining,” writes John Ortberg in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted . Ortberg continues with his description of good ole Hank.. . .
Hank rarely affirmed anyone. He operated on the assumption that if you complement someone, it might lead to a swelled head, so he worked to make sure everyone stayed humble. His was a ministry of cranial downsizing.
His native tongue was complaint. He carried judgment and disapproval the way a prisoner carries a ball and chain. Although he went to church his whole life, he was never unshackled.
A deacon in the church asked him one day, “Hank, are you happy?”
Hank paused to reflect, then replied without smiling, “Yeah.”
“Well, tell your face,” the deacon said. But so far as anybody knows, Hank’s face never did find out about it.
There was a period of time when Hank’s primary complaints centered around the music in the church. “It’s too loud!” Hank protested -- to the staff, the deacons, the ushers, and eventually the innocent visitors to the church.
The pastors finally had to take Hank aside and explain that complaining to complete strangers was not appropriate, and he would have to restrict his laments to a circle of intimate friends. And that was the end of it. So they thought.
A few weeks later, a secretary buzzed John Ortberg on the intercom to say that an agent from OSHA- the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – was there to see him. “I’m here to check out a complaint,” the man said. As Ortberg tried to figure out who on the staff would have called OSHA over a church problem, the agent began to talk about decibel levels at airports and rock concerts.
“Excuse me,” Ortberg said, “are you sure this was someone on the church staff that called?”
“No,” he explained. “If anyone calls – whether or not they work here – we’re obligated to investigate.”
Suddenly the light dawned: Hank had call OSHA and said, “The music at my church is too loud.” And they sent a federal agent to check it out.
By this time the rest of the staff had gathered in Ortberg’s office to see the man from OSHA.
“We don’t mean to make light of this,” Ortberg told him, “but nothing like this has ever happened around here before.”
“Don’t apologize,” the man said. “Do you have any idea how much ridicule I’ve faced around my office since everyone discovered I was going to bust a church?”
So, sometimes Hank’s joylessness ended in comedy; but more often it produced sadness. His children did not know him. He could not effectively love his wife or his children or people outside his family. He was easily irritated. He had little use for the poor, and a casual contempt for those whose accents or skin pigment differed from his own. Whatever capacity he once might have had for joy or wonder or gratitude had atrophied. He critiqued and judged and complained, and his soul got a little smaller each year.
Hank was not changing. He was once a cranky young guy, and he grew up to be a cranky old man. But even more troubling than his lack of change was the fact that nobody was surprised by it. It was as if everyone simply expected that his soul would remain withered and sour year after year, decade after decade. No one seemed bothered by the condition. It was not an anomaly that caused head-scratching bewilderment. No church consultants were called in. No emergency meetings were held to probe the strange case of this person who followed the church’s general guidelines for spiritual life and church membership and yet was non-transformed.
The church staff did have some expectations. We expected Hank would affirm certain religious beliefs. We expected that he would attend services, support the church financially, pray regularly, and avoid certain sins. But here’s what they didn’t expect: We didn’t expect that he would progressively become the way Jesus would be if he were in Hank’s place. We didn’t assume that each year would find him a more compassionate, joyful, gracious winsome personality. We didn’t anticipate that he was on the way to becoming a source of delight and courtesy who overflowed with “rivers of living water.” So, we were not shocked when it didn’t happen. We would have been surprised if it did!
Reflections
Are we more often surprised by change or are we more surprised by lack of change within an individual or community?
“I could not quiet
the pearly ache in my heart that
I diagnosed as the cry of home.”
Pat Conroy
Monday, April 24, 2006
L3: Life Long Learners
“Grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18 NKJ)
Tom Schmidt, in his book Trying to be Good, shares of a moving experience he had with a lady named Mabel.
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and the white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told alter that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel.
I don’t know why I spoke to her – she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obvious produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I though I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘here, this is from Jesus.’
That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say…
During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to thank about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about – hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
And she said, “I think about my Jesus.’
I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you do think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote…:
I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied… Lots of folks won’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, mall all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other once can cheer me so.
When I am sad he makes me glad.
He’s my friend.2
This was not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening – and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
The answer, I think is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying, ‘I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.’ This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel – who was willing to “turn aside” – a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the hearth, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being? Do you believe it is possible for you? This is promised in the gospel – the good news proclaimed by Jesus: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life – your life.
Reflection...
Do you know anyone like Mabel?
Spend some time reflecting on the life and communion that Mabel lived with Christ.
Take some time and ask God to renew a sense of awe and wonder for who He is and the life He’s given you to live.
“If you are weary
of some sleepy form of devotion,
probably God is as weary of it as you are.” Frank Laubach
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18 NKJ)
Tom Schmidt, in his book Trying to be Good, shares of a moving experience he had with a lady named Mabel.
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and the white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told alter that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel.
I don’t know why I spoke to her – she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obvious produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I though I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘here, this is from Jesus.’
That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say…
During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to thank about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about – hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
And she said, “I think about my Jesus.’
I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you do think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote…:
I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied… Lots of folks won’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, mall all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other once can cheer me so.
When I am sad he makes me glad.
He’s my friend.2
This was not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening – and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
The answer, I think is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying, ‘I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.’ This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel – who was willing to “turn aside” – a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the hearth, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being? Do you believe it is possible for you? This is promised in the gospel – the good news proclaimed by Jesus: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life – your life.
Reflection...
Do you know anyone like Mabel?
Spend some time reflecting on the life and communion that Mabel lived with Christ.
Take some time and ask God to renew a sense of awe and wonder for who He is and the life He’s given you to live.
“If you are weary
of some sleepy form of devotion,
probably God is as weary of it as you are.” Frank Laubach
L3: Life Long Learners
“Grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
(2 Peter 3:18 NKJ)
Tom Schmidt, in his book Trying to be Good, shares of a moving experience he had with a lady named Mabel.1
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and the white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told alter that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel.
I don’t know why I spoke to her – she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obvious produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I though I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘here, this is from Jesus.’
That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say…
During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to thank about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about – hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
And she said, “I think about my Jesus.’
I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you do think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote…:
I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied… Lots of folks won’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, mall all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other once can cheer me so.
When I am sad he makes me glad.
He’s my friend.2
This was not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening – and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
The answer, I think is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying, ‘I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.’ This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel – who was willing to “turn aside” – a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the hearth, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being? Do you believe it is possible for you? This is promised in the gospel – the good news proclaimed by Jesus: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life – your life.
Irresistible
➢ Do you know anyone like Mabel?
➢ Spend some time reflecting on the life and communion that Mabel lived with Christ.
➢ Take some time and ask God to renew a sense of awe and wonder for who He is and the life He’s given you to live.
“If you are weary
of some sleepy form of devotion,
probably God is as weary of it as you are.”
Frank Laubach
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
(2 Peter 3:18 NKJ)
Tom Schmidt, in his book Trying to be Good, shares of a moving experience he had with a lady named Mabel.1
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and the white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told alter that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel.
I don’t know why I spoke to her – she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obvious produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I though I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘here, this is from Jesus.’
That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say…
During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to thank about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about – hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
And she said, “I think about my Jesus.’
I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you do think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote…:
I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied… Lots of folks won’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, mall all.
He is my strength from day to day,
Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other once can cheer me so.
When I am sad he makes me glad.
He’s my friend.2
This was not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening – and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
The answer, I think is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things. Her entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying, ‘I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.’ This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel – who was willing to “turn aside” – a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the hearth, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being? Do you believe it is possible for you? This is promised in the gospel – the good news proclaimed by Jesus: “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glorious redemption of human life – your life.
Irresistible
➢ Do you know anyone like Mabel?
➢ Spend some time reflecting on the life and communion that Mabel lived with Christ.
➢ Take some time and ask God to renew a sense of awe and wonder for who He is and the life He’s given you to live.
“If you are weary
of some sleepy form of devotion,
probably God is as weary of it as you are.”
Frank Laubach
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Carole said...
What a journey!! Oh my, I had time to reflect on my past, present and even my future. What legacy shall I leave when I am gone?? May the Lord help us. Thanks to all that worked so hard to put this together. I hope everyone has has a chance to come and journey. I would like to do it again.
hijadedios said...
Hey, this is the second time I went through the prayer journey and it was awesome. Thank you, Lord, for drawing near to me through these reflections and thank you CT for pulling us into contemplative prayer like this.
amber said...
It was great not only to get some time to think and pray but to be led into certain areas that have been neglected. Thanks! Anyone who has not had the chance to experiece this... take the time...Make The Time!
Anonymous said...
I left my footprint in the sand and although it was my footprint no one could possibly know that it was me. The only thing certan is that someone had placed their foot into the grain.
As I stepped away I marveled at the anonyminity of it all. If the sand was the "rutter of history" as the narrator described then the imprint of my foot which God had molded at creation was His very signature.
Whatever it is that I have that might be left behind that will truly ink history's pages will be his and his alone. No face or name other then His will be read in the grains of the sand.
As I stepped away I marveled at the anonyminity of it all. If the sand was the "rutter of history" as the narrator described then the imprint of my foot which God had molded at creation was His very signature.
Whatever it is that I have that might be left behind that will truly ink history's pages will be his and his alone. No face or name other then His will be read in the grains of the sand.
Amy Kaehr said...
this experience was a nice transition from what God had alread placed in me. He showed me themes through out that have been used to show me what I needed to get rid of and what truths I needed to embrace. I am now at a new place in my journey and I am excited to let God lead me.
diana basye said...
this was a heart wrenching experience when I really let God into my thoughts and let Him heal those thoughts my heart started to melt and is more pliable for the changes that the Lord wants in me. Thank you
Monday, April 03, 2006
M.A.P
has I looked into the mirror my face dissapeared! I first thought I was in darkness, but I saw closer my head had become translucent then I looked down and only my chest was visible. My heart is what he wanted to see that is what we are made of, that is what he sees that is all we leave behind----love.
Hipolito said...
The Lord met me in unexpected, and unusual ways! I began to sense Him afresh after the 3rd station. It was simply a matter of entering in after that. He revealed some hidden feelings of abandonment I didn't know were in me. Also He reminded me of a mandate He had given me a few years ago. I encourage everyone to experience God in a very sensory way as you traverse the path!
Anonymous said...
It was awesome, thank you to all who were involved in setting it up.
If we could all get that we are here for a reason and are created in the image of God.
We have purpose and our life here is of value.
I left wanting my life even more to be a reflection of his glory and light to this world.
If we could all get that we are here for a reason and are created in the image of God.
We have purpose and our life here is of value.
I left wanting my life even more to be a reflection of his glory and light to this world.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
hijadedios
how, how to talk about something that took me by surprise and went so deep? it's hard to even speak right now, the presence of God is still shaking, working deeper in my spirit. Everything took me by surprise; I wasn't expecting to be disarmed by such simple stuff-- the body and blood of Christ, sand, candles, dirt. Jesus thank you for having mercy on your children, and meeting us here. Amen. --
Naomi said...
Wow!
I am so glad that I came to this prayer journey. I wasn't sure what it would be like when I came, or what God would do in my life, but He definately used this as a mile-marker in my walk with Him. He spoke some key things to me that will stick with me for a long time having to do with my relationship with Him and the future he has for me. Thanks God! You are so amazing; there aren't even words to describe you and your goodness.
I am so glad that I came to this prayer journey. I wasn't sure what it would be like when I came, or what God would do in my life, but He definately used this as a mile-marker in my walk with Him. He spoke some key things to me that will stick with me for a long time having to do with my relationship with Him and the future he has for me. Thanks God! You are so amazing; there aren't even words to describe you and your goodness.
Jenni V. said...
I was a bit confused at first but that's not abnormal for something new, right? It took a few tracks of the CD to really get into it, but I found myself calm and relaxed, free from anxiety and emotion. After I was through the maze part and entered into worship in the sanctuary the true presence of the spirit revealed to me important life lessons. Freedom in worship is vital to everyone. Dancing for me releases something intimate and new. I danced, like I would at home in my living room and it wasn't/isn't about me. We so often say "God showed up", yet tonight I realize, God is ever present. He's an 'ever' kind of God, everloving, ever living, ever present, ever forgiving. Praise the Lord for obediant pastors and creativity.
S. Nelson said...
Very unique prayer experience. Would take some time to adjust. Definitely outside the box--in a good way.
A lot of work to set this up!
A lot of work to set this up!
Jean Marie Crawford said...
I have never participated in a prayer walk. I messed up some of the stations but I made it to everyone of them and I listened to the words and put myself in God's hands. I love the family relationship that I have in Calvary Temple and God knew what He
was doing when He put me here. I don't know what He has in mind for me but I'm REAL happy having it happen with Calvary Temple.
God bless you,
Jean Marie Crawford
was doing when He put me here. I don't know what He has in mind for me but I'm REAL happy having it happen with Calvary Temple.
God bless you,
Jean Marie Crawford
Anonymous said...
A journey is something that moves. It continues. It doesn't stay in one place. This experience showed me that my relationship with God needs to be a journey. I need to stop living my life in this stagnant existance and fully embrance the journey God wants to take me on. God desires for each of us to become just as He is: Holy, just, pure. The journey is how we become that way. The journey is where God becomes most real to us. I am ready to go on that journey.
A journey is something that moves. It continues. It doesn't stay in one place. This experience showed me that my relationship with God needs to be a journey. I need to stop living my life in this stagnant existance and fully embrance the journey God wants to take me on. God desires for each of us to become just as He is: Holy, just, pure. The journey is how we become that way. The journey is where God becomes most real to us. I am ready to go on that journey.
...sitting face to face with Him,I could not look Him in the eyes. I only knew His presence because I felt Him so strong. Then I felt His touch.He combed his fingers through my hair. My head hung in shame and I covered my face. How could you love me LORD?...but He does...He just does...
What a relief! Even in my rejection, my shame, my guilt, unbleief, rebellion, confusion...He still sees me as 'HIS LOVE'
thank you jesus for _____________ (everything).
thank you for those who served behind the scenes to make this thing happen! i was blessed!
What a relief! Even in my rejection, my shame, my guilt, unbleief, rebellion, confusion...He still sees me as 'HIS LOVE'
thank you jesus for _____________ (everything).
thank you for those who served behind the scenes to make this thing happen! i was blessed!
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