Telling about God
Alice Lee Humphres, in her book Angels in Pinafores, tells about her experiences as a first grade teacher. She tells about one little girl who came to school one winter day wearing a beautiful white angora beret, white mittens, and a matching muff. As she was coming through the door, a mischievous little boy grabbed the white muff and threw it in the mud. After disciplining the little boy, the teacher sought to comfort the girl. Brushing the mud off of her soiled muff, the little girl looked up at the teacher and said in a quiet and responsible manner, “Sometime I must take a day off and tell him about God.” As far as the girl was concerned, everything that was wrong with the boy could be made right if she could just tell him about God.
Ounce of Prevention
One of the most fascinating biographies I ever read was that of Irene Webster Smith by Russell Hitt. The title of the book is Sensei which means “teacher” in Japanese. Irene Smith was a Quaker and a missionary to Japan for some fifty years. Sensei became her name to the Japanese. She first went to Japan about 1915 under the Japan Evangelistic Band from her native Ireland. Her first assignment was to serve in the Tokyo Rescue Home, which sought to save prostitutes from their entrapment in the government-licensed brothels. In this early experience, Sensei learned how these young girls, who were unwanted by their parents, were sold into a life of prostitution and trained from their earliest years to know no other experience. These days in the Tokyo Rescue Home were very discouraging to Sensei, because these girls, no matter how they seemed to repent of their past, would so often revert to their life of immorality as soon as they regained their health.
In the midst of this frustrating job, a thought came to Sensei. It would be better to put a fence at the top of the precipice than an ambulance at the foot. And with that thought, a vision was born—a vision of a home for unwanted girls—a home warmed by love and bright with God’s grace, a home where little girls, once destined for brothels and disease, could be brought up in happiness to lead full and useful Christian lives. And so for many years, Sensei turned to the work of endeavoring to keep young girls from falling over this particular precipice.
Which is most important? Picking up the pieces in people’s lives after calamity has struck (running an ambulance service), or catching a few, as it were, midair in a net, or building fences to keep people from trouble in the first place?
We Need Each Other
A young woman was waiting for a bus in a slum area one evening, when a rookie policeman approached her. “Want me to wait with you?” he asked. She replied, “Thank you, but that’s not necessary. I’m not afraid.” “Well, then,” he said grinning, “would you mind waiting with me?”
It’s Hard to Help Some People
Two Cub Scouts, whose younger brother had fallen into the lake, rushed home to mother with tears in their eyes.
One of them sobbed, “We try to give him artificial respiration, but he keeps getting up and walking away.”
Real Empathy
A little girl was sent on an errand by her mother. She took much too long in coming back. Mother, therefore, demanded an explanation when she finally did return. The little girl explained that on her way, she had met a little friend who was crying because she had broken her doll. “Oh,” said the mother, “then you stopped to help her fix her doll?” “Oh, no,” replied the little girl. “I stopped to help her cry.”
Stop and Think First
A professor at the UCLA Medical School asked his students this question: “Here is the family history: The father has syphilis. The mother has TB. They already have had four children. The first is blind. The second had died. The third is deaf. The fourth has TB. The mother is pregnant. The parents are willing to have an abortion if you decide they should. What do you think?” Most of the students decided on abortion. “Congratulations,” said the professor. “You have just murdered Beethoven!” Nothing is so final as murder, even when it is done very early in a life. –Terence Patterson
The Church’s Mission—A Parable
Not long ago I visited my sister, a director of patient services for the children’s unit of a large southern California hospital. She was conducting me on a tour through that unit. All the time—echoing through the halls—we could hear the cry of a baby coming from one of the rooms. Finally, we came to that room. It was a little child, about a year old, covered with terrible bruises, scratches, scars, from head to toe.
At first, I assumed the child must have been involved in a terrible accident. Then I looked closely at its legs. Written in ink all over them were obscenities. My sister told me that the child was the victim, not of an accident, but of its parents. Its internal injuries were so severe that it couldn’t keep any food down. The scars on the bottom of its feet were burns caused by cigarettes.
If you’ve ever had trouble visualizing the consequences of human indifference—the perversion of life’s basic relationships—what God Himself is up against in this world of ours—I wish you could have looked with me at that battered, crying baby!
But I want to tell you what happened then. My sister leaned over the crib, and very carefully and tenderly lifted the child, and held it next to herself. At first the child screamed at the move, as if its innocent nature had come to be suspicious of every touch. But as she held it securely and warmly, the baby slowly began to quiet down. And finally, in spite of wounds and burns and past experience, it felt the need to cry no more.
The baby remains in my memory as a living symbol of the choice we face in the mission of the church. Are we willing to let life’s most precious values be battered and starved and crucified by default? Or will we reach out and pick them up and hold them close to our hearts? The time for commitment is not next year, next month, but now! –Philip Anderson
Incarnation in the Mountains
Years ago, I remember seeing the news reports of a coal mining accident in the Allegheny mountains. Many miners escaped with their lives, but three men were still trapped somewhere deep within the earth’s crust. Whether they were dead or alive, no one knew. What made the accident even more threatening to life was the presence of intense heat and noxious gasses within the mine itself. If the men were not crushed by the rock, they well could have been asphyxiated by the fumes or killed by the heat. Two days went by before a search expedition was allowed to even enter the mine because of the heat and fumes. Even then, there was great danger in store for anyone who would dare descent into what could well be a deep, black grave.
I don’t remember what happened to those three men. All I remember is a brief interview conducted with one of the members of the search party as he was preparing to enter the mine. A reporter asked him if he knew of the noxious gasses and the extreme danger of the mine, The man said, “Yes.”
“And you are still going down?”
The man said, “Those men may still be alive.” Without another word of explanation, he put on his gas mask, climbed into the elevator, and descended into the black inferno of the mine.
He put his life on the line that others might live. That is what Christ did.
Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Hope
On a cruise from Mexico to Hawaii in 1979, Los Angeles lawyer John Peckham and his wife, Dottie, put a note in a bottle and tossed it into the Pacific. Three years and nine thousand miles later, Vietnamese refugee Nguyen Van Hoa leaned down from a tiny, crowded boat and plucked the bottle from the South China Sea—amazed to find a name and address, a dollar for postage and the promise of a reward. “It gave me hope,” said Hoa, who had escaped from a prison camp in Vietnam. Safe in a UN refugee camp in Thailand, Hoa wrote the surprised Peckhams. For two years, they corresponded; Hoa married and had a son. Last year, the Peckhams agreed to sponsor the emigration of Hoa, now thirty-one, and his family. In April, they arrived for an emotional meeting with the Peckhams—and a new life from an old bottle.
Righteous Anger
Dr. David Swoap told the following at a commencement address at Westmont College:
When I lived in Washington, DC, I was privileged to meet Mother Teresa. I asked her, “Don’t you ever become angry at the causes of social injustice that you see in India or in any of the places in which you work?
Her response was, “Why should I expend energy in anger that I can expend on love?”
At the Playground
While Penny and I were walking in the park the other day, a ten-year-old boy came racing around a tree, almost running into us and said, “Dad, where’s Amy?” Instantly, he realized his mistake and said, “Sir, I’m sorry. I thought you were my dad. I made a mistake.”
I replied, “That’s OK, everybody makes mistakes.”
As he began to walk away, I noticed he had a limp as well as the features of a child with Down’s syndrome. After having walked about ten yards, as an afterthought, he turned around and started retracing his steps toward us.
“My name is Billy,” he said. “You both were very nice to me, can I give you a hug?”
After giving each of us a tight hug, he said, “I just wanted you to know that you’re my friends and I am going to be praying for you. I have to go now and find my sister, Amy. Good-bye, and God bless you!”
Tears came to both Penny’s and my eyes as we watched Billy, that child with Down’s syndrome, limp to the playground to play with his little sister. After Billy went down the slide, his mother came over to him and gave him a big hug. It was obvious that he was a special child to her.
Sometimes God uses the Billys of the world to break down our walls of sophistication to show us what genuine kindness is all about. We must never underestimate the impact that a hug, smile, or encouraging word may have on a person’s life. –Jim Schibsted
Bonhoeffer on Abortion
Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.
Calvin on Abortion
The fetus carried in the mother’s womb is already a man; and it is quite unnatural that a life be destroyed of one who has not yet seen its enjoyment. For it seems more unworthy that a man be killed in his house rather than in his field because for each man his home is his safest refuge. How much more abominable ought it to be considered to kill a fetus in the womb who has not yet been brought into the light.
Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
In 1928, a very interesting case came before the courts in Massachusetts. It concerned a man who had been walking on a boat dock when suddenly he tripped over a rope and fell into the cold, deep water of an ocean bay. He came up sputtering and yelling for help and then sank again, obviously in trouble. His friends were too far away to get to him, but only a few yards away, on another dock, was a young man sprawled on a deck chair, sunbathing. The desperate man shouted, “Help, I can’t swim!” The young man, an excellent swimmer, only turned his head to watch as the man floundered in the water, sank, came up sputtering in total panic, and then disappeared forever.
The family of the drowned man was so upset by that display of callous indifference that they sued the sunbather. They lost. The court reluctantly ruled that the man on the dock had no legal responsibility whatever to try and save the other man’s life. In effect, the law agrees with Cain’s presupposition: I am not my brother’s keeper, and I have every legal right to mind my own business and to refuse to become involved. –Gary Inrig
The Guest
A pious father always closed grace for the evening meal with these words: “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and bless what Thou hast provided.” “Papa,” said the little son, “every evening you ask Jesus to come and be our guest, but He never comes.” “My son,” replied the father, “we can only wait. But we know that He will not despise our invitation.” “Well, then” asked the little boy, “if we expect Him to come and have dinner with us, why don’t we set a place for Him at the table?” And so to save further embarrassing questions, the father permitted the boy to set a place at the table. Just then a knock came at the door. When they opened it, a poor helpless waif stood shivering in the cold. The son thought for a moment and finally said, “I guess Jesus couldn’t come today, and so He sent this poor boy in His place.” With little further conversation, the little beggar boy was brought in and set at the empty place at the dinner table. –John W. Wade
Do Unto Others, Etc
As Irishman was down on his luck and was panhandling on Fifth Avenue before the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade got underway in New York City. As a couple strolled by, he called out: “May the blessing of the Lord, which brings love and joy and wealth and a fine family, follow you all the days of your life.” There was a pause as the couple passed his outstretched hand without contributing. Then he shouted after them, “And never catch up to you!”
Bearing One Another’s Burdens
In Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery, Mr. Washington recalled a beautiful incident of an older brother’s love. He said the shirts worn on his plantation by the slaves were made of a rough, bristly inexpensive flax fiber. As a young boy, the garment was so abrasive to his tender, sensitive skin that it caused him a great deal of pain and discomfort. His older brother, moved by his brother’s suffering, would wear Booker’s new shirts, until they were broken in and smoother to the touch. Booker said it was one of the most striking acts of kindness he had experienced among his fellow slaves. What a beautiful illustration of “bearing one another’s burdens,” which we are admonished to do in Galatians 6:20.
Feed My Sheep
A true story: A flight from Denver to Wichita was boarding. On an ambulance litter an attendant carried a 225-pound man as the last traveler to board. As they cradled him into a seat in front of us, it was evident he was totally paralyzed from his shoulders down. He was strapped in tightly, but as the pilot taxied to the runway, the centrifugal force lunged him to the right, causing him to fall toward the next seat. The stewardess again propped him up in an upright position. Hastily, we were airborne. Beverages were served, then a meal. As I finished the meal, I looked up to see the paralyzed gentleman, probably twenty-seven years old, with the meal before him with no one to feed him. My eyes filled with tears. The hostesses were busy serving food to all passengers, but here was a person traveling along who could only look at the meal. It was beautifully prepared, tasty, and far above average for airline food.
Before I could wipe the tears from my eyes, I slipped from my seat to his side and inquired if the stewardess would be helping him eat. He did not know. I asked if I might help him. He responded with, “Oh, thank you, I would be so grateful for your help.” As I cut the meal into bite sizes and placed them in his mouth, I felt awkward, conspicuous, but much needed. Before long I was coordinating bites as well as if they were entering my own mouth. He told me of his unfortunate accident, his lonesomeness, his joys, his struggles, his faith, his hope. His name was Bill. Our spirits blended00we experienced sacrament! Upon returning to my seat, my spirit was humbled as I thought of all the people who have had the Good News of the gospel set before them. It’s available, but no one to feed them, crippled with spiritual and psychological paralysis—and no one to feed them. My spirit flowed to the words of Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” Jesus responded, “Feed My sheep.”
The Deepest Sympathy
In 430 BC, the historian Thucydides wrote: “It was in those who had recovered from the plague that the sick and the dying found most compassion.” A preacher who has never needed comfort is not likely to be as concerned about giving comfort. –Charles Allen, What I Have Lived By
More Than Words
Kindness will influence more than eloquence.
The Power of Love
Tears glistened in the eyes of the Salvation Army officer Shaw as he looked at the three men before him. Shaw was a medical missionary who had just arrived in India, and the Army was taking over this particular leper colony. These three men had manacles and fetters binding their hands and feet, cutting their diseased flesh. Captain Shaw turned to the guard and said, “Please unfasten the chains.”
“It isn’t safe,” the guard replied, “these men are dangerous criminals as well as lepers.”
“I’ll be responsible. They’re suffering enough,” Captain Shaw said, as he put out his hand and took the keys, then knelt and tenderly removed the shackles and treated their bleeding ankles and wrists.
About two weeks later Captain Shaw had his first misgivings about freeing these criminals; he had to make an overnight trip and dreaded leaving his wife and child alone. His wife insisted that she wasn’t afraid with God being there. The next morning when she went to the front door, she was startled to see the three criminals lying on her steps. One explained, “We know the doctor go. We stay here all night so no harm come to you.” That’s how these dangerous men responded to an act of love. Christ came to set fettered people free.
Finding Happiness
Guard within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness. Know how to replace in your heart, by the happiness of those you love, the happiness that may be wanting to yourself. –George Sand
Dealing with the Blues
Ten rules for getting rid of the blues: Go out and do something for someone else, and repeat it nine times.
Carrying a Burden
Dr. Albert Schweitzer was eighty-five years old when I visited his jungle hospital at Lambarene, on the banks of the Ogowe River. You can imagine the deep and profound effect of that three-day visit, which included opportunity for some leisurely conversation with that great humanitarian, theologian, musician, and physician. But one event stands out in a special way.
It was about eleven in the morning. The equatorial sun was beating down mercilessly, and we were walking up a hill with Dr. Schweitzer. Suddenly he left us and strode across the slope of the hill to a place where an African woman was struggling upward with a huge armload of wood for the cookfires. I watched with both admiration and concern as the eighty-five year old man took the entire load of wood and carried it on up the hill for the relieved woman. When we all reached the top of the hill, one of the members of our group asked Dr. Schweitzer why he did things like that, implying that in that heat and at his age he should not. Albert Schweitzer, looking right at all of us and pointing to the woman, said simply, “No one should ever have to carry a burden like that alone.” From a letter from Andrew C. Davidson, Colgate Rochester Seminary.
Scarred Hands
A small orphaned boy lived with his grandmother. One night their house caught fire. The grandmother, trying to rescue the little boy asleep upstairs, perished in the smoke and flames. A crowd gathered around the burning house. The boy’s cries for help were heard above the crackling of the blaze. No one seemed to know what to do, for the front of the house was a mass of flames.
Suddenly a stranger rushed from the crowd and circled to the back where he spotted an iron pipe that reached an upstairs window. He disappeared for a minute, then reappeared with the boy in his arms. Amid the cheers of the crowd, he climbed down the hot pipe as the boy hung around his neck. Weeks later a public hearing was held in the town hall to determine in whose custody the boy would be placed. Each person wanting the boy was allowed to speak briefly. The first man said, “I have a big farm. Everybody needs the out-of-doors.” The second man told of the advantages he could provide. “I’m a teacher. I have a large library. He would get a good education.” Others spoke. Finally, the richest man in the community said, “I’m wealthy. I could give the boy everything mentioned tonight: farm, education, and more, including money and travel. I’d like him in my home.”
The Chairman asked, “Anyone else like to say a word?” From the backseat rose a stranger who had slipped in unnoticed. As he walked toward the front, deep suffering showed on his face. Reaching the front of the room, he stood directly in front of the little boy. Slowly the stranger removed his hands from his pockets. A gasp went up from the crowd. The little boy, whose eyes had been focused on the floor until now, looked up. The man’s hands were terribly scarred. Suddenly the boy emitted a cry of recognition. Here was the man who had saved his life. His hands were scarred from climbing up and down the hot pipe. With a leap, the boy threw himself around the stranger’s neck and held on for life. The farmer rose and left. The teacher, too. Then the rich man. Everyone departed , leaving the boy and his rescuer who had won him without a word. Those marred hands spoke more effectively than any words.