I may not know the full answer to that yet, but I do have an idea.

I just prayed with one of the nurses here in my room, asking God to give her and her husband wisdom to know how to proceed with their adopted daughter. Nine years ago, a little girl was brought into their home who had horrific baggage (later learned) and tendencies. So violent was her Type 2 bi-polar disorder (the worst classification) their own daughter had to sleep with two locks on her door, as she seems to be the burning core of Cassie’s (not her real name) hatred.

This morning, Cassie bounded down the steps of their home walked straight up to her mother, and threw her arms around my nurse friend and told her she loved her. Totally unsolicited.

It had never happened before. In nine years.

This gallant adoptive mother broke down as she shared that, in her heart, she knew Cassie is experiencing a major breakthrough and on the road to healing. I could see years of fear, hysteria, hopelessness and exhaustion just melt away with those wracking sobs and a face that suddenly lost its lines and looked young again.

On this same day she found out that a Medicare-underwritten program has finally accepted their daughter after months of waiting and wringing of hands. After months of crying out for God to heal the pain in the home and torment in their daughter.

Then, this:

“I love you  Mom.”

Can you think of four better words?

So my friend is torn. What if this is God’s witness to her that their daughter, after endless therapy and new medicine–not to mention the steady stream of prayers–is showing a monumental turnaround? What would it mean for them to put her in the program?

If they do not drive Cassie the hundred miles to a new rehabilitation center, they will receive no financial assistance for any of their daughter’s future therapy.

I didn’t have a word for my friend, but instead turned to the Word on behalf of my friend. “Dear God, you promised that if we lack wisdom, we can ask of You, and we have the assurance that You will pour out such wisdom without restraint, without guilting us or remonstrating us for lack of faith…”

With heads bowed in this room, we agreed that the Father loves Cassie and has an incredible plan for not only her but for my friend, her husband and their other daughter. We prayed with boldness knowing that God would lift whatever fog or gauzy mist shielded the Johnson’s (not their real name) eyes that they might see He who is true Wisdom, Jesus the Christ.

She wiped her eyes and hugged me and told me her dad had phoned her this morning and used the promise of James 1:5 for those who lack wisdom in their conversation also. The Word had given His word after all. Her eyes were wide with expectation, relief and settled confidence that all would be well.

As I finished that last sentence, my nurse friend just passed my room with a beaming smile. This is why Jesus has come into the world, to set captives (like Cassie—and hurting families) free.

It’s a shame that I almost did not share this for fear of what some might think: you quoted from Campolo? Isn’t he a heretic?

Think what you will (and I admit to some of my own concerns…but might the issues be mostly my own?), but I could sit across a table at Starbucks with this guy. Especially when he shares stories like this:

Why is it that people turn away from what God wills for them? Turn away from the life that God wants them to live? Turn away from doing what Jesus wants them to do to share the salvation story and to bring joy into the lives of those who don’t have much to be joyful about?

I had to go to speak in Honolulu. Well, sometimes you get L.A. and sometimes you get Honolulu. If you go to Honolulu, because of the distance from the east coast where I live, there’s a six‐hour time difference. And I woke up at about three o’clock in the morning and I was hungry and I wanted to get something to eat. But, in a hustling city like Honolulu at three o’clock in the morning, it’s hard to find anything that’s open. Up a side street, I spotted this greasy spoon, and I went in. It was one of these dirty places and they didn’t have any booths, just row of stools at the counter. I sat down a bit uneasy and I didn’t touch the menu. It was one of those plastic menus and grease had piled up on it. I knew that if I opened it, something extraterrestrial would have crawled out.

All of the sudden, this very heavy‐set, unshaved man with a cigar came out of the back room, put down his cigar, and said, “What do you want?”

I said, “I’d like a cup of coffee and a donut.”

He poured the coffee and then he scratched himself and, with the same hand, picked up the donut. I hate that. So, there I am, three‐thirty in the morning, drinking my coffee, and eating this dirty donut. And into the place comes about eight or nine prostitutes. It’s a small place, they sit on either side of me, and I tried to disappear. The woman on my immediate right was very boisterous and she said to her friend, “Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to be thirty‐nine.”

Her friend said, “So what do you want me to do? Do you want me to sing happy birthday? Should we have a cake a party? It’s your birthday.”

The first woman said, “Look, why do you have to put me down? I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. I don’t expect to have one now.”

That’s all I needed. I waited until they left and I called Harry over and I asked, “Do they come in here every night?”

He said, “Yes.”

I said, “The one right next to me…” 

“Agnes.”

“Tomorrow is her birthday. What do you think about decorating the place? When she comes in tomorrow night, we’ll throw a birthday party for her. What do you think?”

He said, “Mister, that is brilliant. That is brilliant!” He called his wife out of the back room. “Jan, come out here. I want you to meet this guy. He wants to throw a birthday party for Agnes.”

She came out and took my hand and squeezed it tightly, and said, “You wouldn’t understand this, mister, but Agnes is one of the good people, one of the kind people in this town. And nobody ever does anything for her, and this is a good thing.

I said, “Can I decorate the place?”

She said, “To your heart’s content.”

I said, “I’m going to bring a birthday cake…

Harry said, “Oh no! The cake’s my thing!”

So, I got there the next morning at about two‐thirty. I had bought the streamers at the K‐mart, strung them about the place. I had made a big poster – “”Happy Birthday Agnes” ‐ and put it behind the counter. I had the place spruced up. Everything was set. Everything was ready. Jan, who does the cooking, she had gotten the word out on the street. By three‐fifteen, every prostitute was squeezed into this diner. People, it was wall‐to‐wall prostitutes and me!

Three‐thirty in the morning, in come Agnes and her friends. I’ve got everybody set, everybody ready.

As they come through the door, we all yell, “Happy birthday Agnes!” In addition, we start cheering like mad. I’ve never seen anybody so stunned. Her knees buckled. They steadied her and sat her down on the stool. We all started singing, “Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to you!”

When they brought out the cake, she lost it and started to cry.

Harry just stood there with the cake and said, “All right, knock it off Agnes. Blow out the candles. Come on, blow out the candles.”

She tried, but she couldn’t, so he blew out the candles, gave her the knife, and said, “Cut the cake, Agnes.”

She sat there for a long moment and then she said to me, “Mister, is it okay if I don’t cut the cake? What I’d like to do, mister, is take the cake home and show it to my mother. Could I do that?”

I said, “It’s your cake.”

She stood up, and I said, “Do you have to do it now?”

She said, “I live two doors down. Let me take the cake home and show it to my mother. I promise you I’ll bring it right back.” And she moved toward the door carrying the cake as though it was the Holy Grail.

As she pushed through the crowd and out the door, the door swung slowly shut and there was stunned silence. You talk about an awkward moment. Everyone was motionless. Everyone was still I didn’t know what to say.

So, I finally said, “What do you say, we pray?” It’s weird looking back on it now. You know a sociologist leading a prayer meeting with a bunch of prostitutes at three‐thirty in the morning in a diner. But, it was the right thing to do. I prayed that God would deliver her from what dirty filthy men had done to her. You know how these things start ‐ some ten, eleven, or twelve‐year‐old girl gets messed over and destroyed by some filthy man and then she goes downhill from there. And men use her and abuse her.

I said, “God, deliver her and make her into a new creation because I’ve got a God who can make us new no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve been through.” And I prayed that God would make her new.

When I finished my prayer, Harry leaned over the counter and he said, “Campolo, you told me you were a sociologist. You’re no sociologist, you’re a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?”

In one of those moments when you come up with just the right words, I said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at three‐thirty in the morning.”

I’ll never forget his response. He looked back at me and he said, “No you don’t, no you don’t. I would join a church like that!”

When Abraham Lincoln assumed presidency over a fragile nation, there were 33 states in the Union. Five months later, 27 remained. Virginia, birthplace of seven United States presidents, was expected to tag along. The new president had said he’d rather be assassinated than to see a single star pulled from the flag, but the “great experiment” called America seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

“We will NOT have this man to be king over us!”

Would it, could it, survive?

Thousands.

That’s how many “followed” Jesus long before there was Twitter. They hung on His every word. He spoke their lingo and they liked that His simple lifestyle ran counter to the other rabbis and professional ministers who flouted, flaunted, fleeced and derided them. The religious dudes made them feel condemned. Hopeless. This man was different. Though a holy man, He was not religious and untouchable. It was as common to see him at a dinner party with undesirables as it was to see Him mixing it up with theologues and seminarians. If Jesus was a Facebook button, they would ‘like’ Him…

Oh! And the miracles?

Icing on the cake, baby.

Blindness, gone. Demons, gone. Leprosy, gone. My uncle who has never walked? Saw him skipping through town the other day.

Hungry? Just go see this Guy. He can fix you up.

This was pretty much the climate of the day. For a season. If there was such a thing as a vote, and a vote were held, this Guy was a shoo-in for King. As long as He kept them in bread.

Then one day, just like that, the honeymoon ended. It started out all right. Word spread that the Rabbi was giving a sermon in a synagogue. Don’t know where? Just follow your neighbors. They know someone who knows someone who knows where to go. Don’t bother packing a lunch. It’s a safe bet that your meal is included.

The air in Capernaum was buzzing and crackling. The synagogue was filled to the gills and it was uncertain if the old church could hold them all. It was probably going to be epic. The man called Jesus might just announce His candidacy for King. Who knows? Anyhow, He’s got my vote.

Anticipation was high. All the whisperings in the crowd had to do with what was on the menu. Would quail just magically appear on plates? Would the sky rain bread?

Instead of working the crowd, the Rabbi’s tone carried a weight, a certain gravity. He seemed deadly serious. No rah-rah. No trumpeted charge. No shmoozing. No campaign promises.

Clearly, it wasn’t going to be: YES WE CAN!

It was more like: Oh no, He didn’t.

So long as it feels like a vacation, a honeymoon, a good meal, a shopping day, a parade, Christmas morning, a cute baby in a rustic manger, a dinner party with friends, or being the center of attention, I’m good. As long as you’re hammering on those people, reading them the riot act, overturning their tables, I’ll go along.

Just don’t put me in Your sermon.

I don’t want to be obsessed with You. I just need You around. It’s cool with me just to know you’re there, especially when I’m hungry. So don’t start talking about a committed relationship. Friends with benefits is all I am looking for.

But You keep talking like this? I’ll un-friend You. I’ll hit the “Unlike” button. That quick. Just you watch.

“You don’t need this world’s food. Be nourished by Me! I Am the source of Life! Unless you worship Me, you will perish!”

Um, really? Aren’t you just a carpenter’s son? I’ll accept you as my personal Baker, but not my personal Savior and Lord. No way. No how.

I’m outta here. I’ll not let this Man be King of me!

Along with just about everybody else. The synagogue empties and a vagabond tumbleweed blows by a small handful of wide-eyed would-be followers huddled in a shadowy corner. A couple of them, too, seem to be contemplating the door.

Jesus eyes them up and down. This is what you signed up for, boys. Are you still with Me?

“Will you also go away?”

He looks them each in the eye, one by one, like a judge polling a jury, waiting for their answer.

They needn’t worry.

The Union won’t dissolve no matter how many left. His flag would lose no stars. My Kingdom is yeast running through the batch of dough, he said. This minor setback only signals the certain triumph to come. There will be many more who will fall away on account of Me…

“Will you?”

So I lost a few…we’ll rebuild…as a matter of fact, there’s a woman who is about to be stoned for adultery in Jerusalem. I think I’ll start with her…

He turns. and with an enigmatic smile, calls over His shoulder:

So, boys: You comin’? Or what?

The Lord Christ has been my example and has been faithful to cultivate a pastor’s heart in me. The picture of Jesus as the “Good” Shepherd in John 10 is an endearing template. In the language our Savior used, the word means ‘skilled’ and the Greek that translates it is kalos which is defined as ‘fine, beautiful (which outrays from inner grace and nobility)’. Our Lord is a skillful shepherd who is breathtakingly beautiful to watch work.

Through the years of ministry, there’s one thing I know about sheep: I am one. You thought I’d say they were smelly, stupid and gullible, didn’t you? We often like to use the negative comparisons but sheep have admirable traits as well. I’ve learned that sheep have mutual love for other sheep in their fold. They will eat with heads together, sometimes 3 and 4 heads so close they seem part of the same body. Sheep also have memories of even the simplest acts of kindness, never taking a shepherd’s bravery to fend off a wolf or his leading the flock to safe pasture. Sheep remember. And give thanks with their affection.

Their mutual love is only eclipsed by their love for their shepherd. They will leave their friends behind to follow their leader. Sheep make excellent mothers as well, doting over their young with the tenderest of bleats. And sheep demonstrate incredible trust and patience. When in the hands of the shearer, they may struggle briefly, but once they realize they cannot break free, will settle in and relax until the trial is over. When hurt, they neither resist or resent healing hands dressing their wounds.

Recently I read an account of friends helping with the care of a couple of lambs. Two young daughters were given the responsibility to raise one lamb each for a 4-H project. Part of their daily avocation included walking the lambs around the farm, getting them used to a harness and following a leader. The girls went away for a weekend camp in the summer and their dad enlisted some friends to help walk the lambs while the girls were away.

Once harnessed, the two left the barn with the little woolen kids in tow. Not a few feet out, however, one of the lambs dug his hooves in and refused to go a step further. A few tugs on the line didn’t help; he merely laid down. The other lamb witnessed the attrition and did likewise. Down they both lay and would not budge. No amount of picking up and chiding helped win the situation. Tugging the harness once, the lambs went down again. Another tug, they rolled over.

When it was clear the lambs would not be walked, the grown-ups returned the kids to the barn. Later they learned the lambs wouldn’t cooperate because they were used to little people walking them. The grown men intimidated the poor things. They weren’t being hard-headed, they were afraid and because they didn’t know these strangers; they did not follow them because they could not trust them.

Are you a sheep? Lift your head high and give a bleat-out to your posse. Loving one another is part of your pedigree. So is relaxing when the Shepherd is around. And you obey because you love your Chief Shepherd and would even sacrifice friendships to go where He leads.

And don’t forget the best part of all: your Elder Brother is Himself a Lamb forever (see Revelation 5:6).

–First century parable from the lips of Jesus

Long about noon on Saturday a father and son will meet in a giant bear hug far from the horizon that once separated them.  And Mom will be there too, just the right touch needed to make a three-corded strand.  Perceptive onlookers might catch a glimpse of something arcane and otherworldly in this simple tapestry: a family wrapped, cinched and secured in the keeping power of the Strong-Armed One.  I’d call that an unbreakable family bond.

The son is, at long last, coming home.  Gone will be the rags and fetters of the far country and, though the memories of depravity and hellishness will linger, the air will be gloriously cleared of the demons that enslaved and harrassed. 

I noticed a subtle nuance about that story this afternoon.  I found in my Bible, the NASB’s translation of Luke 15:32 to be, “this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live…”  The translators took the verb anazoo and made the distinction in it’s aorist tense that a process or action has begun that, if it continues, will certainly end in a completed action or effect. 

That’s pretty technical sounding so let me dumb it down for you and me.  When I have told others of our son’s return, I (a) do not refer to Graham as a “prodigal” because he no longer wears that moniker by the grace of our Lord, and (b) advise them not to expect our boy to exude an ethereal glow and matching halo.  The boy has begun to breathe again the new air of the liberty by which Christ has set him free.  He is just now beginning to lay hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of him. 

Like me (and you), he will not have “arrived”.  He might break our hearts again.  (I sure wish there was a verse 33 in that chapter so we could see how it plays out six weeks, six months or six years from the banquet!)  He might revert.  I pray not, for the scriptural phrase “a dog returning to its vomit” is not such a good thing.  It’s deadly, in fact. 

All we have is today. 

And 15:20.

And verse 32.

And that’s got Mom and me giddy from the word go.

And go we will.  To meet our son on a hillside of grace, restoration, reconciliation and…

JUBILEE!      

Finally, let me end with this captivating story found in Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?  The details might not mirror ours exactly and while it is about a young girl rather than a teenaged boy, you’ll see why I’ve done it.

A young girl grows up on a cherry orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, a bit old- fashioned, tend to overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times, and she seethes inside. “I hate you!” she screams at her father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument, and that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.

She has visited Detroit only once before, on a bus trip with her church youth group to watch the Tigers play. Because newspapers in Traverse City report in lurid detail the gangs, the drugs, and the violence in downtown Detroit, she concludes that is probably the last place her parents will look for her. California, maybe, or Florida, but not Detroit.

Her second day there she meets a man who drives the biggest car she’s ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch, arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills that make her feel better than she’s ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her parents were keeping her from all the fun.

The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car–she calls him “Boss”– teaches her a few things that men like. She lives in a penthouse, and orders room service whenever she wants. Occasionally she thinks about the folks back home, but their lives now seem so boring and provincial that she can hardly believe she grew up there.

She has a brief scare when she sees her picture printed on the back of a milk carton with the headline “Have you seen this child?” But by now she has blond hair, and with all the makeup and body-piercing jewelry she wears, nobody would mistake her for a child. Besides, most of her friends are runaways, and nobody squeals in Detroit.

After a year the first sallow signs of illness appear, and it amazes her how fast the boss turns mean. “These days, we can’t mess around,” he growls, and before she knows it she’s out on the street without a penny to her name. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. “Sleeping” is the wrong word–a teenage girl at night in down town Detroit can never relax her guard. Dark bands circle her eyes. Her cough worsens.

One night as she lies awake listening for footsteps, all of a sudden everything about her life looks different. She no longer feels like a woman of the world. She feels like a little girl, lost in a cold and frightening city. She begins to whimper. Her pockets are empty and she’s hungry. She needs a fix. She pulls her legs tight underneath her and shivers under the newspapers she’s piled atop her coat. Something jolts a synapse of memory and a single image fills her mind: of May in Traverse City, when a million cherry trees bloom at once, with her golden retriever dashing through the rows and rows of blossomy trees in chase of a tennis ball.

God, why did I leave, she says to herself, and pain stabs at her heart. My dog back home eats better than I do now. She’s sobbing, and she knows in a flash that more than anything else in the world she wants to go home.Three straight phone calls, three straight connections with the answering machine. She hangs up without leaving a message the first two times, but the third time she says, “Dad, Mom, it’s me. I was wondering about maybe coming home. I’m catching a bus up your way, and it’ll get there about midnight tomorrow. If you’re not there, well, I guess I’ll just stay on the bus until it hits Canada.”

It takes about seven hours for a bus to make all the stops between Detroit and Traverse City, and during that time she realizes the flaws in her plan. What if her parents are out of town and miss the message? Shouldn’t she have waited another day or so until she could talk to them? And even if they are home, they probably wrote her off as dead long ago. She should have given them some time to overcome the shock.

Her thoughts bounce back and forth between those worries and the speech she is preparing for her father. “Dad, I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. It’s not your fault; it’s all mine. Dad, can you forgive me?” She says the words over and over, her throat tightening even as she rehearses them. She hasn’t apologized to anyone in years.

The bus has been driving with the lights on since Bay City. Tiny snowflakes hit the pavement rubbed worn by thousands of tires, and the asphalt steams. She’s forgotten how dark it gets at night out here. A deer darts across the road and the bus swerves. Every so often, a billboard. A sign posting the mileage to Traverse City. Oh, God.

When the bus finally rolls into the station, its air brakes hissing in protest, the driver announces in a crackly voice over the microphone, “Fifteen minutes, folks. That’s all we have here.” Fifteen minutes to decide her life. She checks herself in a compact mirror, smoothes her hair, and licks the lipstick off her teeth. She looks at the tobacco stains on her fingertips, and wonders if her parents will notice. If they’re there.

She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. Not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepare her for what she sees. There, in the concrete-walls-and-plastic-chairs bus terminal in Traverse City, Michigan, stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother and great-grandmother to boot. They’re all wearing goofy party hats and blowing noise-makers, and taped across the entire wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner that reads “Welcome home!”

Out of the crowd of well-wishers breaks her dad. She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes like hot mercury and begins the memorized speech, “Dad, I’m sorry. I know…”

He interrupts her. “Hush, child. We’ve got no time for that. No time for apologies. You’ll be late for the party. A banquet’s waiting for you at home.”  

Here’s to new beginnings, new hope (thanks, New Hope Academy!) and 15:20. 

What a faithful Friend He is.  I had recently ‘bragged’ on my God to a friend that throughout my twenty-five years of disability, and with everything that can go wrong with that, there has never been a time He has abandoned me when I’ve been caught in a desperate situation.  Have I felt abandoned during those years?  Well, yes, of course, but that does not change the fixed truth of the matter.  Not one iota.

I can recall when Sandy and I were dating some years back.  We were college coeds, heading to see our college basketball team play at another school campus ninety minutes away.  It was a rainy night and especially dangerous on the roads as I remember.  I was traveling around seventy in the far left lane of I-75 when suddenly my right front tire blew.  Somehow I managed to negotiate through the heavy rush-hour traffic all the way to the shoulder of the highway.  When I parked the car, I put my head in my hands and cried.  I felt so helpless.  How could I get out of the car in my wheelchair?  I would certainly have to be at least part way in the lane of oncoming traffic.  Then, even if I could, how am I supposed to change the tire?  I can’t make my new girlfriend get soaking wet doing it.  God, what to do, what to do…

That conversation lasted a full five seconds when headlights swung into the lens of the rear view mirror.  Within moments a gentleman appeared in the window of the passenger side and I rolled it down.  How did this stranger know to pull over?  How would he know the man driving the car would need assistance? These are questions only God can answer, but I have my suspicions.

In minutes the ‘stranger’ had the tire changed and with a salute and smile he was running back to his car where he lurched back into traffic and disappeared into the night.

That kind of stuff happens to me all the time.

Just today I had pulled into the bay of a gas station to fill ‘er up when my van’s wheelchair lift took a notion to cough and quit while I was halfway out and halfway in.  There I sat, suspended somewhat, unable to operate the thing.  I patted my front pocket for my cell and discovered, to my dismay, it was empty.  Turning my head to the dashboard, I remembered I had set the phone in its cradle to charge it up and it was way out of arm’s reach.  God, what to do, what to do…

A young man in a suped-up Caprice Classic pulled in one bay over but the hip-hop wafting from inside his car was so loud he could not hear my “excuse me” over the full-bodied bass.  Besides, whoever was singing was pretty angry about something and growling out obscenities and using a wide range of sexual innuendoes.  No, forget innuendo.  It was hard-core.

But after his car came another, a red SUV, piloted by a gentlemen who, by the look and sound of things, was quite happy with life.  He hopped out of his car whistling, looked at me sitting freeze-framed in mid-air and smiled.  He looked in the direction of the music and frowned and playfully covered his ears, while shaking his head.  I had a sense the Lord parked him there right away.  I spoke to him as he passed by, asking if he wasn’t in too big a hurry would he mind giving a hand.  This stranger, who turned out to be my brother, wheeled quickly and with an enthusiastic “how can I help?” bounded inside the van and in minutes had me on my way.  Rescued again.

Before we parted ways, I felt led to ask the gentleman, “You love the Lord, don’t you sir?”

“He’s my life, my everything,” he said.  I looked to the ceiling of the van and offered up a quick missive of thanks to my Faithful Friend who, once again, came to my rescue with real skin, blood and bones.

I wanted to bless the man and when I asked him for a card, thinking I might send a check or something.  As he headed toward the station’s mart he said that no blessing was needed as I had blessed him with the opportunity.  Still, while he was inside I asked the Lord how he might be blessed.  The answer came: “fill his tank with gas.”  Of course, I only had a debit card, no cash, and he was likely paying for his gas inside.  When he came out again I asked if he had paid for his gas and he told me he had.  I thought to myself, shoot!, but he went on to tell me he was only putting a couple dollars’ worth in the tank.  I knew that wasn’t near enough to pay for a tank these days, so I offered to fill his tank.

“No,” he said.  “I only live around the corner.  I was glad to help.  No thanks necessary.”

I found out my brother was a veteran on fixed income and when I insisted, he finally let me.  We’re family, after all, and family looks out for each other.  I left there this afternoon sensing I had looked into the face of God.  It was a different color than mine, but it was Him nonetheless.  Funny how you can easily find the family likeness on the side of a highway or next to a gas pump.  You just have to look.

Or cry out for assistance.   

40,000 children die every day worldwide to starvation and pestilence. India and Africa combined are burdened with ninety percent of this sad figure. The rest are spread over Latin American countries. Fifteen million children die every year worldwide.

Do you cry?

In Afghanistan, children as young as 8 years old are being given away in marriage for the bride price to keep families from starving. According to Starvation.net, someone dies on our planet every other second to AIDs, starvation or waterborne diseases—eighty-five percent are children. 20% of children in Niger, Africa will die before they reach the age of five.

Am I paying attention?

One out of six members of the human race lives on less than a dollar a day while the average American consumer has to dig around in their wallets and purses for a measly $88. Oh, this is our hardship each and every day. The average American family has 16 credit cards that carry a debt load of $8000. Our average yearly income puts us in the ‘richest in the world’ category. Even those at the poverty line in the United States with cars, cable and air conditioning are among the elite class of the world.

Is this easy to swallow?

How hard it is to say that we are the gluttons at the world’s dinner table, hoarding the food on our end and giving only one-hundreth of a single percent ($33 per day YEAR per American household) of our bounty and toss it to the starving masses like crumbs. Those kind of crumbs are hard to divide up and spread around. No wonder so many in the world hate us.

Can we blame them?

While we do not even remotely resemble a third world country here on our end of the globe, it’s still awfully risky for children to make it past the age of five in these here United States. Abortion takes care of that with almost 1.5 million murders of our children every year. Fortunately, 4 million others make the cut.

Should we celebrate?

How ironic that we choose to kill our young while scores across this globe wish their children had one more day.

HAIRBRUSH EXPERIENCE by Beth Moore

April 20, 2005, at the Airport in Knoxville, waiting to board the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I’d had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least of which is your ego.

I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones.

The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on an old man.

I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I’d just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that he was dead. So this man in the airport…an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere? There I sat, trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while, my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him.

Let’s admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.

I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I’ve learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing.

I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. “Oh, no, God, please, no.” I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, “Don’t make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I’ll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don’t make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!”

There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, “Please don’t make me witness to this man. Not now. I’ll do it on the plane.” Then I heard it… “I don’t want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair.”

The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No-brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, “God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I’m on this Lord. I’m your girl! You’ve never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am going to witness to this man.” Again as clearly as I’ve ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. “That is not what I said, Beth. I don’t want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair.”

I looked up at God and quipped, “I don’t have a hairbrush. It’s in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?” God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God’s word: “I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:17)

I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I retell this story, my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, “Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?”

He looked back at me and said, “What did you say?”

“May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?”

To which he responded in volume ten, “Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you’re going to have to talk louder than that.”

At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, “SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?”

At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Longlocks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, “If you really want to.” Are you kidding? Of course I didn’t want to. But God didn’t seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, “Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don’t have a hairbrush.” “I have one in my bag, ” he responded.

I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger’s old carry-on, hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man’s hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don’t do many things well, but must admit I’ve had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls. Like I’d done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull.

A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man’s hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair. I know this sounds so strange, but I’ve never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I – for that few minutes – felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while.

The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God’s. His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant’s.

I slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knees and said, “Sir, do you know my Jesus?”

He said, “Yes, I do.” Well, that figures, I thought.

He explained, “I’ve known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn’t marry me until I got to know the Savior.” He said, “You see, the problem is, I haven’t seen my bride in months. I’ve had open-heart surgery, and she’s been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride.”

Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we’re completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I’ll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I’d acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.

I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, “That old man’s sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?”

I said, “Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!”

And we got to share.

I learned something about God that day. He knows if you’re exhausted, you’re hungry, you’re serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you’re hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you’re sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way all because I didn’t want people to think I was strange. God didn’t send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

Guess the moral of this story is to never ‘brush aside’ an opportunity to fulfill the law of Christ.

(sorry, couldn’t resist)

Patricia Bauer with her husband, Edward Muller, and their children, Margaret and Johnny Muller, last June at Margaret’s high school graduation in Massachusetts. (Courtesy Christina Overland)

America? It’s like we’re living in 1930s Germany. Rising fascism, suppression of Christianity, hate crime laws, euthanasia and a climate more open to the prescribed disposal of the ‘undesirables’. Case in point, prenatal testing is now pushing parents to see the abortion of a disabled fetus more their duty and not just their right. Ethicists even go so far as to say it is a parent’s “moral obligation” to terminate pregnancy if the child is deigned disabled. Poor child. Why subject them to a life of inconvenience? That would be morally reprehensible. I suppose it’s better to just torture them slowly by pulling them apart, cutting them up, shredding them, scraping them out, crushing their skulls, burning them alive or suctioning them to pieces.

Tragically, it is estimated that as many as 90% of those babies who have been prenatally tested with Down syndrome are aborted. But there are some miracle stories out there and thankfully, Margaret is a living testament to the compassionate mores of her parents. Patricia Bauer, Margaret’s mom and a former writer for the Washington Post, has written a stirring article addressing some of the cultural roadblocks they face as a family and we as a nation.

She writes,

Imagine. As Margaret bounces through life, especially out here in the land of the perfect body, I see the way people look at her: curious, surprised, sometimes wary, occasionally disapproving or alarmed. I know that most women of childbearing age that we may encounter have judged her and her cohort, and have found their lives to be not worth living.

To them, Margaret falls into the category of avoidable human suffering. At best, a tragic mistake. At worst, a living embodiment of the pro-life movement. Less than human. A drain on society. That someone I love is regarded this way is unspeakably painful to me.

This view is probably particularly pronounced here in blue-state California, but I keep finding it everywhere, from academia on down. At a dinner party not long ago, I was seated next to the director of an Ivy League ethics program. In answer to another guest’s question, he said he believes that prospective parents have a moral obligation to undergo prenatal testing and to terminate their pregnancy to avoid bringing forth a child with a disability, because it was immoral to subject a child to the kind of suffering he or she would have to endure. (When I started to pipe up about our family’s experience, he smiled politely and turned to the lady on his left.)

While there are less and less children with Down syndrome being born today—not because of the miracle of medicine but because of the narcissism of man—Margaret is alive, beautiful and productive, and a high school grad who is attending college. Just imagine what this family—this world—would have been like without her.

And what of America? Not so much the land of the free anymore, and, as it turns out, we gotta be a lot more brave just to make this our home these days.