Snap Judgment: The story of Xiao Xiao

Listen to this incredible story of love...a four-year old girl gives us a glimpse of what Jesus' love must be like for us.

http://snapjudgment.org/audio/by/title/xiao_xiao



"The way I think about it is this: if you think about love being a state where you can't be happy if the person you love isn't happy, this is the way she loved that little boy. She never could rest knowing that he was still there." --Jacqueline's mother





the power of prayer;

http://snapjudgment.org/lost-in-translation

Ways God Shows Up

Our brother in Christ, Ultra Rev has a report of amazing things happening in Lakeland.

Steve Hickey justifiably wonders: "Before you judge what is unfolding in Florida, ask yourself this question… what will it look like when God shows up?"

Well, God is certainly able to show up however He wants. A couple of His preferred ways is through Word and Sacrament. Peter Kreeft lists 11 more ways here. It seems to me that Hickey is ignoring all these ways God is already showing up, and that troubles me. Am I being too judgemental? Am I wrong to be bothered?

I teach at a Pentecostal Bible college, so it's not like I'm new to any of this. I'm told that when people fall down in chapel and speaking "in tongues" that that is also a way that God is showing up. Nothing would please me more than to have the Lord "show up" and heal our friend A. from the cancer that has riddled every part of her body!

The problem is, though, that if He does, her husband will become a follower of Magic Jesus. They come from another culture that is heavy into "bargaining" with God, rather than receiving from Him. The husband wants a god that he can manipulate; a faith that he can wear as an amulet. His hope is centered on this life, this world, on material things.

There is nothing--not even Jesus--that is more important to him than his wife. He will believe anything, do anything, sacrifice anything to anyone or for any object that will heal A. Aslan or Tash, Jesus or Allah or Buddha or Donald Trump--it's all the same to him, if they'll give him what he most desires.

Doesn't this make a difference?

It's this very attitude that makes Hank Hannagraff's concern mine as well:

He says participants leave believing they are truly healed, but back in the real world, they find nothing has changed. "That's when they start thinking God has abandoned them or doesn't love them," Hanegraaff said.

I'm doing a lot of wondering these days.

What will happen if A. is not healed? Will X be going with Momma D. and me to wash A's body, so that she will not have to be touched by strangers? (That was the thing that bothered her most about dying, next to not being there for her little son, M.) Where will X be for M, after his mother is gone?

And furthermore: has God not been showing up for the past year as Steve and I (and others) have been visiting, praying, reading, and singing with A.? Have we just been spinning our wheels? Did we pray the "wrong" way, so that our prayers for healing weren't heard? Did we not have enough faith? Was God unable to heal A. as long as she was under the care of doctors? Is what a charismatic evangelist (who blew through town) said to A. months ago true, that her first baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit wasn't enough; that she needed to be "completed" and receive a second baptism in the Spirit?

Steve Hickey wants the power.

A. and I want Jesus. And His Father. And His Spirit.

Please continue to pray with me that H. will, too.

Take the world, but give me Jesus,
All its joys are but a name;
But His love abideth ever,
Through eternal years the same.

Refrain

Oh, the height and depth of mercy!
Oh, the length and breadth of love!
Oh, the fullness of redemption,
Pledge of endless life above!

Take the world, but give me Jesus,
Sweetest comfort of my soul;
With my Savior watching o’er me,
I can sing though billows roll.

Refrain

Take the world, but give me Jesus,
Let me view His constant smile;
Then throughout my pilgrim journey
Light will cheer me all the while.

Refrain

Take the world, but give me Jesus.
In His cross my trust shall be,
Till, with clearer, brighter vision,
Face to face my Lord I see.

Refrain

THY will be done...?

“Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person." --Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.


H. concluded his fast last night. He says that Momma D. was sleeping with A. when A. got up our of bed in the middle of the night. Then next time he told me the story, he said she got up twice. He says he's got a connection to God and that he believes God has done a miracle. "I had a feeling this morning."

Today H. dismissed hospice. He told the hospice doctor he wasn't going to watch his wife starve to death, so has been feeding her meat broth and papaya. He ended her morphine. A. had a bowel movement which he takes to have been a sign of her healing.

X, a woman from a charismatic church has been with them all afternoon. She has told H. that he should believe God is doing a miracle. "God created A. and knows how her intestines should work. They were meant to digest food! If she vomits up what you give her, rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus! And don't believe those doctors. They don't believe in miracles, so what do you expect them to do?"

I stepped into this just as X was getting ready to leave. She sized me up as One of Those Who Aren't Spiritual, or at least Spiritual Enough. Sigh. Relationships and long obediences can't compete with prophetic preaching and dramatic experiences.

"I'm not going to allow anyone who doesn't believe in miracles in this house," H. announced. (This is just a variation on his default position, Postive Thinking. I wondered if it was meant as a warning for Steve and me.) "I've had enough of mortuaries and talk of death." (Steve has spent the last week helping H. make funeral preparations.)

While I certainly believe God is able to do miracles, I must confess my unbelief: it doesn't seem like He intends to take away A's cancer and give her 40 more years on this planet. I am certain her healing will occur, but I'm not cure it will happen the way H. is currently demanding it.

I am also disturbed for A's sake. She sat up in bed, and took several puffs of a cigarette, but she seemed out of it. She complained she was in pain, so I massaged her back. H. reset the morphine machine, which had been turned off, exclaiming proudly, "She hasn't had any morphine for four hours!"

He and Mamma D. carried on a lively conversation in Farsi, never once including me, which has never before been their practice. A, still sitting up, softly whispered some things in Farsi to them. It was clear they didn't want any singing; so I blessed A. with Aaron's blessing (which caused H. to stop and frown as I said, "the Lord give you peace"), prayed briefly and kissed her goodbye.

I am perplexed and frustrated. Am I missing something wonderful here? Or have H. and Mamma D. gone off the deep end? At what point does one pray for a miracle, and at what point do we pray, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?"

Any advice?

The Sign of Kathy

While visiting A. on Friday, there was a minute where Momma D. left the room. A. was weak but lucid, and she urgently whispered, "How long will it take?"

"I don't know. That's not for us to say. But there used to be a woman in our congregation who was a hospice nurse. Her name was Kathy, but she's now in Alaska. She would have been able to tell you all about what to expect. She used to talk about how the dying people she was caring for--at the very end-- would often see bright lights, relatives and friends who had already passed on, welcoming them into the next world. How I wish she were here for you to talk to."

Our conversation ended abruptly, as Mamma D. re-entered the room.

The next morning I made Steve and Joanna their usual Saturday morning breakfast: waffles made from scratch. We were just about sit sit down to eat when the phone rang. I expected it to be a realtor, wanting to show our house, but the voice was vaguely familiar.

"Hi Beth! It's Kathy N. I'm here in Eugene and I was wondering if you'd like to get together to go for a walk."

Kathy? Kathy! Here in Oregon, come all the way from Alaska's Kodiak Island. I now know exactly how that Ethipian eunuch must have felt when Philip showed up alongside his chariot. Seems the Spirit had been pressing her to quit her job as a school nurse to volunteer for a year with Medical Teams International. She was here to talk with people from the organization and iron out the details of her position as a mental health counselor for disasters and areas in crisis.

The Lord has a way of weaving lots of disparate threads together, doesn't he? Kathy and I marvelled at how He had orchestrated our reunion, and then we had a wonderful walk. She listened patiently as I spilled the entire story and offered some wise advice born of her experience. Then we both went to visit A. Unfortunately A. was exhausted and unable to converse, but Kathy played a borrowed guitar and we both sang for her.

Mamma D. has demanded a miracle. The only sign she will accept is her daughter's healing. H., too, is frantically searching for a miracle. He has heard a story about someone in Egypt who was healed of his terminal cancer when three of his friends fasted for three days. Today H. begins his fast, convinced that somehow it will force God's hand.

Matthew 12:39-39
Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."
He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

It seems to be the case that it is only when we first accept the sign of Jonah--the resurrected Christ-- that God is ready to give us other signs, signs which in turn point back to Him. This weekend, A. and I were given the sign of Kathy. Sadly, H. and Momma D. couldn't receive it.

Matthew 12:39-39
What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—these things God has prepared for those who love him"—for God has revealed them to us by his Spirit.

I pray for the day when H and Mamma D.'s hearts will be opened, so that their ears might hear and their eyes might see.

A Miracle?

A's scan came back clean.

Completely clean! Those tumors on her bladder and her stomach are gone. The oncologist wants to do two or three more chemos, but has cancelled the exploratory surgery. A begged him to still do it, just to be sure, but he said, "What's the point? The scan shows there is nothing there. If you have any surgery, it will be to remove your kidney stents."

Why is it so hard for me to accept this?
"Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief."

If it is really true that A. has been healed, it will have the potential for a massive impact upon her husband, H. and their whole family. Talk about power evangelism.