Wednesday
Please Do, and Please Don't
Suggestions for encouraging widows.
by Miriam NeffApart from the outreach of the church, there are many ways individuals can encourage widows on their journey. But it's often hard to know what to say, for fear of making things worse. So let me offer some "Please do" as well as some "Please do not" suggestions.
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The Widow's Might
My husband's death forced me to change in ways I never wanted to.
I am part of the fastest growing demographic in the United States. We are targeted by new-home builders and surveyed by designers. We are a lucrative niche for health and beauty products, and financial planners invite us to dinners. It's no wonder the marketers are after us: 800,000 join our ranks every year.
Who are we? We are the invisible among you—the widows.
Absent God
by David Barshinger
"I had faith until I got to Iraq.... I haven't gotten it back since. Once you get there, you wonder how God could allow anyone to go through that."1
Those are the words of an Army specialist after serving two terms in Iraq, a man who weighs honestly his observations of war and faith. How do you reconcile mass bloodshed with a loving God? God seems absent at the very time when His intervention is most needed.
We've all heard this question in one shape or another, and if we're honest with ourselves, most of us have asked the question too. Like the Army specialist, the mass evil we see in our world — such as Hitler's genocidal program, the Darfur crisis, and heartless terrorism aimed at innocent civilians — disturbs us to the core. We cry out, "Where's God? I see no signs of Him anywhere."
If you've asked the question, you're in good company. King David, the man after God's own heart, posed the question too:
Why, O LORD, do you stand afar off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (Ps 10:1)
Questioning God's presence isn't wrong. It's human.
Happily Ever After
by George Halitzka
Once upon a time there were two kids who learned the hard way how much birds like breadcrumbs. While wandering in the forest, they almost got eaten by a candy-loving witch! But thankfully there was an oven handy, and before the witch could make Hanselburgers, Gretel toasted her golden-brown.
Then there was the princess who fled from her mirror-gazing stepmother — seems the old bat wanted Snowy-Girl's heart on a plate. There were complications involving seven midget miners, and she almost got poisoned by a magic apple, but everything turned out OK thanks to True Love's Kiss.
Once there was a person who answered to your name and looked strangely like you. You weren't asking for much — just a nice Prince or Princess to marry, a small castle in the suburbs, and a steady source of gold coins. Unfortunately, you soon realized that True Love is an elusive commodity, and Happy Endings are hard to find.
Sometimes, life has a way of discouraging belief in fairy tales. Just ask Heather.
Free Will and the Fruit
by Marianne Coyne
Six days before Christmas, a little story I once wrote, about an empty, little Christmas stocking, came to mind. It had a simple message - being empty of our overindulged desires for temporal things, makes room for God to fill us up with Himself. Then I thought about how hard that is for most people. After all, the usual retort to such concepts is about free will - being able to have it and express it. Being bound to the will of another, especially God's, seems to violate the whole concept of free will; at least that seems to be a popular mindset. But what I have come to understand through the years is that that particular mindset really isn't as much about holding on to free will as much as it is about holding on to immediate sense gratification. In time sense gratification will produce fruit which we and/or others will have to harvest and consume. And that brings us to the ultimate issue - the fruit we produce.
Most of us run our lives on sense gratification. Some of it is good, but one only needs to read a newspaper, watch the news, or look into the mirror to see that we have a problem with it. From sexual depravity, mutilation, and murder, to not being able to say "no" to that daily dose of chocolate mousse, we utilize our "free" wills everyday. But the question remains, "What kind of fruit did it produce?". Because, you see, at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.
Learning to look beyond our immediate gratification of flesh desires gives us a chance to see more clearly into the future of fruit production. The flower on the fruit tree is beautiful, but that isn't the end. The fruit is yet to be borne. Personally, I would rather eat and share fruit that is sweet, juicy, and nutritious than, bitter or rotten. I, for one, am grateful that I have a will free enough to choose to allow a higher Will to make It's home and plant It's Seeds in my heart. For I can't think of better fruit to bear than Kindness, Love, Mercy, Joy, Peace, Health, Hope, and all that God has to fill us with.
Everyday the choice is there to make. Little by little we can clear out the seeds of bitter fruit, and make room for the Seeds of Love. After all, we do have a free will.
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