I can hardly believe how the time has gone! No real exciting news or announcements but just living. That is actually encouraging! I am not complaining! Praise God that I have nothing to write that is tragic or what have you, only the wonderful happy news of living the blessing of life!
This is Resurrection Weekend and all week I've been drawn to the Cross. The contemplation on Christ, the questions of His great Mercy toward me. I don't think there are words that I can express. I have just finished reading Tortured for Christ by Wurmbrand. If you haven't read this book, you must. You can find it at most Christian Bookstores but you may also find it and other books by the him and others at Voice of the Martyrs (www.persecution.org). I was moved beyond words and emotion at what this man and others endure. It is truly foreign to me living here in America where I am free to worship and speak as I please. I was amazed that they could endure such hardships as our minds cannot know and yet FORGIVE!!! Freely forgive. I have a hard time forgiving someone who has hurt me or made me angry. I have two such people in my life who have lied about me, maligned my family, taken us to court (we have won but still, time money and fear!), they have broken up my house (literally) and put my family in jeapoardy. We also are related. Yet, I can hardly bring myself to forgive and to LOVE. How do you love someone who is unloveable? I now see that compared to what Christians face who are being tortured, my life and these two individuals are a cake-walk. i have no right to not both freely forgive but to love as well.
In his book Wurmbrand makes a distinction though between loving the persecutors of our lived and speaking out about the unhealthy ideals that have caused it. In his case it was Communism. He spent his life warning about Communism and speaking against it but loving the Communists. I hope that in my life I can learn to speak about the illness and not the ill. As we all so often quote, "Love the sinner and hate the sin". But do we? Do we really love the sinner? Do we really forgive them? I wonder.
May God work His perfect work in us that we may truly be His children and love and forgive completely. I am not rightly able to confess that I have this down in my life. I pray to see through His eyes and with His heart toward others and circumstances that are not in my control but affect deeply my life and comfort. I also praise Him this day for allowing me to be free and to learn these great lessons not from a prison with illness, pestilence and beatings beyond comprehension for just calling upon His name, but to learn from the comfort of a house church, regular church, the street or park or wherever I please to worship Him. Thank you Jesus. Thank you!
B
