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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion January 15, 2008 Blessed |
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Frontline Devotion for Tuesday, January 15, 2008 by Gary
Shaffer
Reprinted from April 25, 2005
When I moved to Gettysburg to serve as Youth Coordinator at St. James Lutheran Church I was very fortunate to be befriended by Mrs. Anna Bream Heintzelman. Mrs. Heintzelman was in her eighties when I met her. I was in my twenties. She had taught Latin in high school. She soon became a teacher and mentor to me. “Anna B” was a woman of great strength and determination and faith. And she had suffered many tragic events in her lifetime.
Mrs. Heintzelman would call the church office, her home located directly behind the church, and ask if I might walk over to visit as she had just made some iced tea or glorified rice or perhaps some other baked good. And I would go and visit – which I learned went best if I equated that to “listening” as she spoke. In the course of our friendship and visits she shared many of the stories of her life – of her brother who had been crippled by polio and of her care for him for many years; of her marriage to a widower with a young son; of the birth of her own son; of how she herself became a young widow; of her husband’s sisters removing her stepson from her home despite her protests; of another younger brother’s death in an automobile accident while he was still a teenager; of how the ringing of the church’s bells brought back the memories of the church bells tolling when her younger sister died in the great influenza epidemic. These events were recalled with great care, with attention to particular details, occasionally with sadness and always in the light of her strong faith. She would tell her stories and I would listen. One day after telling me a particularly disturbing story she grew quiet and then said, “Gary, I don’t know why I have had to endure so much pain in my life, but I intend to ask.” I have never forgotten that day or that line. I knew she was referring to her anticipated meeting with her Lord.
She was a woman of great faith and I was blessed by knowing her. Yet there is in her intent to question God about her suffering an inherent assumption that I find increasingly troubling. It is an idea that following Christ is somehow not meant to include suffering - that the blessings we are meant to enjoy come mainly from abundance, achievement, good health, success or power.
These words in this epistle confront an arrogant Christianity that I believe is gaining a stronghold in our nation and unfortunately too often in myself. A humility that can come as a result of faithful obedience while suffering is perhaps the truest blessing Christ’s church can receive. It is pervasive in the teachings and writings of so many saints who have suffered while following in Christ’s footsteps.
Prayer: Dear God, remove from my heart the vestiges of pride and arrogance that prevent me from accepting that you have chosen me to suffer as I follow in the footsteps of Christ. Amen.
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