Putting the Past Behind

By Sharon Autry

Our train is here!” my husband shouted. We hurried down the steps, one child in a stroller, the oldest on her own feet, and Crislynn holding my hand being dragged behind me. From the train platform, my sister Laurie watched the whole ordeal as we ran toward her through the subway station. 

She described how Crislynn desperately tried to pick up all the used subway ticket treasures that were scattered on the concrete floor. But I was pulling her along. She’d look up briefly and find a pole in front of her. So her little arm would fly up in front of her face as protection in case she rammed into the pole. As soon as we passed one pole, she’d look down and grab for some lucky ticket only to find herself on a collision course with another pole. Arm in front of her face, she protected herself again.

This repeated three times before we finally made it to the train where we found Aunt Laurie laughing hysterically.

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Turn, Turn, Turn

By Peter Lundell

I was driving one day, listening to an oldies station, when I heard Pete Seeger’s 1965 classic, “Turn, Turn, Turn” that the Byrds turned into a number one hit song in America. Right there in the left turn lane, the Holy Spirit seemed to dance all around me. I love it when God works through “secular” stuff.

But in fact the song is not so secular. It’s a musical rendition of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. That day I spent two hours on a plane ride reading and rereading and meditating on those verses. In them I saw wisdom so deep, so multifaceted, so life encompassing that I could say it’s essential to everything a person ever thinks or does in life.

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A New You

By Cheri Cowell

We talked often in my childhood home of what heaven was going to be like. We spoke of the people we loved who had gone before us and what fun they must be having in the perfect place God had prepared for them. We just knew that my great-grandmother, Mumsey, was in a perfectly outfitted kitchen, baking heavenly treats for the heavenly host. We knew my grandfather was in the woodshop building beautiful pieces of furniture for the many altars in heaven. I now appreciate the gift my parents gave me in providing those happy discussions of heaven.

My father was a diabetic and took insulin shots three times daily from the age of nine. He is now in heaven and I am grateful he no longer suffers that pain because he has a new body and one day I know I will be with him again and will hug him with my new body. What a gift that assurance is.

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Are You a Whiny Wimp?

By Sharon Autry

I am officially a wimp! I whine and complain about the most ridiculous things. Dried out leftovers. Missing the two-hour sale by five minutes. The smell of wet sneakers. Having to backtrack an aisle in the grocery store.

The Apostle Paul, on the other hand, was not a wimp. His “light and momentary struggles” included things like beatings, traumatic shipwrecks, and spending days, months, even years chained to a guard.  Those things seem anything but “light” to me.  But compared to the joy of offering people the hope of Jesus, Paul saw these persecutions as the temporary situations that they were.

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New Creatures

By Cheri Cowell

We are fascinated by the movie concept of humans remade into bigger and better beings. From Clark Kent to Superman, from David Banner to the Incredible Hulk, we have been frightened and at the same time drawn to the concept of transformation. In Hollywood, at least for now, transformations from good to evil have proven disastrous, but those from ordinary to extraordinary have saved the day.

Might it be that we are so drawn to these transformations because deep in our hearts God has planted a seed of transformation? Might it be that we know we are destined for a re-make?

Without God we can only imagine a transformation like those of Hollywood. Yet, God is better than any movie producer ever was. His “movie” stars a man from Galilee who dies a horrible death in order to defeat death itself. As the victor of that battle, He has won the right to transform His followers into His own image, and He sets about this task one heart at a time until the entire world has been offered the opportunity to accept this transformation. The transformed then become part of His Army of Believers, doing battle every day with an unseen enemy, but with an outcome that is already guaranteed. Isn’t this the best movie ever written?

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