Category Archives: Evangelism

Fresh Start (More on Mary tomorrow)

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Back in the 1940’s, housewives began using brand new products called laundry detergents in their wringer wash machines. These chemical compounds promised to clean clothes better than traditional soap ever had, even in hard water, and women were thrilled with the results on laundry day. All the detergents came in powdered or beaded form and were easy to use.

Fresh Start, late 1970'sIn the 1970’s, Colgate-Palmolive came out with the first laundry detergent sold in a bottle rather than a box, though it was still in powder form. They named it Fresh Start and promoted it as the first “highly concentrated” detergent on the market. Each full load needed only one-fourth of a cup rather than a whole one.

This morning in church, our Pastor Jay delivered a fascinating children’s sermon with a bottle of Fresh Start in his hand. The vintage bottle no longer contained detergent but had something far more interesting inside: water from the Jordan River in Israel. A pastor friend of Jay’s had given it to him after a visit there, and this water and the bottle it was in were the focal point of today’s message to the children.

Earlier in the service, Jay had baptized two babies. (Our church baptizes or dedicates, according to the wishes of the parents.) The detergent bottle and river water was meant as a visual to help youngsters understand the symbolism of baptism, the washing of our lives by the Living Water that is Jesus. Jesus himself was baptized in the Jordan River, and ever since, he wants us to see baptism as symbolic of being cleansed from sin.

Fresh StartAmazingly, the Fresh Start bottle with its bit of the Jordan in it was aptly named. It said, “Heavy Duty Fresh Start.” Who wouldn’t want one of those?

Our God is the champion of heavy duty fresh starts, and the bottle put it well: “Cleans your family’s deepest dirt and many tough stains.” That’s exactly what Jesus does for us when we repent of our sins. The Fresh Start label says, “Extra stain-fighting power! Concentrated for strength!” Jesus says the same about himself, though he deals with stains more difficult to clean than those on our clothes. He cleans the invisible ones on our insides.

All of us have been stained by sin, and we spend lots of time working to remove that dirt from our lives. Coming clean doesn’t happen, though, unless we ask God to wash us. After that he’ll give us a heavy duty fresh start!

Pastor JayJay’s detergent bottle even tells us what our lives can be like after we’ve been cleansed by Jesus. Wherever we go, it says, we’ll leave a “clean fresh scent.”

The Lord’s cleansing will smell good to us and to others. And even to Him.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. Praise for a weekend in Michigan making wedding plans with daughter Stina, and for time with 3 grandchildren
  2. Praise for feeling good, though very tired
  3. Pray for enough stamina to meet the many demands of this week. (More about this tomorrow)

In the Classroom

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Mary has learned, as many of us have, that a health crisis can be the best of teachers. In her case, the instructor’s name is “CANCER” and the lesson plan is “WISDOM”.

mobile phoneTonight Mary and I shared a rich conversation on the phone. As always, I had pen and paper handy, ready to write down her prayer requests for tonight’s blog. But by the time we said goodbye, I’d taken two pages of notes. Her insights (below) poured forth without stopping, complete with appropriate Scriptures to back them up. I wish I’d had a recorder!

 

Here’s some of what she said:

  1. Doctors work with statistics, and God works with hearts.
  2. Good endings can come from bad beginnings.
  3. Irregular days cause us to value regular ones.
  4. Taking one day at a time isn’t just a cliché but a good philosophy.
  5. When God doesn’t withdraw a crisis, he partners with us through it.
  6. Future plans must be held loosely.
  7. Hospitals and doctor’s offices are great places to plant seeds of hope in hopeless people.
  8. No matter how serious the crisis, there’s always something to praise God for.

She revealed her new heart as she talked about #6 above, describing her changed point of view. “I used to think if I wrote something on my calendar, it was a definite. Whatever it said, would get done. Once cancer hit, I had to back away from all kinds of obligations I had been sure I was going to keep.”

ContentShe went on. “Now when I write something on the calendar, I can’t be sure it’ll happen. It’s all up to God. If I can meet my commitments, it will be because he willed it that way. If I can’t, it’s also because he willed it. It’s all up to him.”

We talked about the Scripture passage in James that says something like this: “Don’t say, ‘Today or tomorrow we’ll go here or there’ when you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Instead you should say, ‘If it’s the Lord’s will, we’ll do this or that’.” (4:13-15)

She explained how she “gets that” now in a way she never had before and wants to hold everything loosely in the future. Applying it to her choice of hospital and chemotherapy team, any of the 3 would have been fine, she said, because wherever she landed, God would still be in charge. “So the choice was really between good, good, and good.”

She and Bervin chose the University of Chicago Hospital, and whatever is accomplished there will be because God accomplishes it through the chemo team. Such thinking lifts what could have been a heavy burden before going into treatment, which will begin on May 12, and last for 6 months.

I loved being in Mary’s cancer-classroom tonight, listening to all she’s learned. And as incongruous as it may seem, because of her cancer, she’s better than ever.

“The things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. Praise for the chemo decision having been made
  2. Praise for a “regular” day, participating at the Mom-to-Mom Ministry at church
  3. Pray that God will guard my heart when I can’t sleep and fears try to creep back in

Small Beginnings

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Most people are curious about the Mayo Clinic and how it grew to be globally acclaimed in the medical world. Interestingly, its origin was like many other start-ups: really small.

Franciscan SisterThough the Clinic currently employs some 29,000 people, 124 years ago when it began it was just 27 beds in a small building located in the middle of a cornfield. Patients were served by a handful of Franciscan Nuns who were mostly school teachers, not nurses, unaccustomed to blood and bandages.

The only physicians were two brothers, Will and Charlie Mayo, and their father William. Will and Charlie had no hospital experience, and their father was already 70 years old when the clinic was just getting off the ground. By all rights this humble beginning ought not to have grown into a globally recognized medical empire.

There was another problem, too. In the small town of Rochester, many people were critical of a partnership made between Protestants (the Mayo family) and Catholics (the Sisters). But in spite of their sometimes divergent beliefs, they shared an overriding mission: to care for not just bodies but each person as a whole. Protestants and Catholics found common ground in believing their hospital work was more of a ministry than a business.

photo(119)But isn’t that always true when God is the Initiator of something new? He sees to it that insurmountable odds are overcome and the impossible is made possible. If we cooperate with him, taking care not to superimpose our ideas over his, he takes responsibility for the outcome, which always concludes well. But if we insist on tweaking his plans, we’re headed for conflict.

That can be true in business, ministry, marriage, friendship, government, and the church. When we let God lead (which includes us being content to hang back and follow), the results will be spectacular. Opposing sides will find themselves getting along, and divisions will melt away.

The picture of Mayo Clinic’s divergent founders accomplishing something significant in unity is a good illustration of another pair of groups originally in opposition to each other: humanity and divinity. These two were about as far apart as any two groups could be, with no hope for compatibility or unity. It was permanently impossible… until the day Jesus died on the cross.

That willing sacrifice changed everything. As a result, human lives can now intersect with the divine, not as enemies but as friends, a reconciliation that will have dramatic consequences throughout eternity.

Though the Mayo Clinic’s history is a remarkable one, salvation’s story far surpasses it. Not everyone will be part of the Clinic’s story, but all are invited to participate in salvation.

“God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Jesus, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Col. 1:19-20)

Mary’s Prayer Requests:

  1. For the feeding tube to work well. Since it is currently clogged, pray for an uncomplicated repair at the hospital tomorrow
  2. For abdominal/gas/hunger pains to cease.
  3. Praise for God’s Word, particularly for the book of James Mary is currently studying, and for Barb, who types and sends notes each week from the group study Mary is missing
  4. Praise for a good report from Dr. Truty today and the hope of returning home soon, to rest up for chemo