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April 19, 2008
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=========================== TODAY'S ARTICLE ==========================
Living on Beam Unending, by Ann Voskamp
There is a patch behind the country church with its split rail fence,
there beside the quiet of the woods, where heaven meets earth and I
stand there in the early morning still. Clouds, gray and swelling with
spring, loll over. Brown leaves, fall's remnant left behind by winter
just gone, lay wet underfoot. Only the sound of water trickling off the
water mill there in the pond meanders up through the trees, asking me
if I want to fall down too. I think that is why I came.
Tentative, I step closer and let my hand feel the weathered wood, wet
from last night's rain, of that Cross that grows out of the earth back
here. An Old Rugged Cross.
Fingertips brush the moss that clings to the grooved grain, new life
out of that which died. Without fanfare, velvet moss pulls up over the
crossbeam's nakedness. It's just two lengths of lumber. tree long dead,
I know, but where it takes me, to the intersection of history, of
humanity and its Maker, of my sin and His mercy, that is the holiness
that hushes me, bringing me low.
I press my forehead against the wood, leaning, It holds. And that verse
from past week's memory work slips up unannounced,
"In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has
sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live
through Him" (1 John 4:9 NKJV).
But to live through Him. Like oxygen.
Not only know Him. Not only be saved by Him, reborn and washed. But to
live through Him. Like oxygen.
Daily, I count gifts, numbering how He loves, and yet it's here at the
Cross He drives the stake into the ground, nails His devotion over
humanity: "In this the love of God was manifested toward us ...."
The common blessings I experience daily only extend the Crossbeam of
Calvary into my everyday, leading me along the Love that supports the
cosmos.
I inhale this place. Today, to live through Him, on this, the beam of
blessing unending.
---------
(c) 2008 Holy Experience <http://aholyexperience.com/>
RELATED LINKS:
* Even if it Means a Cross
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200704/20070402_cross.html
* Embracing the Cross
http://www.heartlight.org/justforwomen/jfw_980812_cross.html
* The Skandal of the Cross
http://www.heartlight.org/feature/sf_981021_scandal.html
* Holy Experience
This article can be found on the web at:
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200804/20080419_beamunending.html
=========================== FEATURED PRODUCT =========================
THE SECRET MESSAGE OF JESUS: UNCOVERING THE TRUTH THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING, by Brian McLaren
Unafraid of controversy or the uncomfortable gray areas of life,
McLaren's quest is to find the essential message of Jesus' life - even
if it overturns our conventional ideas, priorities, and practices.
http://shopping.heartlight.org/cgi-shl/link?253
Find more great books, CDs and videos at the Heartlight store! With
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ministry. Thanks SO MUCH for your help!
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