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August 14, 2008
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=========================== TODAY'S ARTICLE ==========================
Woman Behold Your Son, by Sarah Stirman
Same song, next verse, eight months later. Last night my 10 year old
son and I experienced a feeling of deja vu as we traveled to the same
emergency room to have the same foot x-rayed so a (different!) doctor
could tell us that he had fractured his ankle the same way he did eight
months ago. Same injury, different season. Now, instead of trying to
figure out how to keep toes warm in 40 degree weather, we have to
figure out how to keep a cast dry in swimming pool season. This too
shall pass.
Of course our emergency room visit took a while and we got home at
bedtime needing to eat dinner. By the time we ate and medicated and
propped the foot in bed, I just wanted to collapse in my own bed.
Collapse I did, but sleep wouldn't come. I kept thinking of the injury.
Even though we witnessed indescribable grief and pain at the hospital,
I could only think of my own baby boy and his painful injury. I kept
replaying the moment in my mind over and over. I didn't even see it
happen -- only heard the awful wails after the fact -- but I pieced
together in my mind what he relayed had happened and watched it like a
movie stuck on the same loop.
I finally crawled out of bed to find a new image to put in my brain. I
grabbed my Bible, curled up in my chair, and started reading. "Near the
cross of Jesus stood his mother ..." (John 19:25). That's as far as I
could go. I thought of the horrific images Mary must have had burned
into her brain. I imagined the black days between Friday and Sunday.
Her baby boy lay motionless behind the stone and she longed to think of
him as the pink, squishy newborn she had nursed or as the precocious
young man in the temple speaking wisdom. But she couldn't shake the
image of the broken body on the cross. Was her joy complete when she
saw him whole again -- or could she only think of the tortured body on
the cross? He forgave me for my sin that kept him nailed there -- I
wonder if she ever did?
Mary probably never struggled to grasp the enormity of what it cost for
her to have eternal life. There was likely never a communion meal of
remembrance that Mary composed a shopping list in her head or counted
the minutes until the restaurant opened. The image of her own baby boy
broken and nailed to a cross was a picture in a locket forever in her
brain. Each moment of remembrance was filled with agony of the memory
combined with flooding gratitude for what it means for each of us.
May I be Mary-minded and walk in constant remembrance and gratitude of
the precious lamb of God sacrificed so that I may be pure before the
throne of God.
How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the
eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our
consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the
living God! (Hebrews 9:14 NIV)
Each moment of remembrance was filled with agony.
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Sarah is part of The Coffee Group, a varied group of women who express
their love, faith, and praise for God with ladies they love. They do
ladies' retreats and special speaking on God's work in their lives, as
well as the importance of sharing your faith story.
Check out their website:
http://www.thecoffeegroup.net
Come visit them on their blog:
http://www.espressohislove.blogspot.com
The Coffee Group is part of the Heartlight.org Network
---------
(c) 2008 Sarah Stirman <sstirman@gmail.com>
RELATED LINKS:
* Woman Behold Your Son
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200807/20080721_beholdson.html
* Dump Boy
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200006/20000615_dumpboy.htmlhttp://www.heartlight.org/articles/200006/20000615_dumpboy.html
* Drawn to Wood
http://www.heartlight.org/two_minute/2m_981223_wood.html
* The Cleft of the Rock
http://www.sarahstirman.blogspot.com/
This article can be found on the web at:
http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200808/20080814_holdson.html
=========================== FEATURED PRODUCT =========================
SEE THE MORNING, by Chris Tomlin
Award-winning artist Tomlin offers a whole new set of soul-inspiring
easy-to-sing songs about God's faithfulness.
http://shopping.heartlight.org/cgi-shl/link?260
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