Listening by Shelly Wildman

I’m not always the best listener. Just ask my three daughters. As they were growing up, my girls used to tell me stories that were, well, long. Important parts of their day, to be sure, but after a while my eyes would glaze over and eventually they’d wave their hands in front of my face saying, “Mom, you’re not listening!”

I’ve tried to improve my listening skills over the years, and last spring, God gave me a strange and wonderful opportunity to practice . . . right in the Target parking lot. Looking back, I know this situation was God-ordained, because of several unusual circumstances. 

First, my list—I had ventured into Target needing only three things. Who does that? I usually wait until I need at least ten items before I will walk the miles of aisles in Target. But on this day, I needed only three. 

The second unusual circumstance was that I used the self–checkout, which, again, I hardly ever do. But since I only had three items, I figured, why not?  

And since I was standing at self-checkout, I decided to grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks—another rarity for me. The whole day was getting weird. Yet, stranger still, was the fact that there was nobody to wait on me at the Starbucks. I waited for a minute, yet nobody came to take my order.

Impatient person that I am, I gave up and headed out the door. And here’s how I know my trip to Target was God–ordained. At the precise moment that I walked out the front door, an SUV pulled up at the stop sign to my right and the woman who was driving rolled down her window, looking straight at me, and said, “Could someone please help me? I’m desperate! Please help me!”

I walked over to the passenger side where she had rolled down the window and said, “What’s going on? What do you need?”  

“I need money for gas to get to my mother’s house,” she replied. “I’m in a terrible situation with a man, and I need to get away from here today.” 

“OK,” I tried to be calm. “Where does your mother live?”

She told me the name of a town about two hours from here. I glanced at her gas gauge, just to be sure. It was on empty.

At that moment, I realized I had been given a divine assignment. I reached for my wallet and leafed through some bills (another strange occurrence that day, since I rarely have cash on me), and it was as if God said, “That one. I want you to give her that one.” It would be enough to get her to her mother’s house. 

I handed her the money and something inside me said, “Pray with her.” So I asked, “Can I pray for you?”

“Oh yes, please!” she said.

I reached inside the car to touch her arm, but she grabbed my hand and held on for dear life, agreeing and “amen”-ing with every word I said. When I finished, she said, “Thank you, thank you. You have no idea what this means.”

 I looked down at the seat in front of me and noticed, for the first time, a baby bottle lying right there. “Do you have a child?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, pointing to the car seat in the back that I had not even noticed.

I encouraged her to get herself and her child to safety. I asked her name. I told her I would be praying for her. And then I walked away in complete peace. Not shaking. Not crying. Just feeling completely peaceful and calm.

As I drove away I thought about all the unusual circumstances about that Target trip, even down to the fact that not one single car had pulled up to the stop sign during the five minutes that I talked and prayed with this woman. (Have you ever not seen a car at that stop sign?)

I realized that without a doubt God had a job for me to do that day, and I felt grateful, so humbled, that I was able to help her in some small way.

All it took was for me pay attention and to listen.

Sufficient Grace by Wallace Alcorn

At an especially dark moment in what was otherwise a momentous life, the Apostle Paul recognized he was at the end of his usual resources—no answers, no solutions. Just this word from his Creator Redeemer: My grace is all you need at a time like this, because your present weakness allows me the opportunity to apply my omnipotence to its fullest in your present situation (note 2 Corinthians 12:9).

Grace—God's all-sufficient grace—is so beyond our understanding, I cannot define it precisely. We must experience it to understand. It seems to me that grace is when God accomplishes something with no necessary connection between cause and effect, because he is himself the "Sufficient Cause."

Grace is

to be confident in doubt
and secure in turmoil,

to have joy in sorrow
and peace in battle,

to be loved without a lover
and helped without a helper,

to be nourished without food
and assuaged without water,

to believe when doubtful
and trust when suspicious,

to see in the dark
and hear in the din,

to walk straight on a crooked path
and firmly on shifting sand.

Eclipses and Sparrows by Rachel Rim

The universe is vast beyond the stars/But You are mindful when a sparrow falls.
—Fernando Ortega, "Jesus King of Angels"

Six days ago, on August 21, along with millions of other Americans spread across 2,530 miles from coast to coast, I donned funky sunglasses and squinted up. The sky, unnaturally dark for one o’clock in the afternoon, revealed an orange sliver—not the moon, but the sun blocked by the moon. Even though it was a partial and not a full eclipse, it was still an eerily strange phenomenon. As I stared up at the sky (not directly at the eclipse, of course), I thought about the universe—its vastness, how little I understand about it, how small I am by comparison.

Less than twenty-four hours before the solar eclipse, I was walking out of Target with my mom and sister. They paused ahead of me and crouched down beside a parked car. When I reached them, I saw what they were staring at: a tiny sparrow, wings injured, fluttering around in a panic. Its desperation was palpable. Though we tried to coax the bird out from beneath the car (my mom even called over two teenage boys collecting carts to convince them to help), we could do nothing to help. Every time one of us got near the sparrow, it would frantically hop-fly to the other side of the car, staying just out of reach, mistaking our desire to help for malicious intent. There was something profoundly frustrating about wanting to help—being so much bigger, smaller and wiser than the tiny bird—and yet still thwarted by its frantic fear.

The universe is vast beyond the stars/But You are mindful when a sparrow falls.

With every day I wake up in the morning, I grow increasingly convinced that this is one of the central struggles of the Christian—to recognize both our smallness and our significance, to trust not just God’s power but his tenderness. We, too, are sparrows—wounded in our way, trapped beneath hard asphalt and an often frightening world. Sometimes hands meant to heal come too close, and we flit away because vulnerability is just as terrifying as suffering. Sometimes we would rather stay trapped beneath the car because the universe is vast beyond the stars, and hurricanes hit and racism seems to have an infinite number of lives and our own selfishness is as formidable a trap as the underbelly of a car is to a sparrow. Solar eclipses and solar engines; dark skies and darker selves. It’s difficult to know where to turn, where to look in the sky, which direction to run.

Yet we run to him. To the one who owns the vastness of the universe and yet condescends to know the pain of the sparrow. To the one whose power is beyond our understanding, but so also is his tenderness, and as the philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff writes, “perhaps his sorrow is splendor.” The Christ who bridges polarities, who reconciles paradoxes, whose sorrow is splendor, is a Christ we can trust.

He creates eclipses and sparrows, and we are safe in his hands.   

With Both a Whimper and a Bang by Lois Krogh

While many of you were enjoying neighborhood fireworks or lighting sparklers with your kids over the very long Fourth of July weekend, I was sitting with Brynn, our seven-year-old, 70 pound, Norwegian Elkhound, who just happens to be afraid of fireworks. Terrified really.

At the first sound, she goes into a frightened panic mode. Her tail, that usually is curled with its tip resting on her back, flattens out and drops between her legs. She then begins to pant heavily.

Probably like I would if I were to run down the street chasing after a child’s school bus with forgotten homework in hand. At the next boom, she will bolt. Anywhere. Under anything. Tables, chairs, desks. Places that are really not comfortable for a 70 pound dog. Including my lap. Without warning, she’ll be on my lap. And off at the next bang. Somewhere in there her instinctive warning system ramps up and the barking and whining commence.  

And yes, we’ve tried the “Thunder Blanket," lavender oil and doggy sedatives. What seems to work best is going to the basement with her and turning on the dehumidifier and the TV. I know more than enough about the stars on home improvement shows.   

It has been a long week. Please tell me when we began shooting off fireworks for the whole month of July? The rest of my family has been backpacking this week. I was supposed to be having a quiet time at home to myself. It has been anything but. Brynn doesn't calm down before one or two in the morning; then is awake at 5 a.m. hungry, because she wouldn't eat her dinner because she was afraid. And me? I’ve not really been all that rested either.

It’s almost midnight of the fourth night after the Fourth, and I can tell I won’t be asleep for a while. If only I could reason with this dog. I’ve tried. And failed. She doesn’t realize how good she has it. All her meals provided. A great backyard to run in, lots of people to fuss over her. If only she could trust me.  

Ah. Do you see where this illustration is going? How like Brynn I am. How foolish it is of me not to trust my heavenly Father. Something goes wrong in my world or I feel like I have lost control over something and what do I do? I drop my shoulders and panic. How often have I run from one thing to another trying to solve the problem? How often have I overburdened those around me, making sure everyone knows that something is wrong and they had better help me? I, too, have been guilty of not accepting the help they give. Sometimes I know I hide from a fear by increasing activity and noise around me.  

I am sure it grieves my heavenly Father. I have it so good. I have a great Savior who is a good shepherd and a strong and victorious king. He is wise and loving and powerful. And he has promised to care for me.  

Maybe this week home alone wasn’t about resting or checking things off my to-do list. Maybe it was about being in the middle of an object lesson about the foolishness of fear. Dear Lord, the next time I hear a bang, crackle, sputter or boom, would you give me ears to hear the reassurances of your Word? 

Brynn is under the desk as I write. I think she might have fallen asleep. So while my God holds the universe together, I’m going to get some rest as well. 

Tributes to Jim Reapsome: A Good and Faithful Servant

College Church members John Maust and Stan Guthrie posted tributes to Jim Reapsome, who joined the cloud of witnesses on June 27. Jim and his wife, Martha, mentored and influenced many of us at College Church.

John's Tribute

In the few days since James W. Reapsome’s passing . . ., I’ve been impressed by how many people have described him as their “mentor.”

He was certainly that to me.

In the early 1980s, when Jim was managing editor at Christianity Today magazine and my boss, he knew about my interest in missions and Latin America and encouraged me to explore and take next steps toward cross-cultural ministry.

“Why don’t you go to Costa Rica and study Spanish for three months, and then you can come back and work with Spanish-speaking writers,” Jim proposed, and then helped make it happen.

This became the first step in a journey that would ultimately lead me years later to Media Associates International (MAI). Jim would even become an MAI Board member and provide continued guidance and encouragement.

Early in his career, Jim planned to go out as a missionary before circumstances prevented him. Then, as a journalist and editor of The Evangelical Missions Quarterly for 33 years, he arguably did more to advance the cause of world missions than any other communicator of his time.

Pastor, author, teacher, beloved husband and father, one-time sportswriter, champion of clear and concise prose, avid golfer and gardener, friend, mentor. Jim was, and did, lots of things. But you always knew that Jesus was his first love and priority.

When it came to faith, Jim always kept things real. He was a godly man, but not a holier-than-thou personality. When he talked or wrote about Jesus, evangelism or world missions, he avoided all the clichés and abstract jargon. He sprinkled his writings with a liberal dose of humor, pithy language and pertinent examples. In the process, he gave you the desire to know God and Scripture better.

Please remember Jim’s beloved wife, Martha, and family in your prayers as they mourn his loss and find comfort that Jim is in his Lord’s presence. And, if you’ve never read any of Jim’s work, I encourage you to do so.

“It’s hard to say good-bye to these men and women who have meant so much to us,” a friend commented about Jim. “May their example continue to spur us on as we run the race.”

Stan's Tribute

My friend and professional mentor, Jim Reapsome, has died at the age of 88. I worked with Jim for about a decade at World Pulse and Evangelical Missions Quarterly. Jim was patient and kind with me. His management style was to throw me into the deep waters and see if I could swim. (I'm still here, so I guess I passed the test.) He hired me from a distance, after I had freelanced for him during grad school.

His "Final Analysis" column on the back page of every Pulse newsletter was required reading in the evangelical missions community. . . I learned much from his down-to-earth, practical, take-no-prisoners style. Jim always remembered that missions was about God and about people. He had little patience for theories and practices that lacked foundation in the real world, but he always made his points with humor and grace.

Besides his pivotal work in missions journalism, Jim played key roles at the Sunday School Times, at Christianity Today, and as a writer of many IVP Bible study guides, often with his beloved, refined, and accomplished wife, Martha. . . . Besides Martha and missions, Jim's other main passions were his children and grandchildren ... and golf.

Jim took an interest in all his employees, inviting us over to his and Martha's home on Washington Street time and again, all the while complaining good-naturedly about the varmints raiding their cornucopian garden.

Jim's was a life lived flat out for the kingdom. I fear that few such men--with warm hearts and a burning passion for the glory of Jesus around the world--are left in our day. May those of us who follow you remember your example.

Well done, Jim. Enjoy your crown. RIP.

Digging by Cheryce Berg

Cheryce first posted this on her blog, Hope and Be:Longing, which she describes as "stories of hope, belonging and longing."

I’m out back behind the shed, sitting on a pile of dirt. I did a snake check before I sat, not that there ever are snakes but there was one, once, in my garage, and if I were him this back corner of the yard is where I’d take a morning nap. And I don’t want to be the one to wake him up.

I’m between a tipped over wheelbarrow, two lime green kayaks, a log pile half un-covered, a pale garden hose, an empty trailer, and a cracked black tarp. I’m feeling out of sorts back here, thinking I might organize it differently, or at all. If you even can organize that place behind the shed, maybe freshen it up a bit.

I’m not a gardener and I don’t pretend to be, which is obvious if you take a peek at what I’m doing. Repotting sideways pale plants from my kitchen windowsill who are dying a slow death because they were trying to survive while tipped over in their too-big pots with barely enough dirt covering their roots to be modest. And if they weren’t cacti to start with they’d be long gone.

But I’m not mired by the dirt and disorder and dying cacti because the morning June sun shines brightly on my face as I dig with my spade, and I pause to look up and pray.

I’m thirsty for prayer, to focus the eyes of my heart away from the dirt and up to the light. My heart carries the news of more than one friend who is facing her own pile of dirt behind the shed, filled with scraps and weeds and things tipped over. Messy, broken, lonely pain in so many lives—it all gets poured out before the Lord Jesus as I sit here in the dirt.

I pray for the mamas whose hearts are breaking, whose children are aching and chasing after the wind. I pray for the wives whose tears go unseen, whose weariness runs deep. I pray for the lonely who wish they were wives or mamas and aren’t.

I pray for these friends who may have lost sight of hope, that the sun would break through and shine on them, too, out back on their own piles of dirt. That they, too, would feel the morning breeze, the breath of their Creator, on their cheeks and look up instead of down at the mess and mire underneath them.

I trudge back inside, carrying my newly repotted cacti who gaze up at me, hopeful. And I dig some more, this time at my kitchen table and into the Psalms, to find words of hope now to revive my friends.

I read Psalm 18:19, “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me.” And in the same Psalm, verse 28, “For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness.”

And I dig out this hope and repot it in my words, that I might use it to encourage my friends when I have the chance. I glance out the window again at the shed and the sun, and notice I can’t see the pile of dirt from here at my kitchen table while digging up hope in the Psalms.

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Thanks for the Memories by Pat Cirrincione

The Cubs won the World Series last fall, and I cried tears of joy, exhilaration and sadness. Yes, sadness. My dad and I were huge Cub fans, and although I was really happy to see them win, I was sad that he was no longer here to share the excitement with me.

My dad was my hero. He was a World War ll veteran, an ex-medic in the Army. He had the gentlest touch in the world. If I fell, cut or accidentally burned myself while baking, the only one who I allowed to take care of me was Dad. He could clean a wound, bandage a cut or place salve on a burn with a feather's touch.

Dad was the one who taught me how to throw a baseball (hard ball, not soft), hit a ball, catch a ball and field a ball. He taught me how to roller skate, ice skate, go sledding and throw a mean snowball. I’m afraid as the oldest child, and the only girl with all boy cousins, he taught me that if a boy could do those things, so could his daughter.

I loved wearing blue jeans and gym shoes, not frilly dresses my mom longed to see me wear. One year at Christmas my mom and grandmother decided to buy me a walking, talking doll. One look at it on Christmas morning and I burst into tears. Where was the bat, ball and catcher's mitt I had requested of Santa. Santa was obviously not listening, and that poor doll never came out of its box until my younger sister was born.

Dad taught me to ice skate in a pair of his old racing skates, and my joy in the winter was running home from school, grabbing those skates and cajoling my younger brother into going to the flooded park that freezing weather had turned into a great skating rink.

Dad also taught me how to fish. I had my own wooden pole. I never could put a worm on the hook, much to his dismay. As I got older, and femininity took over, my love for sports never waned. He and I never missed an opening day at Wrigley Field. Those were the days. You could go down to the front row and even talk to the players while they were practicing. And tradition dictated that you never left the ball park without eating at least one hot dog, a box of Cracker Jacks, an ice cream bar and peanuts.

Dad and I not only went to Cubs games; we even went to see the White Sox, the Black Hawks and the Bears. We watched the Bulls on TV. He had the patience to teach me the intricacies of each sport—from RBIs, to hat tricks, to first downs, to the zone. Those were the best of times.

And if you think it was only about sports, it wasn’t. My dad loved musical theater and fancied himself a crooner like Bing Crosby. He taught me ballroom dancing and to love old and new musicals and all the music from his and Mom’s time. I especially fell in love with Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman (to name a few) and many others of that wonderful big band music era.

Our favorite movie to watch together was “An Affair to Remember,” starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Cary Grant could say a million words without speaking . . . the story and feelings all in his eyes. And how we cried each time Cary discovered that Deborah Kerr had been crippled in a terrible accident the night they were to meet at the top of the Empire State Building.

Above all, Dad taught me that God was the one to turn to when times were tough—and there were many of those growing up in a family where hand-me-downs were the norm and sometimes not enough money for the groceries we needed. But there was always plenty of love of family. His most-quoted saying was: “Always treat others the way you would want to be treated, even if that other person is not very nice to you.” He practiced this each day of his life.

Such are the memories. My dad, my hero. My confidant, my mentor. The love of my mother’s life, and he hers. I miss them both every day, but am blessed that the Lord chose to place me in their lives, and I in theirs. Thanks for the memories, Dad!

Left the Faith by Lorraine Triggs

Through a series of emails and Facebook posts, my oldest sister connected with a second cousin from my mother's side of the family.

"I grew up hearing stories of how your mother left the faith," cousin Rebecca emailed. What? My mother left the faith? Not so fast, newly found cousin. My mother loved and followed Jesus from the first day she trusted him at age 40 till the day she entered his presence at age 92.

My cousin had a different take on my mother. Raised an Orthodox Jew, my mother left her faith when she married my father who was a Gentile; becoming an authentic Christian ten years later made little or no difference to my mother's family.

It was strange to hear my mother described as someone who had left the faith and that got me thinking about that phrase—left the faith.

From a global perspective, we rightly use that term to describe Muslims who choose to follow Jesus. The downside to leaving one's faith is alienation, persecution and death as these believers know so well.

From a personal perspective, our faces become somber, our voices hushed as we announce the sentence of death when we say that someone has, "left the faith." We wag our heads, ready to write off the person—all hope is gone; there's nothing we can do to bring them back to the fold. Is this the way my mother's family thought of her? Discouraged and weary, we close the door and walk away from the person who walked away from the faith.

First things first. God has already announced the death sentence on all we like sheep who have gone astray (sounds a lot like leaving the faith to me). Then, in an amazing display of grace, he goes after the lost sheep to bring it back to the fold. He is that straying sheep's only hope of rescue.

That ought to give us hope for straying sons (mine among them), daughters, brothers, sisters, parents, spouses, cousins and friends. Their salvation doesn't depend on us or what we did or didn't do. If we couldn't save ourselves, we surely can't save anyone else. The sheep walks away from the shepherd, but the shepherd follows, ever seeking to rescue the sheep.

As much as we would like to close the door and walk away from our beloved stray sheep, we might not have that option. God's kindness compels us to keep the door open, his grace nudges us to pull the sheep from the thicket (again and again) and his loving providence reminds us that salvation belongs to him alone.

For all those people we know and love who have left the faith, let's constantly and gently remind them that the door remains open and the path home is a straight line to Jesus.