Crowned in Grace

Isaiah 61:1 "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me, to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners."

 June bursts into July like a firecracker.  An explosion of  pictures with  rainbow filters, commentary, debate, and questions permeate our social media and conversations. 

Amongst my circle of close friends, we dialogue.

How can we be more like Christ? How do we do this?  Our own God-filter doesn't screen the darkness perceived;  it lets the light in, giving us a correct focus.  Light scatters the darkness.  

We live and breathe the Good News.  God is the Doer. 

So, we step ahead, continuing to soak in the Light and give off the Light. 

I took a small day-trip this week, going with another friend to visit a very sick young lady. As moms, we both can relate to  "the living in a hospital" situation, tucked away in the lonely, fearful sections of our memories.  This young girl suffers with a genetic affliction, a life-long chronic disease.  She is a miracle girl really, holding on with all her strength. Her hope, to once again hold a camera to her eye and capture God's miracles in her photography.  Her Facebook page holds a last attempt before this ground-breaking surgery 5 months earlier, a  most courageous step. As we visit, dialysis filters her blood because her kidneys sleep;  her two new lungs, new liver, her new pancreas fight to be accepted. She is our brave hero. 

Her heart,  bound up tight by the love and sacrifice of her family and her knowledge and love of the Lord from an early age, beats with a passion to live. At three years old, she sat in her car seat on a long trip and told the story of the Savior from His birth to Revelation, amazing her parents. Her dad shared that story with us. 

Now in her early 30's, to us,  she is held captive by her disease, yet her joy is a smile from her dad and a promise he'll return with a little chili from the cafeteria. I wish I could open the windows so she could breathe in the smell of the ocean which is not too far away or hear the booming fireworks as Freedom is celebrated tomorrow night.   

While walking back from lunch with her dad, planters in front of a bungalow held a certain plant, four of them.  I stopped to take a picture of the Crown of Thorns also known as a Crucifixion plant. 

 I know the Truth as the blood of the Lamb of God trickled down, our sin filtered out by our own belief in the Miracle,  through Grace and Perfect Love so that we can be free to resume a relationship with the Father.  How many stopped to notice the four pots of thorns as we walked along the broken up sidewalk, notice the hospital rising up from the everyday lives of people out strolling the beach town and making a living, a place where the afflicted hope to be healed?  The captive sit at their bedside, pace the halls, and press into their own crown of thorns circling their heart.  

We are all afflicted. We all fight to be accepted. We're held captive by our opinions, our politics, and even our religion. We're imprisoned by our anger, our fear, our weak faith.  

The Crown of Thorns, it flowers.  In it, there blooms Life. 

The red flower bursts forth through the thorns to capture our attention. 

In our freedom,  may hope be found in our thanksgiving, in our humble awareness of grace.  We are capable of great love in our freedom to choose His Great Love. God sets us free to be a Light among the crumbling sidewalks of this great nation and beyond. 


Plant it Lord, deep into my own affliction, bloom in me the grace I need for the moment, for the day, for change and culture. You Lord, are the King of Kings, Giver of Life, crowned in Eternal Glory. Make me into a healer, not a wound-maker. Make me a locksmith, ready and equipped to provide a key for the captive. Holy Spirit, be upon me, prompting and urging me to pray for our nation, our leaders, our children, speaking words of hope, forgiveness and truth in love. Lead me into obedience in Your Word and in my actions. I  ask Lord for healing, for Grace upon amazing Grace to trickle down, for compassion and wisdom to walk this busted up path, knowing where it leads. Help me to lift open windows for others to    see Your power and to listen with an open heart, the boom of Your hope, an eternal fireworks show of Your sovereignty. 

Be near our dear girl Lord, her family and her doctors. In Jesus Name, Amen.  

What a Pain!

Psalm 34:19-20   Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken. 

Last Saturday I slammed my little toe into the corner of my big, bulky dresser. 

Big and bulky now describes the top half of my foot.  

Don't think you can tell much from the picture
but the little toe is purple
and across the top, swollen 

I donned tennis shoes to walk Disneyland the next day. Very sore, my pace slowed down.  My friend mustered up amazing patience as we navigated the park. 

I don't know if I broke it or not. After googling "broken toe," there wasn't much advice I didn't already consider; buddy tape, elevate, ice.  

Six days later, it is still swollen, very sore and annoying. 

Things could be worse. 

While walking to my first period class on Thursday, a student sat on the sidewalk between the grass and the lunch area, his friend standing above him, both with puzzled looks on their faces. As I approached them, the boy on the ground called out to me. 

"Can you help me?"

Sensing something anyway, my steps already turned in that direction.   He was sitting, well, sort of, with his legs under him and one leg looked somewhat misplaced...crooked. 

"I fell, he said. We were throwing the tennis ball and I slipped on the grass and now my leg won't work."

He did not seem panicked, in any excrutiating pain, maybe a tad embarrased or concerned.  

Telling his friend to stay with him, most students were now in their classrooms, the tardy bell announcing the begining of classes for the day. I left and walked up to the Administration building, getting the V. P's secretary to get help for this young man. She quickly called campus security. 

Walking back to encourage the young student that help was on the way, I stayed until others began assisting him. Soon, a fire truck and paramedic pulled up in front of the school and the injured kid left in an ambulance for the nearest hospital. ( A REAL injury, I surmised). 

Later I would find out that he had snapped his femur completely through and cracked another bone!

I couldn't believe it; so calm and the accident...so nondescript!  Not one kid walking around him noticed, or stopped, only his one friend who he sported with.  

While sitting on the couch tonight, feeling my toe and its surrounding buddies throbbing and distracting me, I thought of the boy and his smashed up leg. Me? Whining, limping, complaining all week about my dumb little toe while many live daily in constant chronic pain. 

Perspective. I need a good dose of this medicine. 

Sometimes, the quiet ones, the ones everyone walks around, the ones who slip easily and stay down are the ones we need to pay attention to, have more compassion for.  I see it everyday in the kids I work with. Some sort of pain, whether obvious or not, exists in all of us.  Pain that is unplanned, unintentional, life changing, sobering, throbbing... Pain demands attention. 

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  C.S. Lewis 

I know throbbing pain and it's not my toe.  God binded my wounds, tenderly cared for me and paid literally, divine attention to both my loud complaints and my quiet, personal aches. His perscription for me provided a promise to deliver me, send his Comforter and give me strong legs to stand on. In that, I am called to see other's pain, empathize and encourage.  

Maybe someday, an app, touched on one of our devices will instantly "self-x-ray" our boo-boos and "Suri" in her electronic voice will suggest our ailment and our remedy. I know that my God already does that. With a call in to Him in prayer, He sees my pain, my injury, and writes out the perscription of love. In my time and in His time, healing begins. 

Heavenly Father, Why do I sometimes run into things and hurt myself? Oh, yeah, I am human. Why do I worry and complain when things become a bother, annoy, make things difficult. Really? That human thing again?  Please help me Lord to have better perspective. I need Your perspective to see the obstacles in front of me and the hearts of others. When someone calls for help, allow me to be sensitive and wise. You are the Great Physician. Thank you Lord for your Healing Hands on my heart throbs and my toe throbs. Amen.