I awaken – unrushed -- to a day that is unfolding: refreshed and rested from a good night’s sleep.
I awaken to a bright and beautiful morning, with a breeze caressing tree branches, and occasionally, a gust of wind. My yellow bell bush and pink hibiscus are revived by God’s rains.
Like a finely-tuned engine my body serves me well today, not by my own will or doing, but by the sustaining hand and ever-faithful mercies of its Creator.
I serve breakfast to a growing son, and I can touch him and bless him on his way to school. My husband sleeps; the house is quiet and I sit in silence speaking gratitude to a Father who has blessed me undeservedly.
Elsewhere in a hospital bed, a 42-year-old woman is bleeding; her body wracked with stage 4 cervical cancer, refusing hospice, fighting for her life, choosing to receive aggressive treatment even as all her doctors concur that there is nothing else they could do. Her two grown boys are in Cuba—who knows when she saw them last.
“I do not have cancer; my body does,” she says to the lady chaplain.
“This woman is strong,” the chaplain says to me. “I believe she has been through hell and back before; I can sense it. Hospice is not for her.”
This thought comes to me: “You are not your disease.”
I awaken to a peaceful community; I hear the school bus with my son on board moan as it slows down to a hump on the road. The garbage truck whines and squeaks as it picks up trash bins on its usual Tuesday morning route. There are rustling noises as the wind blows and I sit here, after a breakfast of corn cereal and soy milk and green tea with honey and lemon all from God’s bounty: corn, and tea and lemon that grows from God’s earth, bathed with His sunlight and drenched with His rains; honey from God’s bees, and milk from His soy beans.
Elsewhere in Ferguson, Missouri, people awaken to the smoky remains of shopping places, and police cars, burned down from a night of rioting and violence. They awaken to the sound of sirens, and police and National Guard, media personnel, and citizens in protests traversing their streets and neighborhoods.
Elsewhere in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Manila, Chicago, Miami, people are waking up to destruction, unrest, uncertainty, violence, poverty and ugliness. All’s not right with the world.
How do you even begin to speak of thankfulness in the midst of all this ugliness?
How does one find light in darkness, good in evil, beauty in ashes?
How does one show light in darkness, good in evil, gratitude in ugliness?
Does it take a special kind of person, a special kind of people?
(Isn’t there a saying somewhere that says …”Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle?”)
Who, then are the candle-lighters? The bless-ers -- not curse-rs? The bringers of hope? The heralds of peace?
Many have been so, in the past. Many still are.
…the Apostle Paul, Nick Vujicic, Christopher Coleman, Michael Morton, Corrie Ten Boom, Joni Eareckson-Tada, and countless ordinary people whose names we may not know…
They are the forgiven ones, the rescued ones, the thankful ones. .. the bearers of the good news that our circumstances do not determine our thankfulness; that gratitude is a mind-set, an attitude.
They are the Jesus-people, the blessed and thankful ones, the vessels of grace, having been, themselves, the recipients of mercy undeserved.
They can be you and me. They ought to be you and me.
…the forgiven ones becoming the forgivers… the blessed ones becoming the blessers … the healed ones becoming the healers…the rescued ones becoming the rescuers…
We need Jesus-people in Ferguson, today to shine the light of Jesus in a wounded and hurting community.
We need to be the Jesus-people wherever we are … the bearers of light, the healers of wounds, the ushers of beauty, the bringers of hope, the purveyors of peace, the givers of thanks…
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