Month: May 2013

Friday: from the archives

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Something from Amy Carmichael:

1 John 4:18  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.

Let us take time today to consider the love of God.

Some of us are tempted to fear about ourselves.  What about tomorrow?  Shall we be able to go on?  Perfect love casts out fear.  Love God and there will be no room for fear, for to love is to trust and if we trust we do not fear.

Some of us are tempted to fear the future.  There again perfect love casts out fear.  He who has led will lead.  It quickens love and encourages faith to think of all that God has done.  He has not brought us so far, to leave us now.

So let us open all our windows and our doors to the great love of God.  Love is like light.  It will flood our rooms if only we open to it.  Let us take time today to open more fully than ever before to the blessed love of God.

 

God Doesn’t Make Sense!

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

When things don’t make sense . . .

Bill Sweeney's avatarUnshakable Hope

The fact that God’s nature was difficult for me to understand used to be a real challenge to my faith. This was especially true after being diagnosed with ALS. I don’t remember ever asking God “Why me?” but I naturally wondered why God would allow this or any other horrible disease to strike anyone. I began to rethink everything I knew, or thought I knew, about this being we call God.

One of the first things I studied was the Christian definition of God; the Christian belief that God is made up of three separate beings (Father, Son and Spirit) that are actually one being. This doesn’t make sense! I have heard many different analogies that attempted to explain this concept of this three-in-one God by everyone from children’s church pastors to highly-educated Theologians, but I still don’t get it! I know better than anyone that I’m far from being…

View original post 588 more words

“You are only a child!”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

christ_b

“I wonder whether we take seriously enough, we grown men and women, the stress that Jesus puts on being a child in order to receive what God has to give?  It means God can come fully only to the little one.  It means renouncing all ideas of our own spiritual importance, of what we do for God, what we give to God, our own supposed goodness and virtue.  It means casting aside any concern for that image of ourselves, so precious to ourselves, that we are indeed truly spiritual men and women.  Julian of Norwich maintains that, in this life, we can have no other stature than that of childhood.  I think that when Jesus takes the child in his arms, sets him in front of himself, pointing to him as a model, it is to himself he is pointing.  His inmost heart was always that of a child and that is hwy he could live with such freedom, courage and self-squandering.  To my mind this is the nub of the truly Christian faith, this grasp that all is gift and our work is simply to receive, to learn how to receive.  Certainly, when I myself get the spiritual ‘fidgets’ and become anxious about myself and my life, I find my answer in simply saying to myself: ‘You are only a child!'”  (Ruth Burrows)