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I’m sure we would all agree that true Christian love is the most beautiful and wonderful thing to be seen.  I would like to post a few excerpts (in the next few posts) from The Midnight Bride by Richard Wurmbrand which illustrate this so well.

Some of you may find this unbelievable.  I would, except that I had a taste of this love in a much smaller way a number of years ago.  I was teaching sixth grade at the time, and one of my students had a detention again (!).  I felt inspired to do his detention for him, not having any idea of how that would impact him, but hoping he would somehow be touched by my willingness to love him in this way.  I still don’t know what effect it had, but that is in God’s hands.

In his book Dust on the Road, Nikiforov-Volgin, a…

I must re-post my favorite picture for this Feast of the Sacred Heart.  This is by James Tissot.  (And don’t miss the quote at the end.  It’s just for you.)

We are all in the Heart of Jesus Christ, since He loves us all, for the way of love is for the lover to lodge the beloved in his heart.  (Fr. Timothée de Raynier)

“The help will come… I stand by Aslan. Have patience…The help will come. It may be even now at the door.”–Prince Caspian.

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…

There are so many artistic depictions of the Annunciation, but one of my all-time favorites is one that a good friend of mine gave me a few years ago.  You can see it below.  Not too long afterward I came across a poem by Luci Shaw that seemed to have been written for it.  I share that with you as well.  Thank you, Mary, for your earth-changing yes. . .

Virgin

As if until that moment
nothing real
had happened since Creation

As if outside the world were empty
so that she and he were all
there was–he mover, she moved upon

As if her submission were the most
dynamic of all works; as if
no one had ever said Yes like that

As if that day the sun had no place
in all the universe to pour its gold
but her small room

(Luci Shaw)