"Christian Voices"

September 9, 2010

HUMOR

I Cannot Go to School Today

"I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I'm going blind in my right eye.

My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I've counted sixteen chicken pox.

And there's one more ...that's 17!

And don't you think my face looks green?

My leg is cut, my eyes are blue-

It might be instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke

I'm sure that my left leg is broke.

My hip hurts when I move my chin,

My belly button's caving in,

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,

My 'pendix pains each time it rains.

My nose is cold, my toes are numb,

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my spine is weak.

I hardly whisper when I speak.

My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow's bent my spines not straight.

My temperature is one-o-eight.

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is-

WHAT?

What's that? What's that you say?

School is out for summer and Today is...Saturday?

G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

.....from Ann F. by way of Docs Daily Chuckle (pkaine@woh.rr.com) and "Christian Voices" (www.ChristianVoicesWorldwide.net)

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THOUGHT PROVOKING – INSPIRATIONAL

James 3:10-12 My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?

Near the end of his new book, Knowing Christ Today (HarperOne), Dallas Willard points out that as pastors, our task is not just to draw people to church activities but also to equip them to fulfill their calling as disciples in the secular world. He writes:

"Pastors should guide disciples into their place in their world and show them how to display Christlikeness where they work. Real life, 'ordinary' life, is the place of disciples and the place of discipleship. On the job, disciples 'reign' in the office, laboratory, farm, the schoolroom as well as in media, sports, the fine arts, and so forth. They do their skilled tasks for what is good in the home, the community, and in international organizations and relations. They effectively care for the goods of human life that come under their care and influence.

'Divine service' is not only a church service, though it might include that. Divine service is life. It is in the world, in daily business of whatever level and importance, that there unfolds, in Paula Houston's wonderful phrase, 'the great adventure that is Christianity.' It can be so for everyone one of us."

In his own blog, Michael Kruse extends the discussion: "The sad reality is that while people in the 'helping professions' (ie. nurses, teachers, social workers) are sometimes lifted up in church, the vast majority of business people (like managers, business owners, accountants, sales workers, etc.) report never having heard a sermon that speaks of the work they do as service to Christ.

"Most employees know that to some degree they are enhancers, not detractors, to societal well-being. They transform matter, energy, and data from less useful states to more useful states. They generate income for others. They organize human systems where people cooperate and compete to produce goods for endless win-win transactions in the marketplace. Many understand their work has intrinsic value ... that it is somehow deeply expressive of who they are at their core. (Some of these fellow believers put food on my table and gas in my car.)

.....Preaching Now, arr. by way of Chaplain Notes (ChapnotesMail@aol.com) (http://www.chapnotes.org) (t.airportchaplain@verizon.net) and "Christian Voices" (www.ChristianVoicesWorldwide.net)

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"Yesterday I had a car accident on my way home with Emma," Lisa Trowbridge's March, 2009 email to her friends began with this startling news. "This is hard to write," she went on, "yet the message is important." So important that she wanted everyone to share it.

As Lisa explained, she and her four-year-old daughter, Emma, were riding along in Bastrop, Texas (near Austin) and had just approached the narrow, winding road leading to their house. "There were large drainage pipes that backed up against this road," Lisa explained, "and the edge of my tire must have clipped one of them." At this point, the airbag went off, and through her peripheral vision, Lisa saw flames shooting up the window on the driver's side. Something under the car must have ignited.

"Emma, are you all right?" Lisa asked. She opened her door, realizing that the flames were all the way down the side of the car. Instead of panicking, she opened the back door, stepped through the flames and reached in for Emma.

"As I unhooked her seat belt and started pulling her out, she got her arm caught in the strap," Lisa continued. "Things went into slow motion during this time, and I realized my legs were engulfed in flames. The heat was indescribable.." Somehow Lisa unhooked Emma's arm, lifted her out and carried the four-year-old into the street. She turned for one last glimpse and watched, horrified, as the car was consumed by the fire. Now the nearby trees and grass were also in flames.

Stunned, Lisa clung to Emma. Everything had happened so fast! Cars were beginning to pull over, and a lady in the driveway across the street was calling for help. Quickly Lisa checked Emma all over. They had both come through the terrible heat, and Emma would certainly be burned. But Emma was quiet, calm and---Lisa realized with a shock---completely unharmed. How could this be?

The woman in the driveway had apparently called the fire department, for Lisa could hear the sirens approaching. "Do you believe in prayer?" she asked the woman.

"Yes, I do," came the answer.

"Then let's pray that the fire doesn't spread any further!"

Both prayed aloud as the woman led Lisa and Emma into her kitchen. Lisa was still shaken. She and Emma were not only alive, but completely untouched. Yet hadn't she walked through the flames to reach her daughter? And where had that unnatural calmness come from?

"Mommy, the angels and God were there to protect us." Emma had the obvious answer. "See?" she told the paramedics a few minutes later. "I don't have any boo-boos." They too were mystified. No one could have escaped that intense heat.

"God let me stand in the fire," Lisa told her friends on line. "And no harm came to any person or home. Thank you, God and thank you, angels.

"Don't forget to say I love you to the people in your life today. I know I will."

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