ATTENTION EVERYONE: a FRIEND OF MINE FROM NEPAL IS ATTENDING A BIBLE COLLEGE HERE IN KOREA.....HIS FAMILY IS OUT OF THEIR HOME AND HIS PARENTS LOST THEIR HOME TOTALLY AND THEY GOT INJURED....PLEASE SEND AN OFFERING TO THEM...HERE IS THE INFO YOU NEED....
Account name: Khumukcham Rina Khadka
Account number: 20215241404628
Bank name: SBI Bank, Nepal
Phone 9843414055...
SWIFT: NSBINPKA

Thanks to all who give during this emergency....Chris

I pray for you...
That you would live forever in God's embrace,
that you will forever know Him face to face,
that His love will guide you home
that His peace will always be known...
that each and every day
your heart will choose
not to stray....

I pray for you...

Love is…
A song meant to be sung as a duet
Love is…
A journey meant to be taken together
Love is…
A treasure that only has value when shared
Love is…
The colour that paints our days
(and makes them worth living)

And love is the prize that makes our lives worth giving away

A couple of days ago I went to the memorial service of a man who, at the time of his death, was just three years older than I am. My middle-age mortality motor's red light went on as we pulled into the church parking lot. But it was a false alarm. Nothing could have been farther from my mind for the next two hours than my fragile physical grasp of this temporal life. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't easy to be there. Reality is rarely easy. But it was right and transporting and ultimately of priceless value. The man we remembered that day had suffered a long and wearing illness. Death was a relief. He was, as many articulate mourners testified, the real thing: A genuine Christian...giving and loving. Caring for others always at the sacrifice of his own needs. A tender, open father and husband whose role modeling oozed health and stability into all members of his family and far beyond. To a room full of believers there was little doubt he was presently among the list of heaven's most recent citizens. Free at last from the pain and pallor of his last days on earth. To be there was to share in a fragrant bouquet of emotions. Now relieved, now heartbroken, now gratified, now frustrated. I cried at several points, marveled many times, sighed the old human wheeze, "What ya gonna do?" at other moments. It was a whole lot of life (oddly induced by a death) jammed into two hours. For many, many reasons I'm so grateful to have been there, but let me just share one of them here.
This morning while making time for devotions (I've skipped the last five days and often allow even longer "fasts" in my soul feedings) I came upon the story of Lazarus's resurrection in St. John's Gospel. I've read it before but this time was through eyes still red from the other day's weeping. As Dinah Washington once sang, "What a difference a day makes". Every character now had a modern counterpart from the other day. As I recalled Martha's (one of Lazarus's sisters) straightforward grief (John 11:20-21) , I saw my contemporary's two daughters as they read and sang their father's favorite psalm and hymn. Then in Mary (the other sister to Lazarus - John 11:32-33), I saw his wife, quiet and accepting in her unspeakable heartbreak and loss. ("How they loved each other," a friend remembered at the service.) And all the neighbors and friends who gathered around Lazarus's home were all of us filling the pews to overflowing. Real flesh and bone ache seasoned every line of St. John's text, so I could, as never before, enter into the true pathos of the story. The only real relating problem I had was with Jesus. At least initially. When he first got the message about Lazarus's severe illness, His response was more global than specific...more "big picture" than personally involved. John 11:4 (NEB) says, " 'This illness will not end in death; it has come fore the glory of God, to bring glory to the Son of God'...there...after hearing of his illness Jesus waited for two days in the place he was." I think one can detect clearer here His eternal origins than at almost any other place in scripture. For here, physically distanced from the homestead of the bereft, immune, as it were, to the messy emotions of humans, He could speak of the larger goodness and wisdom in waiting a few days before coming to His friend's aid. He could talk in a language that was beyond disease and dashed dreams. But then He came to the memorial service, sat in the pew with my family and me, heard the sniffles and half-caught sobs, the hymns washed down with tears. Then He saw the sorrow of lovers with their "arms wrapped 'round the grief of the ages".* And His heart broke just like yours and mine do. Holy drops of water filled His eyes, ran over the banks and glistened on His cheeks. At that very moment He deemed it okay, indeed fitting, to sometimes forget the "big picture" for the sake of grief's tiny, delicate, wrenching portrait. I saw for the first time why so little print is given to Lazarus's actual resurrection... seven verses out of an entire chapter given to the story. It was almost anticlimactic ... as if the real story consummated with the two words "Jesus wept." Oh yes, His story (the global, big picture one) is large... the largest there ever was or will be. His glory is unfathomable, unparalleled and unprecedented. His salvation is for all and forever! But His tears are as salty as yours and mine and at our most mangled moments that may be the greatest wonder of all. * Quote from "In My Craft Or Sullen Art" by Dylan Thomas.

Written by Michael Kelly Blanchard....check out michaelkellyblanchard.com  

When my body hurts I attend unto my pain
Nothing else matters until I’m whole again
You my brother you my sister
are my very own body and blood
For you my God has shed in my heart
His very own wonderful love
And this I’ve come to learn - I must be able to discern
When and where my body is hurting
That I may obey what the Lord says today
What The Holy Spirit is asserting –
Stop all I do to tend to you
To touch your pain you I must not disdain
but like the good Samaritan,
love and treat your wound as if it were my very own
and when you are healthy you may return the love I’ve sown
We will mutually esteem each other more highly than ourselves
And by so doing we’ll always insure the other is whole and well
The Love of God for one another I’ll always impart
because my brother, because my sister
I have you in my heart

Phi:1:7

As I walked down the street, a group of caged birds called out to me from across the street. I called back - "Thank you!" They sounded wonderful but yet sad that they were caged. Then the Lord told me, many christians are like those caged birds: they look and sound so good but they aren't free as long as they remain in religion.

I saw the bird within it's cage
he had  wonderfully beautiful plumage
He strutted and hopped and flitted about
but oh how he longed to be out

He sang a heart rending song
about the freedom of flight for which he longed

And so many are like this caged bird
so many look and sound good and know God's word
Yet so many are trapped in a religious cage
and are being conformed into the wrong image

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty
Yet in most "churches" the people aren't free
Therefore the Spirit of the Lord is lacking
while the enemy devours and continues attacking
the people suffer in a desert place
and are dying off for lack of faith
Lord, set the caged birds free!
Shake the jail mightily!
And may the jailors come to know thee!
As you set the caged birds free!

And may they survive
as they learn to fly
as they learn to soar
may they know you more and more
as the Day draws nigh
come Holy wind and lift us high
till we're as free as you to fly

-Dedicated to those who long and ache to be free still, who are not content in their bondage.

Everyone has worth
Everyone has dignity from birth
Everyone has value
because Lord
Everyone is made and loved by You...
Each person is unique
Every subtle nuance of their face
Personally fashioned by Your hands of Grace
Every one of them full of beauty
Every one of them a delight to see
Made by Your Majesty
Korean, American, Irish or Chinese
It does not matter to me -
all reflect Your love for humanity...

There's a King and a foolish one
in the heart of every mother's son
each competing for the tongue

There's wisdom and foolishness
bound within the very same breast
one to curse and the other to bless

And unless
the fool lays down and dies
his lies     will pollute the wise

Lord, have Your way -  rule in me
crucify the fool in me
teach my tongue to always be
Your humbled slave
that this flesh may one day be

an empty grave.....