What to do when LIFE happens
I just posted this on my Conquering Depression blog so I wanted to share it with my reading followers.
My wife, at diverse times, is convinced I am crazy.
Okay, so maybe my behavior, at diverse times, is consistent with her conclusion. For instance, it was mid February. Sherry and I had just returned from a much needed break, a trip to Orlando to relax and have fun and visit our dear friends Mark and Donna Sutton. On a Wednesday afternoon, Mark and I spent several hours brainstorming a devotion book to accompany “Hope Again”. In a rather alarming revelation, Mark told me he had gone to have a check up the day before and his doctor wanted to keep him overnight for a cardiac treadmill. But, Mark told them he had to keep his appointment with me! Wait a minute, I said. You refused a treadmill because you might have heart problems so you could meet with me?
Before the Avengers arrive, See Cinderella.
I’ve wanted to write a post after seeing Cinderella. I was so afraid it would be another Maleficent. But, Rebecca Reynolds, writing for the Rabbit Room has said it more clearly and in a more moving way than I could ever write it down. Check out her post. Now! Quickly before we lose hope again!
Blinded By the Light
The last entry from my upcoming booklet, “Our Darkness, His Light”.
(This Beautiful Image from this site by Brian Doc Reed.)
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
Acts. 8:1-3
Simon heard a noise and the door to his house burst open. He sat upright on his pallet, his eyes still filled with sleep, as the bright sunlight gushed into the room. A figure stood in the doorway, eclipsing the sunlight.
“Who’s there?”
The figure remained silent, silhouetted against the bright light and he stepped into the room. Motes of dust swirled in the air, as the man stepped up to the pallet and looked down at Simon.
Simon stood slowly and squinted at the man’s face. The man was dressed in rich, royal robes with gold chains around his neck and he wore a hat with jewels on it. His face was very severe, dark, with glistening eyes and a jet black beard. A finger covered with jeweled rings pointed in accusation and he was pushed roughly in the chest back against the stone wall of his bedroom.
“Are you Simon, the Christian?” The man’s harsh voice echoed in the room.
The Unwelcome Visitor
This is my eighth entry from my upcoming booklet, “Our Darkness, His Light” and raised the question that changed the world, “What if a dead man could come back from the dead?”
THE UNWELCOME VISITOR
Matthew 27:52-53
A knock at the door. Martemeus looked up from the darkness of the room. The knock came again, insistent, unrelenting. Fear filled his heart and he shuddered. Outside, the sky hung like clotted blood. Rain cascaded from swollen clouds, and the earth trembled as if in labor. He did not want to open the door. He did not want to embrace the unknown. He huddled closer to the meager light of his lamp, pulling his cloak about him against the cool, damp air.
Who was at the door? A friend? Unlikely. A stranger? Perhaps. A foe? Certainly. In these times, to answer the knock at the door was folly. It might let in death. Rap, rap, rap.
“Martemeus, let me in.” A faint voice. He glanced up from his corner at the rough hewn wood of the door. Thunder shook the walls again. Could it be? Impossible! He stood shakily and crossed to the door. His hand, shaking with fear, reached to the latch.
The door swung open on a gust of rain-filled wind and she stood there. White linen draped her figure, hanging from her head, wet with rain. Her face gleamed in the lamp light with moisture and she stepped into the warmth of his home.
“Martemeus.” Her voice was soft.
The Janitor
Here is the seventh entry from my upcoming booklet “Our Darkness, His Light”. These events would have historically occurred on Good Friday.
THE JANITOR
Matthew 27:51
Cletus pushed the broom across the worn tiles, straining to get at the blood. Skritch, skritch, skritch. A sound he had come to endure, repeated all day, every day for the last twenty years. My, how filthy the floor was. Especially after yesterday’s record crowd. Again, he scratched at the blood soaked deep into the mortar between the tiles. Black, aged, dried from years of shed blood, the tiles would never be clean. The blood could never be removed. It was there forever. And everyday, the people came, strewing dirt and straw and leaves across his carefully scrubbed floor. And every evening, he cleaned. Skritch, skritch, skritch.
The never ending pattern of his sweeping was well rehearsed. He could do it in his sleep. He always began in the back corner and ended up near the curtain. Today, he had been fortunate. The usual crowds were gone. The vast chamber empty. They were all out there, watching the show. He did not complain. It gave him the opportunity to finish his task earlier. Perhaps tonight, he would get home before sunset.
The Widow
Here is the sixth entry from my upcoming booklet, “Our Darkness, His Light”.
THE WIDOW
Luke 23:27-30
With a harsh, cruel motion of her hand, Ruth wiped the white paste across her face. She looked in the glass that mirrored her features. She adjusted the white paint on her face so that no skin showed. Ruth’s face looked lifeless. With another sudden movement, she pasted black across her lips. Her hands snaked into the pot before her and brought out ashes that she sprinkled in her hair. Ruth whirled in the darkness of her room and grabbed a black cloak from the wooden peg by the door. She settled it around her shoulders. Next, came a black shawl draped over her head. Ruth glanced in the glass once more and approved of the harsh, ghostly figure that stood before her. It looked dead.
“I’ll show them. They think that they are the best. They think that they can push me out because I’m a lonely widow. I can do as well as the rest of them. Just wait until they hear me, the old biddies.”
Ruth whirled in the shadows of her room and her white hand snaked out to open the doorway. Bright sunlight gushed in from the outside and she squinted in the light. She cast the black shawl over her face and stepped out into the dusty, hot streets of Jerusalem.
The Basin
This is the fifth entry from my upcoming booklet, “Our Darkness, His Light”.
THE BASIN
Matthew 27:24
Miriam awoke from a restless sleep to the voice of her mother calling. She quickly arose from the small pallet in the corner of the one-roomed hovel that she called home. Across the dim room she saw her mother’s figure huddled in the far corner on her own pallet. Early morning sunlight streamed through the slats of the wooden window and one pale beam cast its rays across her mother’s hair.
Miriam hurried across the room and knelt beside her mother. Her mother lay on her side, her face turned away from the center of the room. Miriam reached out to touch her face.
“Mother, you’re hot.” Her tiny voice echoed in the room. Her mother lay back and Miriam saw the beads of sweat that covered her face. She saw the stains where the sweat had soaked through the armpits.
“Miriam.” Her mother’s voice was weak. “I am ill. It is the fever. You must go and work for us today.”
The Rope
This is the fourth entry from my upcoming booklet “Our Darkness, His Light”.
THE ROPE
Matthew 27:5
Samuel looked up from counting his money as the two men entered his shop. They were dressed in simple robes, their faces covered with black cloth, only their eyes visible. He quickly rolled the denarii he had been counting into a small piece of cloth and tucked it into the merchandise laying before him on his table.
The men had not come to the shop to purchase anything. They ignored the baskets, the ropes, the various artifacts that hung from nails around his small shop and walked straight across the floor to the table.
“It’s time to pay up, Samuel.” One of the men said as he slammed his fist down on the table. Various bits of merchandise clattered together from the sudden violence of the man’s blow. Samuel leaned back on his stool, his heart picking up its pace. He was having trouble breathing. He was getting too old for this nonsense.
“You tell your master that I will pay him when I have the money. I know that I own him a great deal, but I can only pay so much at a time.”
The Coin
The third entry from my upcoming booklet “Our Darkness, His Light”. Whatever happened to the rich young ruler who went away sorrowful after Jesus told him to sell everything and give it all to the poor. This is what may have happened.
THE COIN
Luke 18:22
Sunlight scattered off the coins as Abram let the golden disks cascade from one hand to the other. Normally, the sensation brought him joy. But, since his encounter with Jesus of Nazareth, his desire for the feel of the coins had diminished.
“Give it all away?” He muttered, dropping all but one of the coins in his tunic. “The man is insane! I can’t give it all away!”
He shook his head as he walked along the rows of beggars inside the temple, his eyes roving over the groveling figures. He came to the spot closest to the Pool of Siloam. The bent and deformed figure crouching in the dust was a stranger.
“Where is Simeon?”
Blinded By the Light
Another chapter in my upcoming booklet, “Our Darkness, His Light”. See yesterday’s post for more information on this upcoming booklet. Today, we meet the young man healed of his blindness by Jesus.
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
Based on John 9
“Can you stand here before the High Court of God and expect us to believe you? Do not lie to Caiaphus, the high priest.” Caiaphus spat the words at him.
Simeon was still amazed by the color red. He saw it now in the old priest’s cheeks. They glowed with anger. Simeon resisted the urge to reach out his hands to touch those hot spots, to feel the heat he had never seen before this day.
“We don’t believe you, boy!” The great, hulking figure backed away slowly, turning to survey a group of men dressed in black and white. Black and white. Black Simeon understood. That was all he had “seen” his entire life. White was new. It didn’t seem to fit these men and their coarse, cruel words.
Bruce Hennigan 
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