When Jesus walked on the water, approaching the boat full of terrified disciples , he saw their fear and said, “Take heart! It is I!” before he entered the boat himself. ( Mark 6:50,RSV) If they knew it was he, they would not be afraid, simply because they had known and loved Jesus enough to abandon their livelihoods to follow Jesus for his connection to their God.

Much later the Apostle John, who had been in the boat, would write, Perfect love drives out fear. (1 John 4:18) The apostle Peter experienced that love to such an extent that in the midst of the terror of the storm, as well as the appearance of Jesus on the water, Peter responded, “Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water.” ( Matthew 14:28) It wasn’t Peter’s love that failed him, for Jesus’ words, ”You of little faith, why did you doubt?” make clear that Peter was afraid of the storm. (Matthew 14:31)

This story appears in all four of the Gospels . It is a window into the intersection between the natural and supernatural of God’s creation. Peter’s actions bridge the gap because of his love for Jesus, and fail because of his fear of the storm. Ultimately Peter would die for his faith and love of Jesus. This incident reveals the necessary love in Peter to become the great apostle that he did.

Love is the beginning, middle, and end of Jesus’ life on earth. From the moment that Mary said to Gabriel, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word,” (Luke 1: 38) and nine months later she held the infant Jesus in her arms, faith and love were united, and the world has never been the same. “What greater mercy, than for the creator to be created, the master to serve the redeemer to be sold, the one who exalts to be humbled, the one who raises up to be slain. (St. Augustine, sermon 207). The Psalmist wrote: He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions, from us. (Psalm 103:11-12)

The fear of God is different from all other fears. It shines with the light of His love. It echoes with the words of Christ: Take heart! It is I!

Love in Him,

Prue

When I was young enough to enjoy swinging on the swings in a city park near our house, I was doing just that with my brother and two sisters when we noticed another family of children swinging, too. My siblings and I had each a roll of “Life Savers,” and we offered some to the other children. “No thanks,” they said. “We don’t eat candy.” “At all!?” asked my older sister. “That’s right,” the other boy answered. Our father is a dentist, and he says that candy is bad for your teeth, so we never eat it!”

I was thunderstruck that these children had apparently never even tasted candy of any kind. For the first time in my life I felt a mixture of pity and incredulity. Candy was one of life’s sustaining joys to me.

For several years when I was growing up, a remarkable event occurred every Christmas Eve. Just before bed time the doorbell would ring, and a man who was a cousin of my father, would hand my mother a five pound box of chocolate candy, and say, “Merry Christmas!” and turn around and disappear into his car and drive away. My mother always invited him in, but he declined. We were allowed to eat one piece of candy before we went to bed. It was a much anticipated ritual and we all loved it.

When we met the dentist’s children in the park, I was shaken to the core to think that my love for candy might possibly have a down side. It opened a window into a different world. The other children seemed to think nothing of missing out on one of life’s truly delightful treats, and I couldn’t even imagine life without candy. It was a kind of reset in my sense of values, or at least the beginning of a reset.

Jesus said, “If any man comes to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and children and brethren, and sisters, yes, and his own life as well, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:16) It is one of the strongest statements Jesus made about our human relationships and loves. It’s strength is startling and even upsetting, but Jesus thought it necessary to emphasize the size of change and the depth of commitment that was not only possible, but necessary in our relationship to our Father God. In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus made possible just such a level of devotion to his God and our God. Since then, the saints have displayed the reality of such a relationship. Saint Peter wrote, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (1Peter 1: 23)

God knows how hard it is, and, better yet, how worth it.

Love in Him,

Prue

Frances H. Bernett wrote the endearing and enduring story The Secret Garden in 1911. In it a young orphan girl is sent from India to the home of her uncle in England for him to accept custody. He is the child’s only known relative, as her parents had both died of cholera. Mary Lennox, the ten year old girl, discovers in her uncle’s house a boy,Colin, her cousin, who is bedridden and believed to be a hopeless cripple by his father and the staff at his home.

Mary has discovered a secret walled and locked garden that had been abandoned on the grounds, and with the help of a local boy, Dickon, who befriends animals, and Ben, the gardener, Mary finds the key to the garden, and begins to work to return it to its original beauty. She shares this information with Colin, and they arrange for him to visit the garden. This puts into play the transformation of both spoiled children and the garden itself, as Colin joins Mary and Ben and Dickon in their project. They have many adventures before Colin’s father returns from his many absences, ,and instead of a bedridden boy, he finds his son running to meet him. The book was originally published as a children’s book, but has gained popularity with all ages.

Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your secret place, close the door and pray to your father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:6) Secrecy in our relationship with our Father God is essential to the one-on-one relationship that God seeks with us. In the novel, the abandoned garden was nevertheless forbidden, and so secrecy was necessary. Jesus’ words to go alone to the secret place are meant for us to open ourselves to the One who is able to respond to us in truth.

Jesus also said, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) In all his teachings Jesus led his listeners to his Father. He spoke words that would lay a path at the feet of his followers. To find a place to be alone and pray, and to pray with fellow believers, are priceless positions for Christians.

Secrecy was necessary to the children, but the fellowship of each other was also essential. None of them could have completed the garden alone, and Colin would not have been able to walk without the others.

Jesus made sure that we understood our need to be alone and undisturbed for prayer; and he knew the strength and power of communal prayer, for he promised, “I am in the midst of them!

Love in Him,

Prue

Psalm 65

As I reached for the thermostat to turn up the air conditioner, I thought about the Pharaohs 0f Egypt and remembered that I had read that the royal family members of ancient Egypt had slaves, who accompanied them, and gently cooled them with hand- held fans. I smiled to myself that all I had to do was move a switch in order to receive either heat or cold in the house. I wondered if I would trade that single luxury in order to live in a Pharaoh’s palace, and decided that I wouldn’t. I believed that my life was more comfortable than a pharaoh’s!

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.(Psalm 65:8) These words, written at the time of the pharaohs, that carry the inspiration of the Creation itself, are available to me every day. A Spirit so joyful, so full of the beauty and priceless splendors of the world in which we live, are still an inspiration thousands of years after they were written down. David experienced the Spirit of God in the wilderness, while he was a shepherd, and several of his psalms extol the beauty of nature. Psalm 65 is no exception: You crown the year with your beauty, and your carts overflow ; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain. They shout for joy and sing. (verses 11-13) In David’s eyes, the beauty of the earth is a mirror of its Creator. He can barely describe it without seeing God in the fields and mountains, and even in the rain: You visit the earth and water it. (verse 9)

David, the youngest son of Jesse, was raised as a shepherd on his father’s land. As a boy he spent much of his time in the fields with the sheep. Far from feeling disadvantaged, he recalled his time out doors in lyrical and even musical terms. Psalm 65 is introduced as written to “the Chief Musician,A Psalm and a song of David.” Though the lives of shepherds were neither comfortable nor easy, David had a boundless faith in his God, and the very earth itself was a comfort to him. When he was running from Saul in the years after David killed Goliath, he protected Nabal’s sheep with his men who followed David. Nabal’s shepherd reported to Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David’s men were very good to us., and we suffered no harm. Whey were a wall to us both day and night while we were with them keeping the sheep. ( 1Samuel,25: 15&16) Psalm 65 is a song of joy and praise, fashioned after David’s own life in nature. His words signal a world full of the joy of life itself, and full of the comfort of a loving God.

Love in Him,

Prue

For at least eighteen hundred years the pastors or priests of many Christian churches have called to their people attending worship services: “Lift up your hearts,” to hear the response, “We lift them up to the Lord!” It is a call to worship that has been used in almost every denomination, and a response that says “I know how to ‘lift up my heart!’” I heard this call as a child and wondered what it really meant. I didn’t know how to command my heart, but it seemed like a very good thing to do. It was better than “Pay attention!”, for it focused on the Lord, and I did want to know Him better.

This call implies a unity among the people and a common focus on our God; it resounds like a royal command before the actual appearance of a King. It It also appears in Lamentations 3:41. Let us lift up our hearts and our hands and say ‘we have sinned and rebelled.’ It suggests simply that raising our hearts and our hands moves us into a position of penitence that gets God’s attention; but in church it never seemed penitential to me. Rather, it seemed like a call to put aside other concerns and face the One to whom we have come. It meant leaving behind cynicism, doubt, anxiety, and fear.

When my daughter was only four years old and taking a nap, I was in the shower when she woke up. She couldn’t find me in the house, and so she walked outside and crossed the street to knock on our neighbor’s front door. She told the neighbor, “My mommy’ is gone and I don’t know where she is.” Judi, my neighbor, looked across the street and saw my car in the driveway, and she said, “I’m sure she’s in your house, honey, If you go home, I’m sure you’ll find her.” Stephanie turned around and walked back across the street. She knelt on the sidewalk to the house and lifted her heart to God. She prayed that she would find me in the house, and by the time she entered, I was out of the shower and getting dressed. She walked into my room and ran to me. I had thought that she was still asleep in her room.

“Lift up your hearts” is a call that requires nothing of us but putting down our burdens so that we may lift our hearts. Jesus said, “Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) It was a call to individuals to “lift up your hearts.” Lifting up our hearts makes room for the wonders of the Holy Spirit to enter and provide that “rest”, and all the benefits of God’s Grace toward His people.

Love in Him,

Prue

God’s Love

God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ( Romans 5:8) St. Paul’s view of “God’s own love for us “ is not exactly the love of engaged couples, or of brother and sisters. There is no perfect comparison of God’s love in the experience of human beings, but God Himself gave the closest comparison to His prophet Isaiah: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has born? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands,” ( Isaiah 49:15)

On the night of the Last Supper, when Jesus was saying his last words toe the disciples before his arrest, he said, “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you. Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:21-22) The apostle John also wrote, “God is love”(1 John 4:16)

Sometimes the world becomes so complicated that finding the power that resides in the simple though extraordinary love of a new mother for her infant seems irrelevant or even completely fallible, but it holds within it the promise of new life and the hope of a lifetime relationship, both of which are promises of God for His people.

The love of God cannot be measured, but ST. Paul saw Jesus’ sacrifice to be sufficient proof of an immeasurable love, not only from Jesus, but from his Father God, for it was God’s will working within Jesus that made the sacrifice. I heard a Christian woman once ask a pastor, “They say that Jesus died for me, but did he really know me? I wasn’t even born by the time he died.” The pastor answered, “Jesus died for his Father God, and his Father has known us all since before we were born.” The great love that Jesus had and has for us came from his Father God and his mother Mary. Jesus experienced both human and divine love. He became the bridge between a perfect God and imperfect human beings. His sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for all of humanity to find a way to be restored to God after the fall. The way opened a doorway, as Jesus said: “I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20)

The news of Christ is better news than any other we could ever hear. His message is simple: I Love You.

Love in Him,

Prue

Since God first spoke to Abraham, and Sarah’s baby displayed evidence of a living God in the midst of the Hebrew people, people everywhere have searched for ways of finding Him themselves. In the Book of Jeremiah God made it clear that He had every desire and even plan, to be found by His people: You will seek me, and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you. (Jeremiah 29:13&14)

In the twentieth century, In his Spiritual Diary, St. Pope John Paul II wrote, “Man is the being who seeks God. And even after he finds Him, he continues to seek Him. And if he seeks Him sincerely, he has already found Him.”

Samuel “found” God when Samuel was still a child, and he never turned back. Hannah found God while on her knees praying for a son. David found God the moment Samuel anointed him.

St. Peter’s journey to finding God began when he said to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8) Little did he know that he had found the One whom he had wanted. Jesus replied, Don’t be afraid; from now on you shall fish for people. (Luke 5:9) Peter, who barely knew that he longed for God, would later be the first to say, “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.” ( Mathew 16:16) When Jesus asked the twelve if they would like to leave him, Peter answered, “To whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) Peter had found God in Jesus.

The gift of God’s son, Jesus, has spread throughout the world so that he has placed a path at the feet of human beings for finding God. Even in the Old Testament there was news of a path: Whether you turn right or left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21) The voice foretold by Isaiah is the voice of the Holy Spirit of God. His voice is also the voice of Jesus, the one whose life is literally an open book. Jesus spoke of this before his death: “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—he will testify about me. . . The Spirit will receive from me what he makes known to you.” (John 15:26, and 16:15)

It is clear throughout the Bible that God seeks a close relationship with his people, and that in sending His son, He laid a path at our feet to God Himself. God has placed His own yearning in us to find Him, and given us Jesus, a brother for the journey: “Seek , and you shall find! (Mathew 7:7) “Behold ! I am with you always! (Matthew 28:16)

Love in Him,

Prue

In the early part of the book of Psalms there is one Psalm that makes me pause whenever I read it. It’s Psalm 16, and in my mind it coalesces the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and human beings together. David wrote the psalm in time, yet, it breathes a breath of eternity: “Lord, you alone are my portion,and my cup; you make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” (Psalm 16:5-6) These words were written generations after the Hebrew people finally arrived at the Promised Land., and the land had been distributed by lot to each family. David’s ancestors had received a lot near the village of Bethlehem. I became the family inheritance.

Charles Spurgeon, a nineteenth century British preacher, suggested in his book The Treasury Of David, that the “boundary lines” are probably those that David and his brothers inherited from that ancient time; the very fulfillment of God’s promise to give His people land. The Psalm gives us a glimpse of God to His own word and to His people. David’s experience as a child of God is evident: “I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes on the Lord. With Him at my right hand I will not be shaken.”(verses 7&8)

The words of David in relation to God could have been written by Jesus himself. They foreshadow a relationship that Jesus had with his Father, and that through Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit, all humanity may share. They bring the reality of an eternal existence, an overcoming of death itself, into focus.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mathew 11:28) David wrote, “Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices: my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will your faithful one see decay.” (verse 9-10) The accounts of Jesus ‘ life, teaching, death and resurrection are pictures that could accompany the words of the Psalm, sharing with us the experience of our loving God, bridging time and space to connect our spirits to His. The words are full of sweetness and promise: “You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (verse 11)

Bartimaeus began to shout, “Son of David, Have mercy on me!”. . . “Rabbi, I want to see!” “Go” said Jesus, “Your faith has healed you.” (Mark 10:48). Psalm 16 reaches across three millennia to deliver a message of “eternal pleasures.”

Love in Him,

Prue

Araxie Azarigian was a slender woman who attended my Sunday School class of senior women . She listened attentively and was well liked by the other members of the class. She was quieter than most. One day our reading was from Deuteronomy 22:8: “ When you build a new house, (in the Promised Land) make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your self if someone falls from the roof. “This was the law in my country, as well,” she said.

She was born in Armenia in 1908. We stopped reading Deuteronomy and listened to “Roxie” tell of her life, first in Armenia, and then in a Russian refugee camp, as her mother struggled to take Roxie and her two older brothers to safety from the invading Turks in Armenia. Her Father had already fled to the U.S. when The Turks started enlisting every able bodied man into their army. It would be twelve years before the family would be reunited.

Roxie didn’t recognize her father on Ellis Island when she saw him, and the authorities would not release her to him until he brought his sister-in-law to accept responsibility for the young girl and her brother. Their mother had not been able to travel due to illness, and the youngest boy stayed with her.

The United States had established a “Near East Relief” organization in Istanbul where Roxie’s mother managed to take the children after four years in Russia. The organization worked to connect refugees with relatives in the U.S. Lists of refugees were posted in major cities. Roxie’s father never saw the list in New York, but his brother in Chicago saw it and contacted her father. Roxie and her oldest brother arrived in New York in March of 1921. She lived with her aunt and uncle until her mother finally arrived with her youngest son in June of that year. Roxie was shocked to see her mother embrace her father, whom she hardly knew.

Roxie spoke in a matter of fact way of amazing hardships and difficulties. She attributed her mother’s strength entirely to her faith in Christ. Her mother took the children to church wherever they were, even in Russia. From Armenia to Russia, to Istanbul, and finally to New York, the family survived to reunite. Roxie’s mother lived the scripture of Isaiah 12: Surely God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord Himself is my strength and my defense; He has become my salvation.

Love in Him,

Prue