J. Kevin Butcher's Blog

So Leigh Anne, my 25 year old daughter, calls me from Denver last Thursday night around 11:30 p.m. our time, driving back from a gathering with her friends – and she is sobbing because she is in so much pain.  She just had three teeth filled a day or two before and one of her teeth was hurting so badly she called the emergency, 24 hour dentist and was waiting for a call back…when she called me because, well, I guess she just wanted to talk to her dad.  Of course, your little girl is always your little girl, and I wanted to drive to DTW right that moment and get on an airplane to Denver and rescue her.  I felt so helpless.

So I started talking to God out loud, “My Father, you know I’m so confused about how prayer is supposed to work – but I love my little girl and I’m asking you to take away her pain or make it tolerable or intervene in some way because she is hurting and doesn’t know what to do and I don’t know what to do and you are her Father and my Father and you say you love us…so please, have mercy.  In Jesus’ name.”  Then I told Leigh Anne to call me when she got home or when the dentist called her because I was going to be staying up until she was ok.

Thirty minutes later I called her back.  Couldn’t wait.  And she said, “Dad, I can’t believe it but I think your prayer must have helped because the pain is almost gone.  So I’m going to bed and I’ll talk to you in the morning.”  And you know what my reaction was?  Surprise.  Which seems to indicate I wasn’t really expecting God to answer my prayer – at least not in the way I wanted.  And I’m telling you – that isn’t because I don’t have faith.  I believe.  I seriously believe.  I believe God has the power to do anything He chooses.  I think my lack of expectation comes from praying so many times for so many people in pain or with some kind of sickness…and their pain and sickness hasn’t gone away.  I’m thinking especially of a young mother of 5 kids with cancer that I prayed for back in the day – I mean the elders anointed her with oil James 5 style – and we begged and cajoled and wept over and over again asking God for His mercy…and instead of God healing her, she died months and months later after a long, protracted, painful battle – weighing about 65 pounds, imploring the Father to take her home.

Listen, I’m not judging God.  I’m not saying that He didn’t answer our prayers for this dear sister in some other, deeper, just as significant ways.  I’m not suggesting I am smarter than Him or that He failed or did something wrong.  And I’m certainly not implying that I can ever figure all of this out.  I’m simply overwhelmed by the mystery of it all.  I am absolutely convinced God answered this daddy’s prayer for his little girl last Thursday night late…and touched her and took away her pain.  He did exactly what I asked.  I am just as convinced that in His sovereignty, the Father said “No, son…I have other plans” when I asked Him to touch the beautiful, sweet cancer stricken mother of 5, and to leave her on the earth to love her husband and kids for a few more years.  I ain’t mad at Him.  And I’m not going to stop praying for anything and everything.  I’ve got to pray.  I can’t not pray.  But…I just don’t get it.  And it really bothers me…

This morning I received this email from Uganda, East Africa, and I want to share it with you exactly as it was sent to me.

“Praise the lord pastor Kevin its been long since i last heard from you,how are you doing,i cant forget you because you are part of my life ever since you came to Uganda and led me into prayer of salvation that changed my life i really do not know how life would be right now without  Christ in my heart.just know someone loves you in Uganda and prays for you and your ministry.

jessica.”

Needless to say, I was blown away.  I haven’t been to Uganda for 10-15 years.  I was there with a small team of men teaching “baseball” to a country of young people who had grown up with “cricket”.  We held “baseball clinics” at schools, in neighborhoods, in open fields, and virtually anywhere we could find an interested audience.  After each clinic we would share the good news of Jesus and His Kingdom – often in the hot sun, sitting in dust in a circle of 20-30 sweaty bodies, hungry stomachs and even hungrier hearts.  There was no big stadium event, no microphones or stage bands, no literature or free book to hand out, no slogans or tee-shirts – just the good news from Jesus’ own mouth:  “I have come to heal the broken-hearted and set the captive free.”  Many times – most of the time – we got into the car to go to the next clinic and weren’t sure if ANYTHING had happened in the lives of anyone. 

Today, Jessica reminded me that when the good news of Jesus is shared, it always lands.  Of course, not everyone believes the good news – but some do.  In fact, if the soil of an individual’s heart is ready, the seed of the good news will spring up into life almost immediately.  On the other hand, if the soil of a heart is hard – the good news will still land but may not take root right away – if ever.  But that isn’t for us to determine.  We don’t usually get to know if someone believes or not because, after all, sharing the good news is not like making a sale when the sales person always wants to walk away with a signed document, credit card number and promise of payment.  We’re not sales personnel.  We’re sons and daughters of a loving Father who are in love with a Savior named Jesus because He has rescued us from darkness and death.  We share the good news NOT to notch our belts or coerce a response or even to “get results”.  We share because we are overwhelmed by the love and joy and peace of our Father’s Kingdom – and His love compels us to love others enough to share how and where they, too, can find the same love and joy and peace. 

Thank you, dear Jessica, for taking the time to remind me this morning – all the way from Uganda – that when I share out of my heart about the One who loves us most…He does the rest.  Father, help me remember today that there are “Jessica’s” everywhere along my path – and they are all looking for You and your love – even if they don’t know it.  Give me freedom to share – at the right time – how much You love them through Jesus…trusting you to land your good news in the soft places of their hearts.  And Father, please give Jessica and the rest of us that same freedom.  Thank you for loving us so very, very much…through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There is something really, deeply sweet and powerful about watching brothers and sisters touch one another, serve one another, embrace and laugh and cry with one another…and in the process challenge, encourage and even…even heal one another.

This happens on such a regular basis in our fellowship – Hope Community Church – but I suspect I was more tuned in yesterday because I wasn’t preaching…and because yesterday was Mother’s Day and our gathering was led, orchestrated and carried out almost completely, almost exclusively by the sisters. 

And it was powerful.  My warrior sisters singing and worshipping and preaching and exhorting and blessing and serving all of us in Jesus’ name…oh so powerful.  Mattie meeting me at the door at 9:30, declaring “I’m here early because I’m greeting folks today!”  The choir – black and white and tall and short and old and young and soprano and alto and monotone [Rita said she can’t sing a note!], all swaying in unity with laughter and tears and hands raised and shouts of joy and beautiful harmony.  And the solos!  And Leenet, tearfully saying “I’m home.”

Then, Alberta getting choked up over a dear younger sister in Christ who is so sad she doesn’t know if she wants to live…and older Shirley and younger Hannah reading the Scripture with passion…and Phyllis calling us to lift our offerings with cheerful hearts to the Father…and the beautiful quartet of younger sisters taking the offering!…and Marlene and Bev giving gifts of honor and Pam sweetly, tenderly introducing her sister and friend, Rita…to preach the gospel.  And then Rita giving us the Word in her words, against the backdrop of the Ruth and Naomi story…preaching to us as if what she is saying could be the difference between life and death because she believes it to be so…and so do I.

And the brothers – Gerald, Joel and Joe – poetically, prophetically and tearfully blessing the women of Hope in behalf of all the brothers of Hope – with their thoughtful, heart-felt words of encouragement.  Their words felt not only encouraging…but healing…like they were a sort of oil poured into the gender divide that has been a wound in God’s people since Genesis 3.

And wow…who could not be moved by seeing well over one hundred sisters of all backgrounds and age groups and ethnicities standing, side by side, hand in hand while we all listened prayerfully to another daughter of God singing about “sisters walking together, in Jesus’ name.” 

Finally, of course, there were the countless embraces and conversations and prayers and encouragements and shout-outs that went on for the entire two or three hours we were in the building…and I suspect went on well into the afternoon.

 To be sure, I don’t know quite what to say about all of what I observed.  But it feels to me like yesterday  our community grew up a little bit in Jesus or at least I was able to see and feel some growing we might have been doing for quite some time.  It feels to me like we not only are able to more authentically celebrate the beauty and the differences of each daughter and son of God but we are also more able to celebrate the beauty and wonder of our unity in Jesus Christ.  And you know what?  It didn’t feel like anyone was trying too hard – it simply felt like the natural result of the one Holy Spirit washing over us and around us as individuals and as a community – because when we let Him, He always, always, always brings us together in ways we never dreamed possible.

Church on Easter is all about life and celebration, clapping and shouting, singing with joy and the echoing call of “He is risen indeed!”  It seems, if just for an hour or two, that death and sin have truly been beaten into submission and darkness has been driven back by the light and nothing can go wrong.  And best of all, for me personally and maybe for many others as well, Romans 6 seems absolutely true and imminent and even doable – “…just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life!  Our old self was crucified with Him…our bodies have been disarmed and cannot make us sin anymore – we are no longer slaves of sin!  The truth is, we have died with Christ so that now we really live with Him!” 

 And then there’s the day after Easter.  Carla and I are sad because our precious girls and Dusty have gone – back to their lives and distant from our lives once again – and we both begin to grieve in our own ways and then for God knows what reason I get triggered and want to control and one thing is said and then another and all of a sudden my “old self” shouts, “Do what you’ve always done because you are who you’ve always been!” and before you know it I am on my way to acting as if Jesus hasn’t died and hasn’t risen from the dead which means my old self hasn’t died and risen with Him and it is about to be business as usual as if Easter doesn’t mean jack…at least not to my real life.  The day after Easter…

 But really…what should I expect?  Satan is a liar.  He is like a lion that never sleeps – always prowling around, always seeking to devour and destroy us.  He knows what happened through the cross and empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ but he is NOT about to simply let me believe it without trying to lie to me…over and over and over…he is nothing if he isn’t relentless.  So, the day after Easter here he is in my house lying to me and telling me that there is no power and victory in Jesus’ death and resurrection and even if there is – it means nothing to me – that was Jesus and I am still only sinful, screwed up me.

 But here’s the good news.  I only believed his stinking lie for a moment.  An instant.  I started to go there.  The rage and anger which is the essence of the old me started to leak and then I heard my gut or really I think it was the Holy Spirit say to me, “Wait a minute.  You don’t have to do this.  The truth is you are dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus…chill yourself out in His name, turn around, go back in that room, sit down and pray with your best friend and watch Me work this thing out.  Give yourself to me, son.  Right now – all the emotion and everything else about you – offer your whole self to me and watch what I can do.”  Echoes of Paul in Romans 6 – “Reckon…present…reckon…present…reckon…present…”

 And so I did.  And by last night – the day after the day after Easter – Carla and I are back on track and yeah, we are still different people working out our stuff in our own way and our kids are still scattered across the United States and we still feel the sadness.  But in the power of the crucified and risen Jesus we have once again offered them up, along with ourselves, to our good God.  It feels a little like Easter again…

 Did you have a day after Easter?  Ain’t gonna preach but I’m just sayin’ – don’t stay there.  “Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord…and present yourselves to God as alive from the dead and your body as a weapon of righteousness to Him.”  Don’t wait.  Do it now.

 So, what if somehow, mysteriously, my body and spirit could be connected to or in union with or bound up with the body and spirit of an Olympic gymnast like Mary Lou Retton from back in the day?  Wouldn’t it make sense that if my person was mystically yet intimately linked to Mary Lou’s person that I would be able to do the same cartwheels and multiple backflips as Mary Lou and walk the balance beam and work the parallel bars just like Mary Lou?  In fact, wouldn’t I also be able to access and use as my own her thoughts and attitudes and passions?  And how about her connections and relationships and authority as an Olympic gold medal winner?  Wouldn’t they all be mine as well?

 So, what does it mean when Paul says, “we were buried with Jesus through baptism into His death so that just as Christ was raised from the dead…even so we also should walk in newness of life”?  Or when he says, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me”?  Or “our old self was crucified with Him that our flesh might be rendered powerless”?  Or “Christ in you, the hope of glory”?  Or “even when we were dead in sin God made us alive together with Christ and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”??  Or “For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God”??  Doesn’t it seem like he is talking about some kind of mystical union with Jesus that is so real that His thoughts and attitudes and passions are ours.  His power is our power.  His ability is our ability.  His destiny is our destiny.  And where He is, we are. 

 So, when I am tempted to act like a fool or my addiction is kicking in or I’m pissed and want to go off on somebody or my mind starts to race with lewd thoughts or I get overwhelmed with depressive thoughts…am I simply a victim, destined to captivity to my old patterns and vices and mess?  OR…am I connected in mystical union with the Lord Jesus Christ – so that if I bow my heart to Him…His power, His peace, His direction, His love, His freedom, His victory…immediately become my own?

I just want my Abba.  I want to see Him, to touch Him, to be with Him.  I really don’t think I will ever be fully complete, fully satisfied, fully home until I am with my Father.  I miss Him terribly.  I think about how secure I will feel in His presence and that if He will just hold me…if I can simply feel His arms around me and hear His heart beating as He pulls me close to His breast…if He will kiss me on the forehead and then whisper in my ear how much He loves me and how much He has missed me and how glad He is to be with me…then I will never want for anything, ever again.

That’s what I feel and think about almost every day, almost all the time – but this morning that feeling is stronger than ever.  I’m re-reading the picture that Jesus gives us of the Father – his Father – in Luke 15; a Father who forgives us no matter how many times we have disrespected Him and no matter how many trips we have made to the far country to waste every gift He has ever given us on everything that doesn’t matter.  He misses us terribly when we are gone and paces the floor waiting for us to come to our senses and realize that our destiny is to be with Him – and when He sees us begin to turn toward home, He runs with reckless abandon toward us and meets us on the road and engulfs us with His arms and kisses and gifts – before we even have a chance to say a word about being sorry or how things will be different this time.  

This is the Father that Jesus calls “Abba” – Daddy – when he faces his dark night in Gethsemane’s garden and this is the Father that Paul, the murdering Pharisee says that he calls Abba and that I can call Abba because He has adopted us into His family and now calls us both of us His sons.   And my gut aches today because living on earth in time and space feels like a far country – and I’m running as fast as I can to get home – and I can see my Abba on the horizon running toward me – but it seems like I’m in a Hallmark card and the slow motion is killing me and I just want it to go faster so I can finally reach Him and He can fall on my neck and I can fall in His arms and then we’ll be together forever and ever and ever.  Abba, I miss you!  I can’t wait to see you face to face!  Please draw near to me today.  Please.  Thanks for being my Father.  Thanks…from the bottom of the depths of my heart.

 I was in Uruguay, South America last week so I didn’t write.  Abel, Gary and I spent all our time with people.  And there is one image I can’t get out of my mind.  Picture the front of the sanctuary of the little Sinai Church of God on the outskirts of Montivideo.  The floor is covered with Uruguayans and a few Americans – male and female, old and young, students and seniors, working class folks and poor folks and middle class folks.  Some are standing, many kneeling; a few are on their faces.  All are weeping, crying out to God from a deep, tender, wounded place deep inside – a hidden place that houses hidden things, hidden secrets they have been too afraid to share with themselves, with others…and even with God.

 Ironically, when we walked into the church courtyard that evening, we were greeted with smiles and hugs and kisses and a welcome that is so typical of the brothers and sisters at Sinai.  Everyone looked just fine.  Everyone seemed more than ok.  The singing was joyful and wonderfully raucous, interspersed with shouts of “Alleluia, Dios” and the sanctuary was alive with the movement of praise – jumping and waving and clapping!  All of this was genuine.  It was authentic – an important piece of the reality of the believers at Sinai Church of God in Montivideo, Uruguay on Wednesday night, March 30^th, 2011.

 But there was more.  There were some hidden things.  In II Corinthians 4:2, Paul calls them “the hidden things of shame.”  They are the behaviors, the attitudes and the wounds that we all – yeah, all of us – tend to keep in the dark because we’re so afraid.  We’re afraid of being exposed, rejected…shamed.  We’re afraid of being misunderstood and unloved – even by our God, our Abba.  Everyone will accept me if I smile and hug and shout and praise – but will they love me if they know my real story?  Will I be embraced if people know I smoke weed or that sometimes I don’t think I believe in God anymore or that I live in paralyzing fear of dying or that I wrestle with same sex attraction or that I had an abortion when I was 16 or that I envy and covet my closest friend’s house and money and sometimes his wife or that I hate the guy I work next to so much I daydream about killing him or that sometimes I hate myself and that almost never do I live out who I really, truly am or say what I really, truly think because I am so deeply and profoundly afraid that what little “acceptance and love” I seem to have…will all quietly and quickly go away…if I share my hidden things.

 That night at Sinai, I didn’t just watch – I embraced and hugged and kissed and prayed with and cried with my brothers and sisters and literally felt in my own body and spirit the tears and snot and sweat and sobs and heat of years of secrets, of hidden burdens and hidden pain being poured out like a flood into the light.  And just like John said – it’s really true – “The darkness could not, cannot overcome the light.”  How do you put into words the experience of finally, finally, finally bringing even the darkest parts of your real self out into the brightness – and then instead of the dreaded shame and rejection – feeling the unconditional acceptance and overwhelming love of your Abba Father and your brothers and sisters in Jesus?  I don’t know the best way to describe the different kind of smile, the different kind of hug, the different kind of tears that got up off that church sanctuary floor and waltzed out into the Uruguayan night.  But I can tell you this – it looked and felt like freedom.   

 So, today I’m on a retreat with some brothers on the west side of Michigan – and I’ve got some stuff because there’s always stuff – and by the way, it’s always trying to hide.  And so, you know what?  I’ve already poured it out to the Lord.  And it was amazing – even in the middle of talking to Him about the hidden junk that had been weighing on me all last night and this morning – I began to smile the deep smile of freedom.  And I felt Him smile by my side.  And this afternoon, even though I’m a little afraid, I’m bringing my hidden stuff into the light with my brothers.  “Confess your hidden stuff to one another so that you may be healed.”  Yep, that’s what I’m going to do, in the name of Jesus, who is The Light.  And in love, I’m going to encourage you to do the same.  Don’t be afraid.  Do it.  Just do it.  I promise you, it’ll be alright…because the darkness – even my darkness and your darkness – could not, cannot overcome the light.

I’m still coming out of a funk.  Sometimes the way out is long and steep.  On Monday, I opened “the love letter” to see what my Abba had to say about life and turned to the Sermon on the Mount.  That’s where I always go when I’m not sure where else to read because Jesus says so much deep stuff in those 3 chapters.  For some reason I landed on a two-verse section of Matthew 6 that has always been cryptic and confusing to me – so I usually skip over it and focus on the two profound sections around it about “laying up treasure in heaven” and “no one can serve two masters”.  But not on Monday.  Instead, this time I found myself glued to Jesus’ words in vv. 22-23:

“The lamp of the body is the eye.  If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” 

And all of a sudden – Jesus was talking about the darkness inside me and I knew at least one reason why the darkness had been so great – my eyes.  I’m not talking about 20-20 vision and I’m also not saying that when Jesus talks about “good eyes” and “bad eyes” He meant that eyes could be moral or immoral.  I think what Jesus meant was that the way we see the world around us – our circumstances, relationships, situations, people, conversations, events – determines what we internalize in our spirits.  Jesus was cautioning that our eyes serve as a filter to interpret our existence and if our eyes see, for example, through the lens of greed – then everything and everyone around us will be viewed as an opportunity to get more stuff.  And that seems to be the main “lens” on Jesus’ mind in this section of Matthew 6.  But I think Jesus knew that the application of this truth about eyes is far more universal.

So, if our eyes see through the lens of anger, then everything and everyone around us will make us mad.  And if our eyes see through the lens of lust, then everything and everyone around us will be about sex.  And if our eyes see through the lens of getting high, then everything and everyone around us will be about the next fix.  And if our eyes see through the lens of marriage or singleness then everything and everyone around us will be about getting married or a better marriage or how great it was when we were single.  And if our eyes see through the lens of achievement, then everything and everyone around us will be about an opportunity to advance.  And if our eyes see through the lens of shame, then everything and everyone around us will seem better than us or worse than us and everything that is said and done will somehow seem to reflect poorly on us.  And if our eyes see through the lens of pain and sadness, then everything and everyone around us will seem so overwhelmingly and hopelessly hurt and wounded.  “And how great is that darkness…”

Father, I don’t really know how to change my eyes.   But I am on my knees this morning, asking you by faith to change the way I see.  Please, Abba, help me see the world around me – every relationship and experience and circumstance – with and through Your eyes.  I ask you this in the name of Your Son, my Savior and Lord, Jesus of Nazareth.  Amen.

It’s been one of those days.  I’m feeling lots of stuff – like how tough it is to be alive on the planet.  The loneliness…personal [I want to talk to somebody but who?] and existential [Is anyone home out there in the universe?].  The uncertainty of faith.  I mean, I believe in Him.  Oh, I believe in Him.  But I’ve never seen Him.  I’ve never touched Him.  [Even John the Baptist asked, “Are you the One or is there another?”]  The pain…in my life, in the lives of others.  Some days the pain almost chokes me, almost drowns me, seems to poison me.  The fear, the anxiety of what tomorrow might bring and can I handle it?  Especially if something happens to one of my kids.  And what if I get to the end of my life and realize I didn’t really “get the job done” – whatever the job was supposed to be?  Yeah.  It really has been one of those days.

Most who have been with me today or casually talked to me on the phone or served me at the coffee shop wouldn’t know.  I’m functional.  Still considerate and nice and thoughtful of others and interested in hearing your story.  You wouldn’t know anything is going on…unless you could read my mind or caught a glimpse of me leaking my feelings on my computer through gritted teeth or listened through the door of my car as I shared with a brother pastor or the door of my office as I shared with another friend – once or twice my eyes even filling up with tears.  You wouldn’t be able to easily know that today had been one of those deep, questioning, melancholy, sort of almost hopeless days…and it makes me think that maybe many if not most of the people I walk by each day might also be having one of those days and that maybe once in a while I ought to stop them and simply ask them, “Hey, how are you doing…really?”  And that maybe I might want to be ready for them to give me a real answer – even if it is an answer full of questions and loneliness and uncertainty and pain and fear.

But one more thing I am really aware of today – and the word picture of this “thing” comes from a movie I watched this week about Edith Stein – a Jewish philosopher and educator who converted to Christianity sometime in the 1920’s – and then became a Carmelite nun and was eventually murdered at Auschwitz for her Jewishness and for her faith in Jesus.  When she was describing her conversion from Judaism to Christianity to her deeply devout mother who had simply asked, “Edith, why?”, she said something like this:  “Mother, I went looking for love…and I found it in Jesus.”

The “one more thing” that I want to say about today is that beneath all of the confusion of my inner world…there is still – almost beyond feelings and almost beyond the issues of doubt and faith – this absolute reality:  the love of Jesus.  I can’t explain it.  It is beyond emotion and sentiment.  It is beyond intellect and doctrine.  It is far beyond mood and endorphins and circumstance.  Beneath the abyss of my confused and empty psyche – this day – stands Jesus of Nazareth…with His love…for even me. 

And that’s about all I have to say about today.

It was last Saturday night and I was speaking at a men’s retreat.  The evening session had been over for about an hour – the guys were writing “psalms of lament” – and one of the brothers came to me to talk over his lament and to then talk to the Lord together.  We were just getting ready to pray and I was picking up the Bible to focus for a minute on the passage in the gospels where Jesus says, “Don’t worry about your life…the Father sees you and knows you and loves you.  And He takes care of the birds doesn’t He?  Not even one of them is forgotten before Him.  Are you not of more value than they?”

And then I got the text from Carla:  “Don’t panic.  Andrea’s been in a wreck.  She seems to be alright.  I think the baby is alright.  I’ll let you know when I know.”  I looked up at my friend Fred who I was just starting to pray with – and he put his arm around my shoulder and started to pray with me.  Fred said, “Lord, we got us a situation…”  And he prayed and we prayed for my 27 year old daughter and my little baby granddaughter who is about 8 inches long in her body – big enough already to move and kick and let her mommy know she is alive.  And I realized in an instant that I had no choice but to put my life and Andrea’s life and my granddaughter’s life in the Father’s hands.  Either Jesus was telling the truth that the Father sees and knows and never forgets any of us…ever…or we were truly screwed.

I found out later that Andrea hit some black ice on I-94 between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and spun out and hit a cement median and then the car did a couple 360’s and ended up facing the wrong way in traffic.  How she didn’t get broadsided by an oncoming car or two or three – I do not know – except that the Father didn’t forget her.  And how the airbag didn’t explode and crash into her 5 ½ month along belly and wound her baby girl – I’ll never know – except that the Father sees and knows and didn’t forget her – and also didn’t forget that little sweetheart in her womb that some folks say isn’t a living being until birth.  And how she got her car to the side of the road – Andrea doesn’t remember driving it there – I’ll never know except that the Father was taking care of her and in His grace chose to intervene because Andrea and that little baby girl are both of infinite value to Him.

Now I know that there are wonderful human beings, even strong and faithful followers of Jesus, who in the same kind of situation – for whatever reason – the Father chooses to take home to eternity.  I’m thinking of the horrible wreck on I-69 in Indiana of a few years back where several Taylor University students and a Taylor staff person were killed instantly and went to be with the Father.  That’s what Paul says, “To be absent from the body is to be immediately present with the Lord.”  And Jesus said it too – to the thief on the cross – “Today you will be with me in paradise.”  And I don’t believe for a minute that this truth about the Father seeing and knowing and not forgetting one of us is any different for those folks – He simply had a different path for them – a path I can’t know or understand or figure out because it isn’t my job.  But ultimately, the bottom line is – we trust that no matter what, whether we are the 3 children of Israel in 6^th century B.C. Babylon on the threshold of the fiery furnace or David in 10^th century Israel in the cave pursued by Saul or Jesus of Nazareth on a 1^st century Roman cross or Andrea and baby Disanto on a snow-covered I-94 in Michigan, USA in March of 2011 – that the Father sees and knows and has not forgotten and that each of us are of immeasurable value to Him.  That He has us in the palms of His powerful hands.  That He has a plan.  That His love and grace trumps all.

I’m reminded of the words of my favorite love song:  “How much do I love you?  I’ll tell you no lie…how deep is the ocean, how high is the sky?  How many times a day do I think of you…how many roses are sprinkled with dew?  How far would I travel to be where you are…how far is the journey from here to a star…and if I ever lost you, how much would I cry?  How deep is the ocean…how high is the sky…”

We could have so easily lost her.  Thank you, Father, for seeing and knowing and loving and on March 5^th, 2011, on a snowy night in Michigan…sparing my precious daughter’s life.