End of the Story

Today's Link
The Cookie Jar

Today's Saying
Faith can move mountains, but don't be surprised if God hands you a shovel. ~Author Unknown

Today's Picture
Our first rose of the year

James had gone from a highly successful Pastor in Chile to a drunk on the streets of Chicago. He had watched as Christians betrayed Christians and had decided there was no God. When his pastor friends managed to find him he would insult and laugh at them driving them away. He was a alone and wanted to be alone. In the next few years he got what jobs he could to get drinking money. He spent time in various shelters. It gets cold on the streets of Chicago. His health began to fail and from time to time he end up in emergency rooms where they madfe him well enough to go back on the street. It was not a great time or a great life.
In the summer when he had no money to drink he would sometimes go to a little park and sit and look at the flowers and the rabbits and squirrels. Sometimes, when the police didn’t come by , he slept on that park bench.
One day a man came and sat beside him. He didn’t say anything he just sat there. Two days later he was back. Again he sat next to Jim. Jim asked if he wanted anything. The man said no . He just didn’t want to sit alone. The third time James decided to tell the man his story. The man listened but said nothing. He didn’t say “ Your wrong there is a God”. He didn’t say “ How could you do that?” He just nodded at the right times and that was that. A few days later the man came back . He told James a story. In the early Church there came a day when the Emperor demanded that everybody acknowledge him as God. If you failed to do so the penalty was death. Out of that period came some of the great martyrs of the Church. They refused to sign the oath. They refused to name other Christians . They died a martyr’s death. We celebrate them to this day. But what we forget is there were priests and even some Bishops that signed the oath. Even some that turned in other Christians. Did God fail? Or was He there in the martyrs working to save his people? The Church is still here is one answer. The Church is still there in Chile . God has not turned his back on his people even when they turn their back on Him.
James thought about that for several days. Then his new friend invited him to an evening Mass. That’s when he discovered his new friend was a Priest. A man whose mission was to the down and out in Chicago. Sometime during this period he stepped over the line and began to believe again. Though the priest says he never stopped believing he was just angry with God and was punishing Him in the only way he knew how, by withholding belief.
James died soon after that. His time on the street had been too hard on Him. But he died in the arms of the God he had always really loved.
He went home.
This story of James was hard for me to write because it’s true, James or Sav as we called him was one of my best friends in my High School youth group. He was far braver than me. I envied that. He could speak Finnish I envied that. When he got the Baptism in the Holy Spirit I envied that. And when he went to Finland to study I really envied that. I was one of the pastors that pressured the Synod President to get him called to the mission field.
I rejoiced when he went. I really envied him because I once wanted to be a missionary but God had other plans for me. I envied him when I learned how well his ministry was going since my congregation was not growing but just holding its own. I cried when I heard that he had lost the faith and why. It made no sense to me. I had coffee with him when he was working on his PhD. He dared me to convince him there was a God. I failed. I cried again when I heard he had cut all ties and was now a drunk in Chicago, I stood at graveside with some other pastors who were also friends of Sav and we listened to a Priest tell us of a faith never lost but hidden in pain. I felt the presence of the loving God that had called him home and I envied him one more time.
So I felt a need to tell his story. If he had died in the government purge his story would be told. If he had been a martyr his story would have been told. But he did what martyrs do until he was ordered out of the country. He saved people who would have been killed without regard to his own life. If the government had caught and killed him he would have been a hero of the faith. To me he is still a hero, a wounded hero , a broken hero, but a hero nevertheless .

News from Pigeon Falls

The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal
Tammy and Tommy UK landed with a thump in the bottom of the trench behind the town hall which was instantly flooded with light as Eino’s equipment came on. They were greeted by a screaming Willie who was shouting “ I promise not to drink any more. I promise. Don’t let the ghosts get me.” as he ran off toward his house. Climbing out of the trench they discovered that the town clock said it was two in the morning. They figured they had been gone for four hours or so. The question now was how would they explain this to their parents. They were going to end up being grounded for life or at least they thought they were.
They quickly decided that Tommy would use his ring to transport them to Tammy’s house and then after they tried to explain to her parents why they were so late getting back from the picnic he would go home and try to explain to his parents.
Tammy’s father opened the door and through his arms around his daughter. “ We thought the spider ate you/” he said “ The whole town has been looking for you. Where have you been for four days?
“Four days?”, Tommy and Tammy said together “ It couldn’t have been four days.“

Wrap UP

It was a good day. Betty and I did a story together which we will post tomorrow. We are still married but she kept crushing my story line and I hers. I wonder if either of our stories would have been better than what we ended up with. Still it was fun. Then we went shopping. We went to two stores and in each store I was ready to leave long before her. A clerk saw me sitting on my scooter staring into space and asked if she could help me . I said only of she has something to speed up a wife. When we came home I visited all the blogs that left comments yesterday. Now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

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