Blessed Sunday to you all! I hope the worship in which you participated this morning was as wonderful as ours. Advent’s theme this Lenten season is on becoming a House of Prayer. Today, our service was centered on healing and prayer, which we need as our church has lost four members to cancer within the last year. All of those names were a part of the message today. It was a very emotional service in the shadow of losing our friend Robert Brooks in the past days and being reminded of our own son’s recent death. It was such a loving service.

When someone asks me how I am doing I usually respond with this sentence, “We will never get over the loss of Casey. There is a 200 pound hole in my heart that is still wide open and aches on a regular basis. But I think I finally figured out how people get through this kind of hurt. We get through it because of God’s love for us. His love, manifested in Jesus and given to us, the body of Christ, God’s people, in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit is how we get through this. The Body of Christ became, and still is, grace in action in our friends and family for the folks who live at 811 Austin St.

I don’t think I buy that old saying that “everything happens for a reason.” I do, however, think that God uses the events that happen in our lives as possibilities for Him to work His will. It also gives us the opportunity to choose to listen to His prompting to lead us where He wants us to go. Our church became the body of Christ by listening to God and meeting the needs of several families going through the worst hurts people can endure. Our church became the body of Christ on their knees. They knelt at the highest place; at the feet of the Father and begged for the healing of their friends and our family members. Their prayers may not have been answered in the manner in which they would have liked, but they were answered. Paul Scott, Casey, Gretchen Ryason and now Robert Brooks did not get well on this earth, but they were healed.

And we, their families, will be healed too. We will be healed in the same way. We will continue to pray and the Body of Christ will continue to pray and healing will happen in our lives. Remember the power of prayer does not lie in the one who prays, but in the One who receives the prayer. God loves it when we pray. When we pray, we are telling God we cannot do this alone. When we pray we are beginning to develop that heart of surrender; allowing God to take the lead and truly be Lord of our lives.

James 5: 13-16 says, “Anyone who is having troubles should pray. Anyone who is happy should sing praises. (14) Anyone who is sick should call the church’s elders . They should pray for and pour oil on the person in the name of the Lord. (15) And the prayer that is said with faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will heal that person. And if the person has sinned, the sins will be forgiven. (16) Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so God can heal you. When a believing person prays great things happen.”

The hardest prayer I ever prayed was for God to be merciful to Casey. God answered our payer and Casey never did get well, but he was most certainly healed. And I feel certain that Casey’s journey was one of joy.

Take joy in the journey my friends. Love you all, Bruce, Gaylene, Geni and Travis.

Gcapplenotes@aol.com

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe and I believe God.