Saturday, October 5, 2013


Greetings from Austin Street

Happy Saturday! Fall came in today!  Jeans, boots, socks and long sleeved flannel type shirt with TCU logos were the order of the day. The dogs even seemed to have a bit more energy as they romped and played throughout the day. Of course they are totally passed out around my desk right now. I have spent the majority of the day working on my exegesis paper due on Tuesday. Expect for a couple of errands Bruce has rested most of the day. He was so exhausted last night.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows they mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”

Romans 8: 2-27

I have spent the majority of the day working on a paper on the story from the Gospel of Mart about the woman with the 12 year issue with blood. It is “sandwiched” between both halves of the story of the dying daughter of Jairus. As I read this passage thought how both of these women were transformed by Jesus. Both were bound and not allowed to be free. The young girl was dying, of what we do not know and the elder woman was bleeding to death. Can you imagine the groans of these two women and the father of the young girl? The physical pain they must have endured. The emotional pain of separation they experienced because of their impurities. And the prayers they must have prayed. But by faith and prayer both of these women were healed. The young woman was transformed from physical death and back among the living. The elder woman was healed and restored back to her township community and her religious community. The best part of all in these stories is that Jesus called them daughter. The younger woman was already a daughter to her father Jairus and now to Jesus and because scholars do not believe that the elder woman was not associated with any man, Jesus called her “daughter” in front of the crowd that was pressed around Him. Jesus claimed her as his child and thus restoring her to her local society as her kinsman. When Jesus healed her, he healed her completely restoring her body, her spirit and her community.

Have we prayed with groans that words cannot express? Have we been so weak we do not know what to pray and can only whisper the name of Jesus? “When there’s nothing left to do but just depend on You and the power of your name.”  God lives in the depths of our spirit and knows us better than we know ourselves.  Let us call on the Holy Spirit already living in us and collaborate with God and have an ever closer relationship with the One who transforms and restores us by His never ending unfailing love.  Take joy in the journey. Wear comfortable shoes and get some sleep. Love you all, Bruce and Gaylene

 

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