Mother Teresa: The Path Of Love

http://home.comcast.net/~motherteresasite/stories.html

 

Excerpts from her Life:

Remember the Small Things..

Some of my sisters work in Australia.

On a reservation, among the Aborigines, there was an elderly man.  I can assure you that you have never seen a situation as difficult as that poor old man's.  He was completely ignored by everyone.  His home was disordered and dirty.

I told him, "Please, let me clean your house, wash your clothes, and make your bed."

He answered, "I'm okay like this. Let it be."

I said again, "You will be still better if you allow me to do it."

He finally agreed. So I was able to clean his house and wash his clothes. 

  I discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust. Only God knows how many years had passed since he last lit it.I said to him,

 "Don't you light your lamp? Don't you ever use it?"

He answered, "No. No one comes to see me.  I have no need to light it.  Who would I light it for?"

I asked, "Would you light it every night if the sisters came?"

He replied, "Of course."

From that day on the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening. 

 We cleaned the lamp, and the sisters would light it every evening.

Two years passed. I had completely forgotten that man. 

 He sent this message: "Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still."

I thought it was a very small thing. We often neglect small things.

To Die Like an Angel

One evening we went out and rescued four people off the streets.

 One of them was in a desperate condition.

 I told the sisters, "You take care of the others. I will care for this one who is worse off."

 I did everything for her that my love could do. I put her into bed, and I saw a beautiful smile light up her face. She squeezed my hand and only managed to say two words, "Thank you."

And then she closed her eyes.

I couldn't help but ask myself there beside her body, "What would I have said if I had been in her place?"

My answer was very simple. I would have said that I was hungry, that I was dying, that I was cold. Or I would have said that this or that part of my body hurt or something like that. 

 But she gave me much more.  She gave me her grateful love. 

 And she died with a smile on her face.

Abandonment Is an Awful Poverty

One day I visited a house where our sisters shelter the aged. 

This is one of the nicest houses in England, filled with beautiful and precious things, yet there was not one smile on the faces of these people. All of them were looking toward the door.

I asked the sister in charge, "Why are they like that? Why can't you see a smile on their faces?"

(I am accustomed to seeing smiles on people's faces.  I think a smile generates a smile, just as love generates love.)

The sister answered,

"The same thing happens every day. They are always waiting for someone to come and visit them.  Loneliness eats them up, and day after day they do not stop looking.  Nobody comes."

Abandonment is an awful poverty. There are poor people everywhere, but the deepest poverty is not being loved.

The poor we seek may live near us or far away.

They can be materially or spiritually poor. They may be hungry for bread or hungry for friendship.  They may need clothing, or they may need the sense of wealth that God's love for them represents. 

They may need the shelter of a house made of bricks and cement or the shelter of having a place in our hearts.

Read more here...

The Smell of Rain

 

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the Doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing.

Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. That afternoon of March 10,1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24 weeks pregnant, to Danae Lu Blessing.

At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature.

Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. I don't think she's going to make it, he said, as kindly as he could.

"There's only a 10 percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one."

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.

"No! No!" was all Diana could say.

She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away. 

Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live, and live to be a healthy, happy young girl.

But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable.

David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements.

 Diana remembers,

'I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen. I said, "No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don't care what the doctors say; Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!"

As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure.

 But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana.

 Because Danae's under-developed nervous system was essentially raw, the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love.

All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger.

 But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there.

At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time.

 And two months later-though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero. Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.

Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life.

She shows no signs, what so ever, of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more-but that happy ending is far from the end of her story. 

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ballpark where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing.

 As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked,

"Do you smell that?"

Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied,

 "Yes, it smells like rain."

Danae closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?" Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet, it smells like rain. Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced,

 "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children.

 Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.

During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

Regards,
Samuel Machado

God's Blessing of Brokenness-By Charles Stanley

READ Exodus 2:11-15

The Lord had a great calling in mind for Moses—to free more than 2,000,000 Hebrew slaves from Egyptian bondage. And the future liberator seemed more qualified for the task than anyone else. As Pharaoh's adopted grandson, he had all the benefits of royal privilege, power, and education. But God knew this wasn't enough. Moses still had a strong spirit of independence that would get in the way of carrying out the assignment through divine power. The Lord had to break this tendency before He could work through His chosen servant. The opportunity arose when Moses killed an Egyptian for beating a slave (Ex. 2:11-12).Realizing the crime had been witnessed, he fled to the desert to escape Pharaoh's wrath. It was there that he came to the end of himself.


Like Moses, we're all born with a tendency toward selfishness and stubbornness and want things done our way. Therefore, God must bring every area of our lives into submission. Few will be given a task on the scale of Moses', but the Father has a calling for each believer. Whether His plan is that we raise a godly family, reach out to a neighbor, or run a business with integrity and consideration, He wants us to do so in His power. To prepare us for this work, He sometimes uses brokenness. This wouldn't be our chosen method, but God knows that hardship is sometimes necessary to strip us of our selfish ways.


Do you want to achieve what the Lord has planned for you to do? In humility, ask Him to break any aspect of your life that would prevent it from happening.

The Priority of Obedience- By Charles Stanley

Read John 14:23-26

The Creator gave two commands to Adam and Eve—first, to fill the earth and rule over it, and second, not to eat from a certain tree in the Garden (Gen. 1:28; 2:17). Because they chose to disobey, their relationship with God was broken, and they had to leave Eden.

The first couple’s rebellion not only impacted their own lives but also had far broader implications: all future generations have suffered. In Romans 5:12-19, the apostle Paul explained the reason. Through the trespass of one man, Adam, sin made its entrance into the world, and death resulted for all mankind. Because Adam was head of the human race, his actions affected everyone born after him. His disobedience resulted in each of us having a bent away from the Lord and a desire for self-rule.

By contrast, Jesus made conformity to the Lord’s will the priority of His life. He obeyed God in both word and deed (John 8:28-29). Having lived a perfect life—one entirely without sin—He qualified to be our Savior (2 Cor. 5:21). Through the death of one man, Christ Jesus, payment was made for the transgressions of all mankind. God’s acceptance of the Son’s sacrifice brought us forgiveness and freedom from sin’s power.

Adam’s disobedience brought judgment and death upon us, whereas Jesus’ obedience resulted in new life for all who believe in Him (Rom. 6:4). Our Savior calls us to deny selfish desires, live sacrificially, and follow Him (Matt. 16:24). A godly life will bring Jesus honor and influence others for Him.

"Why does God require Faith?

 "Why doesn't God "prove" Himself to us so there is no need for faith?"

Our relationship with God is similar to our relationship with others in that all relationships require faith.

 We can never fully know any other person. We cannot experience all they experience nor enter into their minds to know what their thoughts and emotions are.

Proverbs 14:10 says,

"The heart knows its own bitterness, and a stranger does not share its joy."

We are incapable of even knowing our own hearts fully. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the human heart is wicked and deceptive, "Who can know it?" In other words, the human heart is such that it seeks to hide the depth of its wickedness, deceiving even its owner.

We do this through shifting blame, justifying wrong behaviour, minimizing our sins, etc.

Because we are incapable of fully knowing other people, to some degree faith (trust) is an integral ingredient in all relationships.

 

For example, a wife gets into a car with her husband driving, trusting him to drive safely, even though he often drives faster than she would on winter roads. She trusts him to act in their best interest at all times.

 We all share information about ourselves with others, trusting they will not betray us with that knowledge.

 We drive down the road, trusting those driving around us to follow the rules of the road. So, whether with strangers or with intimate friends and companions, because we cannot fully know others, trust is always a necessary component of our relationships.

If we cannot know our fellow finite human beings fully, how can we expect to fully know an infinite God?

Even if He should desire to fully reveal Himself, it is impossible for us to fully know Him.

 It is like trying to pour the ocean (seemingly infinite in quantity) into a quart-measuring jar (finite)... impossible!

Nonetheless, even as we can have meaningful relationships with others that we have grown to trust because of our knowledge of them and of their character, so God has revealed enough about Himself through His creation(Romans 1:18-21), through His written Word, the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21), and through His Son(John 14:9), that we can enter into a meaningful relationship with Him.

But this is only possible when the barrier of one's sin has been removed by trusting in Christ's person and work on the cross as payment for one's sin.

This is necessary because, as it is impossible for both light and darkness to dwell together, so it is impossible for a holy God to have fellowship with sinful man unless his sin has been paid for and removed.

Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, died on the cross to take our punishment and change us so that the one who believes on Him can become a child of God and live eternally in His presence (John 1:12; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 2 Peter 3:18; Romans 3:10-26).

There have been times in the past that God has revealed Himself more "visibly" to people.

 One example of this is at the time of the exodus from Egypt, when God revealed His care for the Israelites by sending the miraculous plagues upon the Egyptians until they were willing to release the Israelites from slavery. God then opened the Red Sea, enabling the approximately two million Israelites to cross over on dry ground. Then, as the Egyptian army sought to pursue them through the same opening, He crashed the waters upon them (Exodus 14:22-29). Later, in the wilderness, God fed them miraculously with manna, and He guided them in the day by a pillar of cloud and in the night by a pillar of fire, visible representations of His presence with them (Exodus 15:14-15).

Yet, in spite of these repeated demonstrations of His love, guidance, and power, the Israelites still refused to trust Him when He wanted them to enter into the Promised Land.

They chose instead to trust the word of ten men who frightened them with their stories of the walled cities and the giant stature of some of the people of the land (Numbers 13:26-33).

These events show that God's further revelation of Himself to us would have no greater effect on our ability to trust Him.

Were God to interact in a similar fashion with people living today, we would respond no differently than the Israelites because our sinful hearts are the same as theirs.

The Bible also speaks of a future time when the glorified Christ will return to rule the earth from Jerusalem for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-10). More people will be born on the earth during that reign of Christ.

 He will rule with complete justice and righteousness, yet, in spite of His perfect rule, the Bible states that at the end of the 1,000 years, Satan will have no trouble raising an army to rebel against Christ's rule.

 The future event of the millennium and the past event of the exodus reveal that the problem is not with God insufficiently revealing Himself to man; rather, the problem is with man's sinful heart rebelling against God's loving reign.

We sinfully crave self-rule.

God has revealed enough of His nature for us to be able to trust Him.

 He has shown through the events of history, in the workings of nature, and through the life of Jesus Christ that He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise, all-loving, all-holy, unchanging, and eternal.

And in that revelation, He has shown that He is worthy to be trusted.

 But, as with the Israelites in the wilderness, the choice is ours whether or not we will trust Him.

Often, we are inclined to make this choice based on what we think we know about God rather than what He has revealed about Himself and can be understood about Him through a careful study of His inerrant Word, the Bible.

 If you have not already done so, begin a careful study of the Bible, that you may come to know God through a reliance upon His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth to save us from our sins, so that we might have sweet companionship with God both now and in a fuller way in heaven one day.

Empowered for a Purpose

Isaiah 6:8

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
   And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Understand two things.

 First, that borrowed beliefs have no power.

You must have a personal encounter with God or your life will have no impact.

After they'd been filled with the Holy Spirit, we read,  'The apostles testified powerfully...and God's great blessing was upon them all.' (Acts 4:33 NLT)

 Secondly, that unused power has no value.

 Isaiah writes,

'The posts of the door were shaken...and the house was filled with smoke.' (Isaiah 6:4 NKJV)

What a mind-blowing experience to have in church! But Isaiah had to leave, go out and perform God's purposes.

 'I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send?...

Then I said, Here am I! Send me.

And He said, Go, and tell this people.' (Isaiah 6:8-9 NKJV)

 You must spend time in God's presence building a relationship with Him, then carry His Word to those hurting around you.

 When Jesus took His disciples up the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter got so caught up in the experience that he wanted to stay there. '...Lord, it is good for us to be here...' (Matthew 17:4 NIV)

 But Christ explained that His power is not for storing, but sharing.

 Paul wrote,

 'I will not...speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me...' (Romans 15:18 NIV)

 Paul didn't glory in what Christ had done for him, but through him.

God has only one reason for filling you with His Spirit, and that's to pour you out in service to others.

Jesus said,

 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach...[and] heal the broken hearted...' (Luke 4:18 NKJV)

You have been empowered for a purpose! 

Are you ready?

Regards,

Samuel Machado

Rhema Marvanne - Hallelujah