understanding – Page 219 – Broken Believers

Mannequin Logic

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:22

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:4-5

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins.

Colossians 2:13

Mannequins have always have had a odd effect on me– somewhat similar to clowns (which really make me uneasy.) I also had a small artist’s mannequin–it was flexible and the theory was you could pose it. And of course there is the story of Pinocchio, a puppet who became a boy (I wonder if he regarded “toothpicks” as his cousins? LOL)

The Bible uses this imagery to explain exactly what happens when we first believe. His Spirit works on us, or in us, to bring us back to life. Talking with any sincere Christian and they’ll describe their repentance/conversion using a remarkable metaphor–resurrection of the dead! Now that is dramatic.

We the “cast-off” mannequins have suddenly come to life. We understand things from a revolutionary new way. Jesus has worked and crafted his new children and brought them to life. The Holy Spirit has done something so radical that it defies any explanation except through the Word.

Life is so very different now. I see it through new eyes. I am no longer seeking to be energized by drugs, alcohol or a selfish lifestyle. The emptiness of that past life no longer disturbs me.

I still have problems. There are difficult issues of depression and BP that challenge me. Somedays I can’t get out of bed and life is hopeless. Meds help me work through this black mood. I pray and worship and I am lifted up from my dark pit. Friends who understand are a blessing.

But this wonderfully radical truth of coming to life is by far-and-away the most awesome thing that has ever happened to me. I was like that mannequin in the mall, vacant and empty. Not alive. But Jesus touched me, and now I live.

“It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”

Romans 8:11-12, The Message

Mannequin logic can only be understood when the Holy Spirit moves in!

The Importance Of Our Resurrection (pastorpaulvbsblog.blogspot.com)
Rise In The Name of Jesus! (seashoremary.wordpress.com)

In Pursuit of Happyness

By CARONAE HOWELL, From the New York Times, dated July 20, 2009

I’m the kind of woman who spends entire days thinking of nothing but birds: woodcocks, goldfinches, kingfishers. I look for loons everywhere I go. Sometimes I find herons in Central Park and they are mysteries. There is one thing in this world that I envy: the hollowness of bird bones. In the three milliseconds of liftoff, a bird separates itself from its problems. The sky is the freest part of the world.

I have always been depressed, and I have always wanted to fly — not to emulate Superman or to travel faster. I want to fly because of the elation. In my dreams I am a butterfly or a fairy or a honeybee. Depression, for me, is when you want to be a bird, but can’t.

There is a specific moment in which I became a woman. It was February — always the worst month with its aching light and its slip-induced bruises. I had been trying to fall asleep for at least four hours. At 3 a.m., I found myself sobbing and shaking and confused, sitting on my metal dorm bed in the bird-with-a-broken-wing position. I dug my fingernails into my forearms, leaving shell-shaped trenches behind. I have the kind of skin that refuses to heal, just stays eternally raw and mottled. It was five weeks into my fourth semester.

In late January, a freshman hanged himself in my old dorm. I found myself asking, really, how hard is it to suddenly find yourself perched on a sink, rope around your beautiful neck, ready to fly? How hard? My dad drove through four states to pick me up the next week. On the way home I had tea and ice cream. He asked me if I remembered the time he took too many of his antidepressants. I did not. Nor did I remember my uncle’s suicide (gun to the cerebrum) or my sister’s delicately sliced arms and hips. These were things I had only been told. The space between my skull and my irises hurts sometimes — hurts like the shatter of a tiny bird that has fallen midflight.

And so it was that sour February night that I took the delicate step into the adult world: realizing that I was too depressed to stay at college was realizing I had not only lost my flock; I had fallen from the air entirely. Michigan has many birds. My favorite might be the wood duck, with its banded neck and flat little wings. When I watch birds take off, I hold my breath. They always make it to the sky.

Every Monday morning at 9 I see my therapist, mug of green tea and honey close at hand. I take new pills now. I have a routine: oatmeal in the morning, Wednesday nights with my father. I tell my therapist about Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon.” Who isn’t searching for their people? I arrange my thoughts. (No, I have never been in love and I am, in fact, afraid of men; I panic in Times Square; I grow attached to almost everyone I meet.) I have feathers and questions.

I moved to New York City for college in 2007. School did not grow me into an adult, nor did voting for the first time or doing my own banking. These things were not confrontations. How did I arrive at the place where I could look at my disease and say, “Yes, you are here, but I will not let you take the joy out of looking for birds”? I like to think it was New York, or my newfound discipline, but it was a more internal revolution. I acknowledged my traumas: I was not crazy, just damaged. I was molting. Columbia gave me many new things: a copy of the “Iliad” with a note saying the first six books should be read before orientation, a job in the oral history office, a sense of time management.

But without my sanity — without joy — these things had little value. I knew nothing until I knew I was hardly living. Hobbes and Locke and all the philosophers in the world could not matter when each day was insurmountable and burning. In my year and a half at Columbia, I began to learn how to love myself. I tell my therapist about my earliest memories and the bizarre geography of my family. I’m anxious and I have no self-esteem. But I am mending. Fifteen lost credits is a small price to pay for happiness. Perhaps I am learning how to fly. My bones may not be hollow, and joy will never come easily, but the beauty is in the struggle. The birds are everywhere.

Caronae Howell, Columbia, class of 2011, history major

Safe in the Mouth of Danger

In my dream, I had a vision.

An angel of the Lord led me down to the depths of the sea.

“What do you see?” the angel asked.

I said, “I see a boy, a child, in the mouth of a shark!”

“Yes,” the angel said.

“But, he is terrified!” I said.

“He will be grateful,” the angel said. “Watch.”

As I gazed upon the frightened child, a great white suddenly attacked the shark. The child began to climb out of the mouth of the shark, but he had set his leg upon its jaws and the shark bit down and took off his leg. The child, however, was able to swim away safely because the great white was devouring the shark.

“How is this possible?” I asked the angel.

“Do you not know?” the angel responded. “Have you not heard? With God, all things are possible.”

“But,” I said. “Why was the child not spared this danger in the first place?”

“You will see,” the angel said. “Come.”

A moment later, we were on dry ground.

“Was that real?” I asked. “I am disillusioned.”

“What do you see?” the angel asked.

“My leg is gone!” I proclaimed. “I was the child!”

“Yes,” the angel said.

“But,” I said. “How can I live without my leg? I lost my leg!”

“But, you did not lose you,” the angel said. “And that is precisely what would have happened had you not lost your leg. If the shark had not swallowed you whole, the great white would have attacked you from the side. You would have been devoured and destroyed. Instead, you have been spared.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why have I been spared? Why am I still here? Why must I suffer so much?”

“You suffer,” the angel said. “Indeed, you exist, to give hope. Now, go. And teach God’s children how to walk with a limp. Strengthen your brothers. Encourage your sisters. Show them how to survive A Dark & Stormy Night.”

“Yes, my lord,” I said, bowing my head in respect as the angel vanished from my sight.

When I woke up, I recorded my vision, that my brothers and my sisters may yet understand why they, too, must walk with a limp.

“Do you not know? Have you not heard?
“With God, all things are possible.”

Yule Time Humor

This is a very eclectic gathering of Christmas humor. These cartoons really shouldn’t offend. But if they do I ask for your forgiveness and forebearance. More then anything else, have a jolly Christmas full of light and faith.