Life-Giving Plasma
Stories
Object:
Contents
A Story to Live By: "Life-Giving Plasma" by Harold Weaver
Sharing Visions: "Seeing Jesus" by Lee Meissner
Good Stories: "Resurrection" by Stan Purdum
John's Scrap Pile: "Easter Sermon Excerpts"
"A Safe Bet"
Our new StoryShare feature, "A Story to Live By," this week tells a poignant personal story about the power of scripture to literally save lives. I plan to include it in my Easter sermon, and I am also telling it in a one-minute radio spot as part of our church's invitation to Easter services. Because the story is in a war setting, I believe it will touch many hearts and bring comfort to persons who are concerned about the safety of loved ones serving in the war with Iraq.
Congratulations to Stan Purdum on his new book New Mercies I See [link to 0-7880-1958-9], and a big thank you to Stan for sharing his wonderful Easter story "Resurrection" in this week's StoryShare. I plan to share it in my Easter sermon. Stan's book is full of touching stories that are a preacher's delight and also make good meeting starters or devotional reading. Look for it on the CSS website. You will also enjoy Lee Meissner's powerful family story about seeing Jesus.
A Story to Live By
Life-Giving Plasma
by Harold Weaver
In August of 1966, I visited Germany. As we traveled, I discovered that we were only twelve miles from a place where I had been stationed during World War II, so we drove over to Geilenkircken. What a thrilling difference there was! The last time I had seen Geilenkircken was when the streets were churned into mud by tanks and trucks. GIs lived in the houses. I saw the house I had lived in, and one block down the street was a schoolhouse where wounded soldiers, brought back from the front lines, were taken. There's one incident that took place in that schoolhouse-turned-hospital that I will never forget.
Shortly after midnight, on an utterly black night, a Jewish doctor sent a messenger to the house I was living in because he wanted a Protestant chaplain. I was asleep, but dressed, and went in a hurry with the sergeant who had called in his jeep. A young soldier was lying on the table in the basement of the schoolhouse. He had been wounded and was suffering from severe shock. Because of the shock, his blood vessels had become flabby; it was impossible to inject the life-giving plasma into his body, although repeated attempts had been made. There was no hope for him, and therefore the medic thought we should have prayer.
So the few of us there bowed our heads for a moment, and then I began to repeat the 23rd Psalm. Something happened that I had heard of, but had never seen. Just as we came to the passage, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me," it was noticed that the soldier's lips were moving. The doctor interrupted and asked the youth his name. His eyelids fluttered, and he whispered his name and serial number. I had not known until then that he had lost his dog tags. He would have died an unknown soldier.
The marvelous thing that happened was that this lad's blood vessels began to regain their resiliency, which permitted the blood plasma to be introduced. His arm was later amputated, but he lived! Somewhere today, there is a one-armed Lutheran veteran who does not know that his life was saved because he knew the 23rd Psalm.
The thing that struck me most about that young man was that, in his early years, he had been brought up to know the 23rd Psalm and the Lord's Prayer. The familiar and beautiful old religious truths had reached down into his subconscious mind, and they became the hands of God to bring him to life again.
Editor's Note: This personal story is from a sermon titled "Thatch Your Roof In Warm Weather," which Dr. Harold Weaver preached on June 4, 1967 at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Harold Weaver was one of my predecessors in the Wauwatosa Avenue pulpit and one of my heroes. He was a gentle, loving man who spoke out fervently for open housing and equal rights. Dr. Weaver died on May 26, 2002 at the age of 87, after a long, distinguished career as a pastor in several United Methodist Churches in Ohio and Wisconsin.
Sharing Visions
Seeing Jesus
by Lee Meissner
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
1 Corinthians 15:7-8
It was a nice summer day. A mother and her two children, Marilyn and Gerry, were in the family car heading home after doing the weekly shopping. Everything was very routine. They had made the trip a thousand times. Then it happened. A car driven by a teenage boy didn't stop for a stop sign. The car with the mother and the children had the right of way. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The car that went through the stop sign couldn't have stopped. The police later estimated that the car was traveling in excess of ninety miles per hour. The impact was almost unimaginable. The children went through the roof of the car (this was in the days before seatbelts). The mother was near death, with many internal injuries and a broken neck, and in a coma. A funeral was held for the children. The father didn't know how he would tell his wife that their children had been killed when she regained consciousness, if in fact she ever did.
It was about two weeks later that she came out of the coma. Now it was time to tell her that the children were gone. Her husband tried to tell her, but before he could get the words out she said, "I know Marilyn and Gerry are gone, but it's okay. I saw them here in my room. They were sitting on my bed and Jesus was with them. He was holding them. I know they will be all right."
In time the mother recovered from her injuries. Although she did have some neck problems later in life, it was nothing that kept her from doing what she wanted to do. The couple later took in foster children, some short-term and some long-term.
This accident occurred in 1948 or 1949. The couple were my wife Helen's foster parents. She was placed in their care at the age of thirteen, and lived with them until she went to college.
Lee Meissner is pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Watertown, Wisconsin. He received his M.Div. and M.A.R. degrees from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.
Lee's story appears in Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles [link to 0-7880-1896-5], edited by John E. Sumwalt (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 2002), p. 91. Vision Stories is available from CSS through their web site (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056. Vision Stories is also available at Cokesbury, Family Christian Stores, or many local Christian bookstores.
Good Stories
Resurrection
by Stan Purdum
Up until this incident, Lucille Brennan would have said that the day she was approved to be a foster parent was the happiest one of her life. For there, at last, at age 57, she'd finally been declared fit to mother little children, and she even had an official letter from the county Department of Children's Services to prove it.
It's not that she'd never been a mother before, but that she'd never been a very good one. As a young woman, she'd given birth to a boy she named Joe, but the circumstances hadn't been advantageous.
Already by then, Lucille had led a life she didn't feel very good about. There was no husband on the scene, and she wasn't absolutely sure who Joe's father was. She loved her little boy, but trying to make it on her own was hard. She often let little Joe fend for himself while she worked to earn a few dollars as a barmaid. Sometimes she earned a little more from the men who frequented the bar, but of course she couldn't have Joe around while she entertained them. Joe ended up spending way too much time by himself.
Then too, Lucille drank too much in those days. By the time Joe was 6, he'd gotten used to finding his mother passed out on the sofa.
Remarkably, he turned out to be one of those kids who, despite a lousy background, manage to stay out of trouble. He had enough gumption to pay attention in school and learn his lessons. But at 16, he moved in with a friend. Asked if he'd miss his mother, he said, "Nah. She's never had time for me anyway. She'll hardly know I'm gone."
In some ways that was almost true, but of course, Lucille did miss Joe, and when she was honest with herself, she was ashamed of how poor a mother she had been to him. At first, she tried to see Joe once in a while, but he made it clear that he wanted no further contact. So she'd finally let the relationship go.
Things had gone on like that for several years. By the time Lucille, at age 54, found Jesus, she hadn't seen Joe for more than a dozen years. In fact, he hadn't stayed in touch and she now had no idea where he was.
Lucille had let Christ into her life as a result of the efforts of one of her few friends, a woman named Eileen, a member of our church. Several times Eileen had invited Lucille to come to church with her, and finally, one Sunday when Lucille couldn't think of any reason not to go, she came. To her surprise, she was touched by the message that morning, and she began to attend regularly. In time, through the constant acceptance and friendship she found in our church, Lucille gave her heart to Jesus and really began to change her life.
I guess I'm responsible for planting the idea that Lucille become a foster mother. After services one Sunday, she lingered to talk with me about the guilt she still felt because of how she'd wasted her life and how she'd been such a poor mother to her son. She was looking for a way to make up for that. I assured her that God had forgiven her past and that she wasn't required to make up for it. But when she persisted, I suggested that she check out the foster-parent program. "They're always looking for people to house kids from problem homes," I said.
"Do you think they'd let me, I mean, with my background?"
"I don't know. But you're a new person now, and I'll be glad to vouch for you."
That's how it came about that Lucille, after being thoroughly checked out by the Department of Children's Services, had arrived at her happy day when she'd been okayed for duty as a foster parent.
And that's also why members of our congregation started speaking about "Lucille's brood." For now, every Sunday when she arrived at church, two or three and occasionally even four little children trooped along behind her. Sometimes she even had a baby in her arms. Clearly, Lucille was in her glory.
Foster parenting being what it is, some children were only with her a few weeks while their home situations were being resolved or while adoptions were worked out. Others stayed several months, and one little girl had been with her from the beginning of her foster parenting. I knew the director of the Department of Children's Services, and she told me that they considered Lucille one of their better foster parents.
So I wasn't surprised when the department asked Lucille to take one of their sadder cases. The baby, the worker explained to Lucille, was a boy, 5 months old, named Jimmy. He'd been born to a teenage mother and her live-in boyfriend. The boyfriend, intolerant of the baby's crying and fussing, had beaten the child unmercifully several times, until finally the mother had reported him and he'd been arrested. By then, Jimmy had been emotionally damaged as well. "He doesn't cry anymore," the worker said. "He just lays there in his crib, silently."
"Bring him," Lucille said.
When Jimmy arrived, it was just as the worker had said. Jimmy, a beautiful little boy, though frighteningly thin and pale, did not cry when he was hungry, or wet, or cold, or in any sort of discomfort. Lucille noticed that he occasionally whimpered quietly, but that was all.
At this time, Lucille already had two other children in her home, a toddler and a 5-year-old. They required attention too, but it seemed important to Lucille that Jimmy be held, and held a lot. And so for weeks, whatever Lucille was doing she did one-handed. Her other arm was busy cradling Jimmy, who remained as silent as ever. When she needed two hands, she fashioned a large towel into a sling, and carried Jimmy in it, across her stomach.
Jimmy wouldn't cry to tell her when he was hungry, so Lucille made it a point to feed him on a regular schedule, to make sure he was not undernourished. Gradually color began to return to the child's cheeks and he gained a little weight ... but he did not cry.
Of course, when Sunday came, Jimmy went to church with Lucille and the other two children. Our entire congregation soon heard the story of this latest addition to Lucille's brood. Eileen had already put Jimmy on the church's prayer chain.
As often as she could, Lucille sat with Jimmy in her arms and rocked him, singing lullabies to him in quiet tones.
And so it went. Lucille would get up in the middle of the night and check on Jimmy in his crib. Sometimes he was asleep, but other times he just lay there, awake and quiet. When she found him like that, she picked him up, changed his diaper, and then rocked him until he drifted back to sleep.
"You must get pretty tired with carrying that baby around all the time," I said to Lucille one Sunday.
Lucille smiled and said, "I do, but it's okay."
On the fifth Sunday after Jimmy had been placed in Lucille's home, she took him to church with her as usual. The other two children, comfortable now in the church nursery, went there during the service, but as she'd done each Sunday, Lucille took Jimmy with her to the sanctuary.
I was well into my sermon when I heard something and stopped talking. In the abrupt quiet, a little cry could be heard, and when we turned to look, we saw Lucille, with a big smile on her face and tears pouring out of her eyes. But the crying sound wasn't coming from her; it came from the bundle she held in her arms.
Eileen, who was sitting next to Lucille, stared as the little boy took a deep breath and started crying louder. Finally Eileen could contain herself no longer, and in an action unusual for us quiet Methodists, she exclaimed, "Praise God."
At that, the entire congregation broke into an enthusiastic applause - probably the first time in history that worshipers have clapped because a child cried in church.
Later in the week, I stopped over at Lucille's. There on a blanket on the floor was Jimmy, clucking and smiling as he played with Lucille's 5-year-old.
"You're not holding him," I observed to Lucille.
"Oh, I still hold him plenty," Lucille said, "but he seems to want some time to play now."
Easter was two weeks away. In terms of Christian theology, it's the most important day of the year. Since I'd been at North Doncaster for five Easters already, I'd been wondering what I could possibly preach about the meaning of Resurrection that I hadn't already.
But that afternoon at Lucille's, I knew.
I knew.
Stan Purdum is the pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Waynesburg, Ohio, but he makes his living as a freelance writer and editor, including serving as editor of the preaching journal Emphasis [link to Emphasis page].
Long an avid bicycle tourist, Stan has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including a cross-nation ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on the length of U.S. Route 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his bookPlaying in Traffic. This story is included in Stan's latest book, New Mercies I See [link to 0-7880-1958-9], a short-story collection that shows how the persistent grace of God is never far from any one of us. The book is available from CSS through their web site (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056. New Mercies I See is also available at Cokesbury, Family Christian Stores, or many local Christian bookstores.
John's Scrap Pile
Easter Sermon Excerpts
Text: Matthew 28:1-10
Can you imagine going down to the funeral home to the view the body of one you loved and being greeted there by a stranger who tells you: "He is not here?"
After a death it can be comforting to see the body of the one who is dear to us, to touch him or her for the last time and to say our good-byes.
In the very beginning of the movie Places in the Heart, the local sheriff is murdered. The story takes place in the U.S. in the early 1930s. They carry his body home and lay it out on the dining room table. There follows a tender scene showing his wife (played by Sally Field in her academy award-winning performance) and her sister washing his body, lovingly preparing him for burial.
This is what the two Marys wanted to do when they went to Jesus' tomb very early on that Sunday morning. There had not been time to properly prepare Jesus' body for burial on the day that he died. The Sabbath begins with the fall of darkness on Friday evening. So they had taken his body down and laid him in a borrowed tomb. They would return later, after the Sabbath, as the law prescribed, to wash him and to anoint his body with spices, a final act of caring, all that they could do now for their beloved friend. And then to be told that he was not there. Can you imagine?
The stranger who greeted them told them to go quickly and tell his followers that he had risen from the dead and was going on before them. "You will see him," he said.
Can you imagine hearing someone say that about someone you knew to be dead?
That night, Luke records, the eleven and several others were gathered together discussing these reports when two of their friends arrived from Emmaus. They told how they had walked with Jesus on the road and how he had made himself known to them as he broke the bread at supper - and then how he vanished before their eyes. Just then as they were saying this, "Jesus himself stood among them ... they were startled and frightened and supposed that they saw a spirit" (Luke 24:38-43).
Can you believe that such a thing actually happened, that a dead man rose and appeared again, alive, to his family and friends?
A number of years ago I heard Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross speak at a convocation on death and dying in Madison, Wisconsin. She told of a man who was driving one day and came upon an accident. He went to the aid of a young woman who died in his arms. Before she died she asked him to go and tell her mother that she was okay. "Everything is all right. Tell her Father is here with me," she said. The man went several hundred miles out of his way, found the young woman's mother, and relayed the message. The mother was astounded. The young woman's father had died only a few hours before, and there was no way his daughter could have known except that he was there with her as she died.
In her book Fire In The Soul, Joan Borysenko tells that her mother was not a believer, that she forbade her to have anything to do with religion when she was a child. But near the end of her life, her mother had a change of heart. Her mother, Borysenko writes, was a great baseball fan. "In 1988 a player for the Boston Red Sox, Wade Boggs, became the subject of a national scandal when an affair he was having became for fodder for the media gossip mill. The Boston Globe published an interview with Boggs, focusing on why he seemed to be able to handle the charges and the continuing sordid revelations with such equanimity. Boggs attributed his peacefulness to advice from his mother, who had recently died. According to his account, the spirit of his mother had appeared in a vision to his sister, whose vocal cords were paralyzed from multiple sclerosis, and asked her to speak at the funeral. Miraculously, the sister was able to do so. Their mother also appeared to Boggs, reassuring him that everything would be all right, that he needn't worry."
Borysenko tells that before the Wade Boggs article she had been unable to convince her mother of the possibility of the spirit continuing after death. But "the story of Wade Boggs' mother spoke to her. It brought about a fundamental change in her beliefs, and she showed great peace and courage while facing the final moments of a debilitating illness." A nurse held her hand in the final moments and asked her, "Have you made your peace? Have you thought about death?" Borysenko writes: "My mother rallied from her stupor like a missionary: 'I know all about it. I'm ready. Have you heard about Wade Boggs' mother?" (from Fire In the Soul, Warner Books, 1993, pgs. 48-49).
Physician Diane Komp tells in an April 1992 Theology Today article about a cancer patient who refused to accept her diagnosis, even when told that there was no guarantee the treatment she prescribed would be effective. He believed he would find a way to be healed of cancer:
Tom was 19 years old when his cancer recurred, but he refused to accept the relapse as a death sentence. He declined further chemotherapy because there was no promise of cure even if he endured the side effects, but he still believed that he would find a way to be healed of cancer, to become an "exceptional cancer patient."
While he was in the hospital, the tumor in his cervical spinal cord advanced to the point that he was quadriplegic. He still would not believe that he was going to die from his disease, and he worried that permitting such negative thoughts would interfere with "positive healing thoughts."
He was discharged home on his twentieth birthday in this condition. When I visited him at home, he was able to move only his head and neck, and he required total nursing care. When we were alone, he told me of a vision that came to him at home while he was meditating.
He was in a beautiful garden and saw a man seated on a bench. The man's fingers were like roses and he walked with him in the garden and talked to him. The man touched him and Tom reported that he moved in his bed for the first time in months. He did not want to leave the garden or the man's presence, but the man went ahead and told Tom that he could not come with him yet.
I asked him if he knew who the man was. He said, "I know it was Jesus." Thinking of the images he described, I thought for sure that he must be re-creating the old gospel hymn "In The Garden." Tom was confused by my question because he had never even heard of the hymn. When I sang it for him, he did not recognize the melody but was excited because he recognized in the words the parallel image to his vision.
Two days later he told his parents that he would not live through the night and died peacefully in his sleep.
(from "A Mystery Story: Children, Cancer, and Covenant," by Diane Komp, Theology Today, April,1992, pgs. 73-74.)
Jesus' presence with us in life and in death is a wonderful, comforting mystery.
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Thanks to Dale Vogt for sending the following story that tickled my funny bone. I'm trying to figure out a way to work it into a sermon.
A Safe Bet
Just before the first race, a priest visited one of the horses in the stable area and gave it a blessing. Bernie watched the horse race very carefully, and sure enough, the blessed horse came in first. Intrigued, Bernie followed the priest before the next race. Again, the priest went to the stables and blessed another horse. Bernie quickly put five dollars on that horse, and won close to fifty bucks! Well, the priest kept blessing horses and Bernie paid close attention and kept winning cash! The last race of the day was the biggest, and Bernie saw the priest with the horse for that race also! Quickly Bernie went to his bank and withdrew his life's savings of $35,000, then raced back to the track and put it all on that horse! He watched the race in certain anticipation of leaving with well over a million bucks. But it was not to be ... his horse was last to cross the line and Bernie was dead broke! He couldn't believe what had happened, so he went looking for the priest. He found the good Father and asked, "What happened in the last race? That last horse you blessed finished dead last! Because your blessing didn't work, I've lost all of my money!"
The priest said, "Sure, and that's the trouble with you protestants! You can't tell the difference between a blessing and the Last Rites!"
StoryShare, April 20, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
A Story to Live By: "Life-Giving Plasma" by Harold Weaver
Sharing Visions: "Seeing Jesus" by Lee Meissner
Good Stories: "Resurrection" by Stan Purdum
John's Scrap Pile: "Easter Sermon Excerpts"
"A Safe Bet"
Our new StoryShare feature, "A Story to Live By," this week tells a poignant personal story about the power of scripture to literally save lives. I plan to include it in my Easter sermon, and I am also telling it in a one-minute radio spot as part of our church's invitation to Easter services. Because the story is in a war setting, I believe it will touch many hearts and bring comfort to persons who are concerned about the safety of loved ones serving in the war with Iraq.
Congratulations to Stan Purdum on his new book New Mercies I See [link to 0-7880-1958-9], and a big thank you to Stan for sharing his wonderful Easter story "Resurrection" in this week's StoryShare. I plan to share it in my Easter sermon. Stan's book is full of touching stories that are a preacher's delight and also make good meeting starters or devotional reading. Look for it on the CSS website. You will also enjoy Lee Meissner's powerful family story about seeing Jesus.
A Story to Live By
Life-Giving Plasma
by Harold Weaver
In August of 1966, I visited Germany. As we traveled, I discovered that we were only twelve miles from a place where I had been stationed during World War II, so we drove over to Geilenkircken. What a thrilling difference there was! The last time I had seen Geilenkircken was when the streets were churned into mud by tanks and trucks. GIs lived in the houses. I saw the house I had lived in, and one block down the street was a schoolhouse where wounded soldiers, brought back from the front lines, were taken. There's one incident that took place in that schoolhouse-turned-hospital that I will never forget.
Shortly after midnight, on an utterly black night, a Jewish doctor sent a messenger to the house I was living in because he wanted a Protestant chaplain. I was asleep, but dressed, and went in a hurry with the sergeant who had called in his jeep. A young soldier was lying on the table in the basement of the schoolhouse. He had been wounded and was suffering from severe shock. Because of the shock, his blood vessels had become flabby; it was impossible to inject the life-giving plasma into his body, although repeated attempts had been made. There was no hope for him, and therefore the medic thought we should have prayer.
So the few of us there bowed our heads for a moment, and then I began to repeat the 23rd Psalm. Something happened that I had heard of, but had never seen. Just as we came to the passage, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me," it was noticed that the soldier's lips were moving. The doctor interrupted and asked the youth his name. His eyelids fluttered, and he whispered his name and serial number. I had not known until then that he had lost his dog tags. He would have died an unknown soldier.
The marvelous thing that happened was that this lad's blood vessels began to regain their resiliency, which permitted the blood plasma to be introduced. His arm was later amputated, but he lived! Somewhere today, there is a one-armed Lutheran veteran who does not know that his life was saved because he knew the 23rd Psalm.
The thing that struck me most about that young man was that, in his early years, he had been brought up to know the 23rd Psalm and the Lord's Prayer. The familiar and beautiful old religious truths had reached down into his subconscious mind, and they became the hands of God to bring him to life again.
Editor's Note: This personal story is from a sermon titled "Thatch Your Roof In Warm Weather," which Dr. Harold Weaver preached on June 4, 1967 at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Harold Weaver was one of my predecessors in the Wauwatosa Avenue pulpit and one of my heroes. He was a gentle, loving man who spoke out fervently for open housing and equal rights. Dr. Weaver died on May 26, 2002 at the age of 87, after a long, distinguished career as a pastor in several United Methodist Churches in Ohio and Wisconsin.
Sharing Visions
Seeing Jesus
by Lee Meissner
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
1 Corinthians 15:7-8
It was a nice summer day. A mother and her two children, Marilyn and Gerry, were in the family car heading home after doing the weekly shopping. Everything was very routine. They had made the trip a thousand times. Then it happened. A car driven by a teenage boy didn't stop for a stop sign. The car with the mother and the children had the right of way. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The car that went through the stop sign couldn't have stopped. The police later estimated that the car was traveling in excess of ninety miles per hour. The impact was almost unimaginable. The children went through the roof of the car (this was in the days before seatbelts). The mother was near death, with many internal injuries and a broken neck, and in a coma. A funeral was held for the children. The father didn't know how he would tell his wife that their children had been killed when she regained consciousness, if in fact she ever did.
It was about two weeks later that she came out of the coma. Now it was time to tell her that the children were gone. Her husband tried to tell her, but before he could get the words out she said, "I know Marilyn and Gerry are gone, but it's okay. I saw them here in my room. They were sitting on my bed and Jesus was with them. He was holding them. I know they will be all right."
In time the mother recovered from her injuries. Although she did have some neck problems later in life, it was nothing that kept her from doing what she wanted to do. The couple later took in foster children, some short-term and some long-term.
This accident occurred in 1948 or 1949. The couple were my wife Helen's foster parents. She was placed in their care at the age of thirteen, and lived with them until she went to college.
Lee Meissner is pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Watertown, Wisconsin. He received his M.Div. and M.A.R. degrees from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.
Lee's story appears in Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles [link to 0-7880-1896-5], edited by John E. Sumwalt (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 2002), p. 91. Vision Stories is available from CSS through their web site (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056. Vision Stories is also available at Cokesbury, Family Christian Stores, or many local Christian bookstores.
Good Stories
Resurrection
by Stan Purdum
Up until this incident, Lucille Brennan would have said that the day she was approved to be a foster parent was the happiest one of her life. For there, at last, at age 57, she'd finally been declared fit to mother little children, and she even had an official letter from the county Department of Children's Services to prove it.
It's not that she'd never been a mother before, but that she'd never been a very good one. As a young woman, she'd given birth to a boy she named Joe, but the circumstances hadn't been advantageous.
Already by then, Lucille had led a life she didn't feel very good about. There was no husband on the scene, and she wasn't absolutely sure who Joe's father was. She loved her little boy, but trying to make it on her own was hard. She often let little Joe fend for himself while she worked to earn a few dollars as a barmaid. Sometimes she earned a little more from the men who frequented the bar, but of course she couldn't have Joe around while she entertained them. Joe ended up spending way too much time by himself.
Then too, Lucille drank too much in those days. By the time Joe was 6, he'd gotten used to finding his mother passed out on the sofa.
Remarkably, he turned out to be one of those kids who, despite a lousy background, manage to stay out of trouble. He had enough gumption to pay attention in school and learn his lessons. But at 16, he moved in with a friend. Asked if he'd miss his mother, he said, "Nah. She's never had time for me anyway. She'll hardly know I'm gone."
In some ways that was almost true, but of course, Lucille did miss Joe, and when she was honest with herself, she was ashamed of how poor a mother she had been to him. At first, she tried to see Joe once in a while, but he made it clear that he wanted no further contact. So she'd finally let the relationship go.
Things had gone on like that for several years. By the time Lucille, at age 54, found Jesus, she hadn't seen Joe for more than a dozen years. In fact, he hadn't stayed in touch and she now had no idea where he was.
Lucille had let Christ into her life as a result of the efforts of one of her few friends, a woman named Eileen, a member of our church. Several times Eileen had invited Lucille to come to church with her, and finally, one Sunday when Lucille couldn't think of any reason not to go, she came. To her surprise, she was touched by the message that morning, and she began to attend regularly. In time, through the constant acceptance and friendship she found in our church, Lucille gave her heart to Jesus and really began to change her life.
I guess I'm responsible for planting the idea that Lucille become a foster mother. After services one Sunday, she lingered to talk with me about the guilt she still felt because of how she'd wasted her life and how she'd been such a poor mother to her son. She was looking for a way to make up for that. I assured her that God had forgiven her past and that she wasn't required to make up for it. But when she persisted, I suggested that she check out the foster-parent program. "They're always looking for people to house kids from problem homes," I said.
"Do you think they'd let me, I mean, with my background?"
"I don't know. But you're a new person now, and I'll be glad to vouch for you."
That's how it came about that Lucille, after being thoroughly checked out by the Department of Children's Services, had arrived at her happy day when she'd been okayed for duty as a foster parent.
And that's also why members of our congregation started speaking about "Lucille's brood." For now, every Sunday when she arrived at church, two or three and occasionally even four little children trooped along behind her. Sometimes she even had a baby in her arms. Clearly, Lucille was in her glory.
Foster parenting being what it is, some children were only with her a few weeks while their home situations were being resolved or while adoptions were worked out. Others stayed several months, and one little girl had been with her from the beginning of her foster parenting. I knew the director of the Department of Children's Services, and she told me that they considered Lucille one of their better foster parents.
So I wasn't surprised when the department asked Lucille to take one of their sadder cases. The baby, the worker explained to Lucille, was a boy, 5 months old, named Jimmy. He'd been born to a teenage mother and her live-in boyfriend. The boyfriend, intolerant of the baby's crying and fussing, had beaten the child unmercifully several times, until finally the mother had reported him and he'd been arrested. By then, Jimmy had been emotionally damaged as well. "He doesn't cry anymore," the worker said. "He just lays there in his crib, silently."
"Bring him," Lucille said.
When Jimmy arrived, it was just as the worker had said. Jimmy, a beautiful little boy, though frighteningly thin and pale, did not cry when he was hungry, or wet, or cold, or in any sort of discomfort. Lucille noticed that he occasionally whimpered quietly, but that was all.
At this time, Lucille already had two other children in her home, a toddler and a 5-year-old. They required attention too, but it seemed important to Lucille that Jimmy be held, and held a lot. And so for weeks, whatever Lucille was doing she did one-handed. Her other arm was busy cradling Jimmy, who remained as silent as ever. When she needed two hands, she fashioned a large towel into a sling, and carried Jimmy in it, across her stomach.
Jimmy wouldn't cry to tell her when he was hungry, so Lucille made it a point to feed him on a regular schedule, to make sure he was not undernourished. Gradually color began to return to the child's cheeks and he gained a little weight ... but he did not cry.
Of course, when Sunday came, Jimmy went to church with Lucille and the other two children. Our entire congregation soon heard the story of this latest addition to Lucille's brood. Eileen had already put Jimmy on the church's prayer chain.
As often as she could, Lucille sat with Jimmy in her arms and rocked him, singing lullabies to him in quiet tones.
And so it went. Lucille would get up in the middle of the night and check on Jimmy in his crib. Sometimes he was asleep, but other times he just lay there, awake and quiet. When she found him like that, she picked him up, changed his diaper, and then rocked him until he drifted back to sleep.
"You must get pretty tired with carrying that baby around all the time," I said to Lucille one Sunday.
Lucille smiled and said, "I do, but it's okay."
On the fifth Sunday after Jimmy had been placed in Lucille's home, she took him to church with her as usual. The other two children, comfortable now in the church nursery, went there during the service, but as she'd done each Sunday, Lucille took Jimmy with her to the sanctuary.
I was well into my sermon when I heard something and stopped talking. In the abrupt quiet, a little cry could be heard, and when we turned to look, we saw Lucille, with a big smile on her face and tears pouring out of her eyes. But the crying sound wasn't coming from her; it came from the bundle she held in her arms.
Eileen, who was sitting next to Lucille, stared as the little boy took a deep breath and started crying louder. Finally Eileen could contain herself no longer, and in an action unusual for us quiet Methodists, she exclaimed, "Praise God."
At that, the entire congregation broke into an enthusiastic applause - probably the first time in history that worshipers have clapped because a child cried in church.
Later in the week, I stopped over at Lucille's. There on a blanket on the floor was Jimmy, clucking and smiling as he played with Lucille's 5-year-old.
"You're not holding him," I observed to Lucille.
"Oh, I still hold him plenty," Lucille said, "but he seems to want some time to play now."
Easter was two weeks away. In terms of Christian theology, it's the most important day of the year. Since I'd been at North Doncaster for five Easters already, I'd been wondering what I could possibly preach about the meaning of Resurrection that I hadn't already.
But that afternoon at Lucille's, I knew.
I knew.
Stan Purdum is the pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Waynesburg, Ohio, but he makes his living as a freelance writer and editor, including serving as editor of the preaching journal Emphasis [link to Emphasis page].
Long an avid bicycle tourist, Stan has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including a cross-nation ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on the length of U.S. Route 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his bookPlaying in Traffic. This story is included in Stan's latest book, New Mercies I See [link to 0-7880-1958-9], a short-story collection that shows how the persistent grace of God is never far from any one of us. The book is available from CSS through their web site (www.csspub.com) or by calling 1-800-241-4056. New Mercies I See is also available at Cokesbury, Family Christian Stores, or many local Christian bookstores.
John's Scrap Pile
Easter Sermon Excerpts
Text: Matthew 28:1-10
Can you imagine going down to the funeral home to the view the body of one you loved and being greeted there by a stranger who tells you: "He is not here?"
After a death it can be comforting to see the body of the one who is dear to us, to touch him or her for the last time and to say our good-byes.
In the very beginning of the movie Places in the Heart, the local sheriff is murdered. The story takes place in the U.S. in the early 1930s. They carry his body home and lay it out on the dining room table. There follows a tender scene showing his wife (played by Sally Field in her academy award-winning performance) and her sister washing his body, lovingly preparing him for burial.
This is what the two Marys wanted to do when they went to Jesus' tomb very early on that Sunday morning. There had not been time to properly prepare Jesus' body for burial on the day that he died. The Sabbath begins with the fall of darkness on Friday evening. So they had taken his body down and laid him in a borrowed tomb. They would return later, after the Sabbath, as the law prescribed, to wash him and to anoint his body with spices, a final act of caring, all that they could do now for their beloved friend. And then to be told that he was not there. Can you imagine?
The stranger who greeted them told them to go quickly and tell his followers that he had risen from the dead and was going on before them. "You will see him," he said.
Can you imagine hearing someone say that about someone you knew to be dead?
That night, Luke records, the eleven and several others were gathered together discussing these reports when two of their friends arrived from Emmaus. They told how they had walked with Jesus on the road and how he had made himself known to them as he broke the bread at supper - and then how he vanished before their eyes. Just then as they were saying this, "Jesus himself stood among them ... they were startled and frightened and supposed that they saw a spirit" (Luke 24:38-43).
Can you believe that such a thing actually happened, that a dead man rose and appeared again, alive, to his family and friends?
A number of years ago I heard Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross speak at a convocation on death and dying in Madison, Wisconsin. She told of a man who was driving one day and came upon an accident. He went to the aid of a young woman who died in his arms. Before she died she asked him to go and tell her mother that she was okay. "Everything is all right. Tell her Father is here with me," she said. The man went several hundred miles out of his way, found the young woman's mother, and relayed the message. The mother was astounded. The young woman's father had died only a few hours before, and there was no way his daughter could have known except that he was there with her as she died.
In her book Fire In The Soul, Joan Borysenko tells that her mother was not a believer, that she forbade her to have anything to do with religion when she was a child. But near the end of her life, her mother had a change of heart. Her mother, Borysenko writes, was a great baseball fan. "In 1988 a player for the Boston Red Sox, Wade Boggs, became the subject of a national scandal when an affair he was having became for fodder for the media gossip mill. The Boston Globe published an interview with Boggs, focusing on why he seemed to be able to handle the charges and the continuing sordid revelations with such equanimity. Boggs attributed his peacefulness to advice from his mother, who had recently died. According to his account, the spirit of his mother had appeared in a vision to his sister, whose vocal cords were paralyzed from multiple sclerosis, and asked her to speak at the funeral. Miraculously, the sister was able to do so. Their mother also appeared to Boggs, reassuring him that everything would be all right, that he needn't worry."
Borysenko tells that before the Wade Boggs article she had been unable to convince her mother of the possibility of the spirit continuing after death. But "the story of Wade Boggs' mother spoke to her. It brought about a fundamental change in her beliefs, and she showed great peace and courage while facing the final moments of a debilitating illness." A nurse held her hand in the final moments and asked her, "Have you made your peace? Have you thought about death?" Borysenko writes: "My mother rallied from her stupor like a missionary: 'I know all about it. I'm ready. Have you heard about Wade Boggs' mother?" (from Fire In the Soul, Warner Books, 1993, pgs. 48-49).
Physician Diane Komp tells in an April 1992 Theology Today article about a cancer patient who refused to accept her diagnosis, even when told that there was no guarantee the treatment she prescribed would be effective. He believed he would find a way to be healed of cancer:
Tom was 19 years old when his cancer recurred, but he refused to accept the relapse as a death sentence. He declined further chemotherapy because there was no promise of cure even if he endured the side effects, but he still believed that he would find a way to be healed of cancer, to become an "exceptional cancer patient."
While he was in the hospital, the tumor in his cervical spinal cord advanced to the point that he was quadriplegic. He still would not believe that he was going to die from his disease, and he worried that permitting such negative thoughts would interfere with "positive healing thoughts."
He was discharged home on his twentieth birthday in this condition. When I visited him at home, he was able to move only his head and neck, and he required total nursing care. When we were alone, he told me of a vision that came to him at home while he was meditating.
He was in a beautiful garden and saw a man seated on a bench. The man's fingers were like roses and he walked with him in the garden and talked to him. The man touched him and Tom reported that he moved in his bed for the first time in months. He did not want to leave the garden or the man's presence, but the man went ahead and told Tom that he could not come with him yet.
I asked him if he knew who the man was. He said, "I know it was Jesus." Thinking of the images he described, I thought for sure that he must be re-creating the old gospel hymn "In The Garden." Tom was confused by my question because he had never even heard of the hymn. When I sang it for him, he did not recognize the melody but was excited because he recognized in the words the parallel image to his vision.
Two days later he told his parents that he would not live through the night and died peacefully in his sleep.
(from "A Mystery Story: Children, Cancer, and Covenant," by Diane Komp, Theology Today, April,1992, pgs. 73-74.)
Jesus' presence with us in life and in death is a wonderful, comforting mystery.
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Thanks to Dale Vogt for sending the following story that tickled my funny bone. I'm trying to figure out a way to work it into a sermon.
A Safe Bet
Just before the first race, a priest visited one of the horses in the stable area and gave it a blessing. Bernie watched the horse race very carefully, and sure enough, the blessed horse came in first. Intrigued, Bernie followed the priest before the next race. Again, the priest went to the stables and blessed another horse. Bernie quickly put five dollars on that horse, and won close to fifty bucks! Well, the priest kept blessing horses and Bernie paid close attention and kept winning cash! The last race of the day was the biggest, and Bernie saw the priest with the horse for that race also! Quickly Bernie went to his bank and withdrew his life's savings of $35,000, then raced back to the track and put it all on that horse! He watched the race in certain anticipation of leaving with well over a million bucks. But it was not to be ... his horse was last to cross the line and Bernie was dead broke! He couldn't believe what had happened, so he went looking for the priest. He found the good Father and asked, "What happened in the last race? That last horse you blessed finished dead last! Because your blessing didn't work, I've lost all of my money!"
The priest said, "Sure, and that's the trouble with you protestants! You can't tell the difference between a blessing and the Last Rites!"
StoryShare, April 20, 2003, issue.
Copyright 2003 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
