Housewarming Warning
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
"Housewarming Warning" by David O. Bales
"This Land Is Your Land" by John S. Smylie
"Sufferings for Your Sake" by John S. Smylie
What's Up This Week
"Cautionary tales" is the theme of this edition of StoryShare. In our Gospel text this week, Jesus chides Martha for being overly concerned with household tasks -- and in our featured story, David Bales tells of a woman caught in a whirlwind of preparation for a big housewarming party. But she learns in a most dramatic fashion that like Martha, her obsession with getting things just so for her guests has diverted her attention from the truly important things. Then John Smylie paints a portrait of a land divided, and asks us to examine our conscience to see if the prophet Amos' allegorical description of a basket of fruit is not just lament for a fallen Israel, but also a timely warning for us today. Finally, we have another piece from John Smylie that details the temptations that can come from a decaying relationship -- and the pain that we are sometimes called on to share to help our brothers and sisters in Christ. But the good news is that because Christ has redeemed our sin on the cross, he bears the weight of all our pain and suffering.
* * * * * * * * *
Housewarming Warning
David O. Bales
Luke 10:38-42
"We need four of the medium-sized canopies. I don't know the exact dimensions, but I've seen them at other parties. Look at where I want them and you figure out the size. One here." Betty Jo pointed to the front yard and continued to walk to the side of the house. "One here." She rounded the corner to the back yard. "And two here: one on each side of the patio."
"I think I can handle that," Steve said. He started across the lawn to his pickup, parked in the driveway.
"And Steve," Betty Jo said as she followed him, "I phoned them a month ago and they said they had dozens, so make sure to reserve them in white. I've seen multicolored canopies and they look like a circus."
"Right," Steve said. He groaned as he stepped into his pickup. Through the open window he yelled across the lawn, "I thought we retired and moved away to cut down our workload!"
Betty Jo laughed and shooed him away.
Betty Jo sat at the kitchen table and sorted through photos from the florist. Which arrangement would look best in the living room? In the dining room? Low centerpieces for the tables outside under the canopies. The phone rang.
"Hi Karen," Betty Jo said. "How's my faithful ex-neighbor? Tickets arrived. Great, and I've got your reservations at the Shiloh Inn. Check in Friday and out on Monday. I got a note from the Lairds. They're coming too. Like old home week.
"Yeah. I thought about it, but I'll be exhausted after Saturday. And really, we haven't looked too much this last month, living in a motel and all. But at least by being here for six weeks we got to see the last three and a half weeks of construction. You'll love it. Lawn and landscaping came almost instantly this week. The fellow who rolled down the turf said it isn't a wonderful idea to have a housewarming party on it so soon, but with careful watering all summer it'll take root no matter what.
"Sure. Get settled and the party over, we'll find a church and a Bible study or a prayer group. We don't have the time yet.
"You sound like Steve. I just haven't had time. If you want to worship here Sunday, look in the telephone book and find the church. Tell the group to keep praying for me.
"Okay, looking forward to seeing you too and getting all our, dare I say, old neighbors from the land of the Umpqua together with our new neighbors."
Betty Jo was teetering on a stool, putting up crepe paper when Steve arrived. "We've got five days till the party," he said. "Do we need streamers up all week?"
Betty Joe put the tape in his hand, pointed him to the ceiling, and went back to the stove. "Ice. I just remembered," she said. "How about if you ask Lorna and... and... I forgot her husband's name."
"Phil."
"Yes, Phil. Why don't you walk over to Lorna and Phil's and ask them to get 27 sacks of ice for us on Saturday morning. That'll give us three sacks at the end of each canopy."
"24."
"What?"
"24 sacks. Four canopies, times two ends, times three sacks is 24."
"Oh, you tell them what to do." She smiled and waved him out the door.
She stirred furiously, one pan after another, all four burners producing meatballs, freezer containers on the counter waiting to store them until Saturday. The phone rang. "This is like the neighborhood's prayer group arriving by telephone. Karen Gillis just phoned. They're coming. How about you guys? Wonderful! I'll make reservations along with Karen and Ed. Please, I want to.
"Karen asked me too. Not yet. We get this party over and, sure enough, we'll have time to find a church. Can't live without that. You and Kent can worship Sunday morning with Karen and Ed. Scope it out for us. Let us know what you think so we can drop in there on a Sunday real soon."
The front door shut. "Steve's here. Got to put him back to work. Talk with you later."
She dashed from the phone to the stove and quickly stirred one pot after the other. With the back of her wrist she pushed hair up her forehead. She turned to Steve and said, "I'm a little diz..."
* * *
Betty Jo felt as though she had wakened and gone back to sleep a dozen times. She looked to the ceiling and didn't see streamers up yet. No streamers. Wrong walls. White. Steve was sitting in a chair next to her, holding her hand. He was slumped and unshaven. She tried to talk but felt a mask over her mouth and nose. She managed to open her eyes wider. Steve was laughing. No, he was crying.
When she woke again Betty Jo's mind was clearer, although she felt she was struggling up from the bottom of a swimming pool to become fully awake. Steve was asleep in the chair to the left of her bed. She heard a "beep beep" and looked up to a television monitor with her vital signs making lines across it. She slept again.
On the evening that Steve said was her third in intensive care she was fully lucid. Steve pulled aside the oxygen mask. She whispered to him that the party was off. He laughed as he stroked her hair. She smiled through two streaks of tears.
The next night, Steve stepped toward the bed. "Karen's on the phone and she's calling from the prayer group."
Betty Jo fumbled until she got the oxygen mask up. She motioned to Steve that she didn't want to talk. She smiled weakly and said, "Tell them, 'Okay, I have the time now.' "
David O. Bales is a retired Presbyterian minister and a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. He is the author of Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace and is a contributing author to Sermons on the Second Readings (Series II, Cycle A).
This Land Is Your Land
John S. Smylie
Amos 8:1-12
For the people of the land it was a dream come true. They felt superior, special, believing that their land was given to them by the Almighty himself. When they arrived in their blessed country they all shared an equal footing. No one was above the other; each of them experienced great gratitude for the blessings that the land provided them. Yes, there were struggles for survival, but the strength of their belief gave them courage to endure every challenge that was placed in front of them. They believed they were chosen by the Almighty himself to possess the land and to be nurtured and strengthened by it. They were a strong people, fierce in spirit, having overcome great adversity. They were an intelligent people, able to face the challenges that were put in front of them using the great resources found within them. They were an attractive people, handsome and beautiful, sculpted in the image of the Almighty.
After possessing the land for a few generations, the distribution of wealth began to fall out of balance. The members of this great society, this chosen nation, looked to their own giftedness and their own strength and their own talents, and they slowly began to forget about the Almighty who had given them the land and their gifts and their talents. The only contact they had with their Maker was found in a formal religious fashion, in customs and laws that seemed to have very little to do with their daily life. Where they began their journey as one people, working together, in need of one another, now in their success they had become individuals and they valued self-sufficiency above community.
Earlier generations had found pleasure in simply receiving the gift of the Promised Land -- they found pleasure in knowing that they were called and blessed by the Almighty. Succeeding generations found different pleasures, pleasures designed to satisfy their own needs. They took pleasure in feeling power and control, one over the other. Slowly they were transformed into a selfish society where everything was about the good of the individual. The values of the early community slowly dissipated through the generations until self was the highest value. Self-fulfillment, self-pleasure, power and control, wealth and personal prosperity became the measure of a successful and satisfied life.
The people of the land divided into classes. The divide between rich and poor became greater each year. No one stopped to question this divide. And when a few of them did question the divide, their voices were mocked and brought to scorn. Why would the rich question the divide when they were able to prosper off the sufferings of the poor? And the poor had no power to question the injustices of the rich, for their whole existence was consumed by the simple matter of survival. Both rich and poor became lost, seeking pleasure in drunkenness and in lewd behavior and in conquest of others less fortunate than themselves. And all the while they grew further away from the Almighty. They created the Almighty in their own image, now barely able to recognize truth and grace.
Who are these people? Where is this land? We are these people! This is our land!
Amos talks of a basket of summer fruit. The nation, his nation, is the basket of summer fruit. And now it is rotting, rotting because of the loss of relationship, the loss of integrity, the loss of true communion with God. And the most frightening part about this passage is that no matter what Amos says, the people cannot hear him.
"They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to the east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it" (v. 12).
The injustice of our land and our society, the pride within us, is no less than that found in the land of Israel at the time of Amos. And just like those Israelites of long ago we too very often choose to ignore the sacrificial nature of the Almighty, preferring the satisfaction of self and the satisfaction of power in our nation to the detriment of the world community. Pray that we will have eyes to see and ears to hear, and the willingness to stop running to and from, to stop wandering from sea to sea, to stop resisting the truth of the Word of God -- pray that we will find true humility and Christ-like humanity.
Sufferings for Your Sake
John S. Smylie
Colossians 1:15-28
Jim and Gloria lived in married student housing while they were in seminary. Jim was studying there, believing that he was called to serve as an ordained minister. Gloria was there with him as his spouse, and at this time her focus in life was less clear. Life at the seminary was not easy -- the married student housing was crowded, and there was very little sense of personal space. The challenges of day-to-day life, the academic rigors, the field placement, the long hours of study, and the required worship services left little time for Jim to nurture his relationship with Gloria. Gloria, in her role as supportive spouse, had not yet found a focus for her life. The romance of their earlier years seemed to fade away under the rigorous demands of the seminary. They were growing apart, yet neither of them seemed to have the ability or capacity to express this to the other. Any attempts by Gloria at communicating feelings of loss would lead to arguments, pointing the finger of blame -- tears and heartache and guilty feelings would always follow. Jim would simply dig deeper into his work, and Gloria would find herself feeling more isolated from Jim and resentful of the world in which she now found herself.
An opportunity came for Gloria to join her parents on a weeklong vacation in a tropical environment. It was winter, and the cold and gray days of Cambridge, Massachusetts, were no competition for the vision of sunshine and warmth and aquamarine waters. Gloria accepted her parents' invitation and went with them to the islands. It was a wonderful holiday at the beginning, and yet she discovered that she was unable to share with her parents the depth of her feelings and how her relationship with Jim seemed to be coming apart. Gloria and her parents went on a scuba-diving adventure, and it was there that the trouble became multiplied. At the end of the dive, the instructor invited Gloria to have a cocktail with him. It seemed innocent enough, and her parents left the two of them and returned to their hotel room. Gloria and the instructor had cocktails together, and later that evening shared the pleasures that are to be reserved for the marriage bed.
On her return to Cambridge the guilt of her actions continued to grow within Gloria, and the wedge between Jim and her became so great that she couldn't stand not confessing her unfaithfulness to her husband. My wife and I were close with Jim and Gloria, and they had come to us for advice on how to deal with this seemingly irreconcilable and deeply wounding problem. In the days before they revealed to us this huge challenge in their relationship, my wife and I had become aware of a sense of darkness and depression having fallen upon us. Nothing was wrong in our lives -- we were living in a time that felt very blessed, and we could not understand or explain the heaviness that was overcoming us. It was only after Jim and Gloria told us of their deep pain and despair, only after they reached out and confessed to us and to one another the unfaithfulness that had come between them that we began to understand that the Lord had given us the opportunity to share in their suffering. As part of the body of Christ, we were given some of their pain, the pain that was too much for them to bear alone. We were given a portion of their suffering, perhaps so they could experience a bit more light and grace so they could begin a healing process towards reconciling their relationship. Having named Jim and Gloria's darkness that had come upon us, we were more able to bear it, surrendering it daily to the suffering of our Lord for us all, which he experienced upon the cross.
Gloria and Jim worked out their relationship through many difficult days and months. Jim decided to leave the seminary and pursue a different path, and now their children have grown. The wounds of unfaithfulness, though leaving a scar, have now healed and made them stronger and more compassionate to others. As members of the body of Christ, we are called to share in one another's joys and sufferings. And yet it is always good to remember that Christ has borne our wounds and our sins -- every one of them. He took them all and bore them upon his cross. Thanks be to God.
John S. Smylie is the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Casper, Wyoming. Previously he served as the dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane, Washington. He is a published author and storyteller as well as a singer-songwriter. Smylie recently completed Grace for Today, a collection of 25 stories that explores how grace, loss, and restoration are part of the same fabric.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and email the story to us.
**************
StoryShare, July 22, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
What's Up This Week
"Housewarming Warning" by David O. Bales
"This Land Is Your Land" by John S. Smylie
"Sufferings for Your Sake" by John S. Smylie
What's Up This Week
"Cautionary tales" is the theme of this edition of StoryShare. In our Gospel text this week, Jesus chides Martha for being overly concerned with household tasks -- and in our featured story, David Bales tells of a woman caught in a whirlwind of preparation for a big housewarming party. But she learns in a most dramatic fashion that like Martha, her obsession with getting things just so for her guests has diverted her attention from the truly important things. Then John Smylie paints a portrait of a land divided, and asks us to examine our conscience to see if the prophet Amos' allegorical description of a basket of fruit is not just lament for a fallen Israel, but also a timely warning for us today. Finally, we have another piece from John Smylie that details the temptations that can come from a decaying relationship -- and the pain that we are sometimes called on to share to help our brothers and sisters in Christ. But the good news is that because Christ has redeemed our sin on the cross, he bears the weight of all our pain and suffering.
* * * * * * * * *
Housewarming Warning
David O. Bales
Luke 10:38-42
"We need four of the medium-sized canopies. I don't know the exact dimensions, but I've seen them at other parties. Look at where I want them and you figure out the size. One here." Betty Jo pointed to the front yard and continued to walk to the side of the house. "One here." She rounded the corner to the back yard. "And two here: one on each side of the patio."
"I think I can handle that," Steve said. He started across the lawn to his pickup, parked in the driveway.
"And Steve," Betty Jo said as she followed him, "I phoned them a month ago and they said they had dozens, so make sure to reserve them in white. I've seen multicolored canopies and they look like a circus."
"Right," Steve said. He groaned as he stepped into his pickup. Through the open window he yelled across the lawn, "I thought we retired and moved away to cut down our workload!"
Betty Jo laughed and shooed him away.
Betty Jo sat at the kitchen table and sorted through photos from the florist. Which arrangement would look best in the living room? In the dining room? Low centerpieces for the tables outside under the canopies. The phone rang.
"Hi Karen," Betty Jo said. "How's my faithful ex-neighbor? Tickets arrived. Great, and I've got your reservations at the Shiloh Inn. Check in Friday and out on Monday. I got a note from the Lairds. They're coming too. Like old home week.
"Yeah. I thought about it, but I'll be exhausted after Saturday. And really, we haven't looked too much this last month, living in a motel and all. But at least by being here for six weeks we got to see the last three and a half weeks of construction. You'll love it. Lawn and landscaping came almost instantly this week. The fellow who rolled down the turf said it isn't a wonderful idea to have a housewarming party on it so soon, but with careful watering all summer it'll take root no matter what.
"Sure. Get settled and the party over, we'll find a church and a Bible study or a prayer group. We don't have the time yet.
"You sound like Steve. I just haven't had time. If you want to worship here Sunday, look in the telephone book and find the church. Tell the group to keep praying for me.
"Okay, looking forward to seeing you too and getting all our, dare I say, old neighbors from the land of the Umpqua together with our new neighbors."
Betty Jo was teetering on a stool, putting up crepe paper when Steve arrived. "We've got five days till the party," he said. "Do we need streamers up all week?"
Betty Joe put the tape in his hand, pointed him to the ceiling, and went back to the stove. "Ice. I just remembered," she said. "How about if you ask Lorna and... and... I forgot her husband's name."
"Phil."
"Yes, Phil. Why don't you walk over to Lorna and Phil's and ask them to get 27 sacks of ice for us on Saturday morning. That'll give us three sacks at the end of each canopy."
"24."
"What?"
"24 sacks. Four canopies, times two ends, times three sacks is 24."
"Oh, you tell them what to do." She smiled and waved him out the door.
She stirred furiously, one pan after another, all four burners producing meatballs, freezer containers on the counter waiting to store them until Saturday. The phone rang. "This is like the neighborhood's prayer group arriving by telephone. Karen Gillis just phoned. They're coming. How about you guys? Wonderful! I'll make reservations along with Karen and Ed. Please, I want to.
"Karen asked me too. Not yet. We get this party over and, sure enough, we'll have time to find a church. Can't live without that. You and Kent can worship Sunday morning with Karen and Ed. Scope it out for us. Let us know what you think so we can drop in there on a Sunday real soon."
The front door shut. "Steve's here. Got to put him back to work. Talk with you later."
She dashed from the phone to the stove and quickly stirred one pot after the other. With the back of her wrist she pushed hair up her forehead. She turned to Steve and said, "I'm a little diz..."
* * *
Betty Jo felt as though she had wakened and gone back to sleep a dozen times. She looked to the ceiling and didn't see streamers up yet. No streamers. Wrong walls. White. Steve was sitting in a chair next to her, holding her hand. He was slumped and unshaven. She tried to talk but felt a mask over her mouth and nose. She managed to open her eyes wider. Steve was laughing. No, he was crying.
When she woke again Betty Jo's mind was clearer, although she felt she was struggling up from the bottom of a swimming pool to become fully awake. Steve was asleep in the chair to the left of her bed. She heard a "beep beep" and looked up to a television monitor with her vital signs making lines across it. She slept again.
On the evening that Steve said was her third in intensive care she was fully lucid. Steve pulled aside the oxygen mask. She whispered to him that the party was off. He laughed as he stroked her hair. She smiled through two streaks of tears.
The next night, Steve stepped toward the bed. "Karen's on the phone and she's calling from the prayer group."
Betty Jo fumbled until she got the oxygen mask up. She motioned to Steve that she didn't want to talk. She smiled weakly and said, "Tell them, 'Okay, I have the time now.' "
David O. Bales is a retired Presbyterian minister and a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries and Tebunah Ministries. He is the author of Gospel Subplots: Story Sermons of God's Grace and is a contributing author to Sermons on the Second Readings (Series II, Cycle A).
This Land Is Your Land
John S. Smylie
Amos 8:1-12
For the people of the land it was a dream come true. They felt superior, special, believing that their land was given to them by the Almighty himself. When they arrived in their blessed country they all shared an equal footing. No one was above the other; each of them experienced great gratitude for the blessings that the land provided them. Yes, there were struggles for survival, but the strength of their belief gave them courage to endure every challenge that was placed in front of them. They believed they were chosen by the Almighty himself to possess the land and to be nurtured and strengthened by it. They were a strong people, fierce in spirit, having overcome great adversity. They were an intelligent people, able to face the challenges that were put in front of them using the great resources found within them. They were an attractive people, handsome and beautiful, sculpted in the image of the Almighty.
After possessing the land for a few generations, the distribution of wealth began to fall out of balance. The members of this great society, this chosen nation, looked to their own giftedness and their own strength and their own talents, and they slowly began to forget about the Almighty who had given them the land and their gifts and their talents. The only contact they had with their Maker was found in a formal religious fashion, in customs and laws that seemed to have very little to do with their daily life. Where they began their journey as one people, working together, in need of one another, now in their success they had become individuals and they valued self-sufficiency above community.
Earlier generations had found pleasure in simply receiving the gift of the Promised Land -- they found pleasure in knowing that they were called and blessed by the Almighty. Succeeding generations found different pleasures, pleasures designed to satisfy their own needs. They took pleasure in feeling power and control, one over the other. Slowly they were transformed into a selfish society where everything was about the good of the individual. The values of the early community slowly dissipated through the generations until self was the highest value. Self-fulfillment, self-pleasure, power and control, wealth and personal prosperity became the measure of a successful and satisfied life.
The people of the land divided into classes. The divide between rich and poor became greater each year. No one stopped to question this divide. And when a few of them did question the divide, their voices were mocked and brought to scorn. Why would the rich question the divide when they were able to prosper off the sufferings of the poor? And the poor had no power to question the injustices of the rich, for their whole existence was consumed by the simple matter of survival. Both rich and poor became lost, seeking pleasure in drunkenness and in lewd behavior and in conquest of others less fortunate than themselves. And all the while they grew further away from the Almighty. They created the Almighty in their own image, now barely able to recognize truth and grace.
Who are these people? Where is this land? We are these people! This is our land!
Amos talks of a basket of summer fruit. The nation, his nation, is the basket of summer fruit. And now it is rotting, rotting because of the loss of relationship, the loss of integrity, the loss of true communion with God. And the most frightening part about this passage is that no matter what Amos says, the people cannot hear him.
"They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to the east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it" (v. 12).
The injustice of our land and our society, the pride within us, is no less than that found in the land of Israel at the time of Amos. And just like those Israelites of long ago we too very often choose to ignore the sacrificial nature of the Almighty, preferring the satisfaction of self and the satisfaction of power in our nation to the detriment of the world community. Pray that we will have eyes to see and ears to hear, and the willingness to stop running to and from, to stop wandering from sea to sea, to stop resisting the truth of the Word of God -- pray that we will find true humility and Christ-like humanity.
Sufferings for Your Sake
John S. Smylie
Colossians 1:15-28
Jim and Gloria lived in married student housing while they were in seminary. Jim was studying there, believing that he was called to serve as an ordained minister. Gloria was there with him as his spouse, and at this time her focus in life was less clear. Life at the seminary was not easy -- the married student housing was crowded, and there was very little sense of personal space. The challenges of day-to-day life, the academic rigors, the field placement, the long hours of study, and the required worship services left little time for Jim to nurture his relationship with Gloria. Gloria, in her role as supportive spouse, had not yet found a focus for her life. The romance of their earlier years seemed to fade away under the rigorous demands of the seminary. They were growing apart, yet neither of them seemed to have the ability or capacity to express this to the other. Any attempts by Gloria at communicating feelings of loss would lead to arguments, pointing the finger of blame -- tears and heartache and guilty feelings would always follow. Jim would simply dig deeper into his work, and Gloria would find herself feeling more isolated from Jim and resentful of the world in which she now found herself.
An opportunity came for Gloria to join her parents on a weeklong vacation in a tropical environment. It was winter, and the cold and gray days of Cambridge, Massachusetts, were no competition for the vision of sunshine and warmth and aquamarine waters. Gloria accepted her parents' invitation and went with them to the islands. It was a wonderful holiday at the beginning, and yet she discovered that she was unable to share with her parents the depth of her feelings and how her relationship with Jim seemed to be coming apart. Gloria and her parents went on a scuba-diving adventure, and it was there that the trouble became multiplied. At the end of the dive, the instructor invited Gloria to have a cocktail with him. It seemed innocent enough, and her parents left the two of them and returned to their hotel room. Gloria and the instructor had cocktails together, and later that evening shared the pleasures that are to be reserved for the marriage bed.
On her return to Cambridge the guilt of her actions continued to grow within Gloria, and the wedge between Jim and her became so great that she couldn't stand not confessing her unfaithfulness to her husband. My wife and I were close with Jim and Gloria, and they had come to us for advice on how to deal with this seemingly irreconcilable and deeply wounding problem. In the days before they revealed to us this huge challenge in their relationship, my wife and I had become aware of a sense of darkness and depression having fallen upon us. Nothing was wrong in our lives -- we were living in a time that felt very blessed, and we could not understand or explain the heaviness that was overcoming us. It was only after Jim and Gloria told us of their deep pain and despair, only after they reached out and confessed to us and to one another the unfaithfulness that had come between them that we began to understand that the Lord had given us the opportunity to share in their suffering. As part of the body of Christ, we were given some of their pain, the pain that was too much for them to bear alone. We were given a portion of their suffering, perhaps so they could experience a bit more light and grace so they could begin a healing process towards reconciling their relationship. Having named Jim and Gloria's darkness that had come upon us, we were more able to bear it, surrendering it daily to the suffering of our Lord for us all, which he experienced upon the cross.
Gloria and Jim worked out their relationship through many difficult days and months. Jim decided to leave the seminary and pursue a different path, and now their children have grown. The wounds of unfaithfulness, though leaving a scar, have now healed and made them stronger and more compassionate to others. As members of the body of Christ, we are called to share in one another's joys and sufferings. And yet it is always good to remember that Christ has borne our wounds and our sins -- every one of them. He took them all and bore them upon his cross. Thanks be to God.
John S. Smylie is the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Casper, Wyoming. Previously he served as the dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Spokane, Washington. He is a published author and storyteller as well as a singer-songwriter. Smylie recently completed Grace for Today, a collection of 25 stories that explores how grace, loss, and restoration are part of the same fabric.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and email the story to us.
**************
StoryShare, July 22, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 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., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
