A Word Of Comfort
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week: "A Word of Comfort"
A Story to Live By: "Behind the Door"
Shining Moments: "I Am Sure That God Is Able" by Linda J. Vogel
Good Stories: "Increase Our Faith"
Scrap Pile: "A Spirit of Power and Love" by John Sumwalt
A Word of Comfort
by John Sumwalt
News of the continued violence in Iraq -- and another kind of violence, the attack commercials that bombard us every time we turn on the television during this election season -- leaves our souls battered and weary. Is there no end? "Is there any word from the Lord?" The writer of 2 Timothy offers a word of comfort from Paul in this Sunday's epistle reading: "...join with me in suffering for the Gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own power and grace" (1:8-9).
I think there may be a sermon in there somewhere. On this World Communion Sunday I plan to tell of the sufferings and triumphs of Bernadette of Lourdes. My message will explore the themes of humble service, sacrifice, and faith that are reflected in both the epistle and gospel readings. Check out Bernadette's witness in this week's A Story to Live By and Scrap Pile.
A Story to Live By
Behind the Door
"So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "
Luke 17:10
One day Sister Marie-Bernard [Bernadette of Lourdes] suddenly put a strange question to one of her companions, Sister Philippine. "Tell me, what do you do with a broom when you've finished with it?"
"Why do you ask me that?" demanded the other in astonishment.
"Never mind," went on Bernadette insistently. "I do ask you: what do you do with a broom when you've finished with it?"
"What a question! Why, you put it back in its place, of course."
"In its place? Where is that?"
"Behind the door."
"Exactly! You see, I served as a broom for the Blessed Virgin. And when she no longer had any use for me she put me in my place: behind the door." And with a gentle gesture Bernadette added: "There I am, and there I shall remain."
(Michel de Saint-Pierre, Bernadette and Lourdes, Image Books, 1955, p. 192.) For more information about Bernadette's visions click on http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintb06.htm
Shining Moments
I Am Sure That God Is Able
by Linda J. Vogel
This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
2 Timothy 1:9b-10
In 1969 my father was dying (too slowly!) from a malignant brain tumor that changed his personality and robbed him of many life skills. He was less and less able to tell us things, because he might say he had "buttons" for breakfast when he clearly thought he had said "eggs." We could guess what he meant some of the time, but often there was not enough context for us to begin to guess, and he would become frustrated with us because he thought he had said what he meant. After many trips to Kansas to be with my parents, our family left for a much-needed vacation in the northwest.
I found myself struggling with a combination of anger at God and guilt, because I felt like a hypocrite. How could I presume to teach Christian Education to others when I found my own prayers bouncing off the ceiling and felt guilty about my frustration and anger? Remember, this was before Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had written her book on the five stages of grief, and no one had ever suggested to me that my feelings were "human" and that God understood!
After a lovely afternoon and early evening in the mountains in the Canadian Rockies, I settled our two youngest children, ages 4 and 2, in the back of our VW camper. Again, this was long before parents knew that children belonged in restraining seats, and the van didn't even have seat belts, except in the front seats. My husband and our 15-year-old son were in the front. All at once, our not-yet talkative 2-year-old said, "Pete gone! Pete bye-bye." I turned around and then screamed with terror. The back door must not have been securely latched. When my husband had downshifted ('69 VW campers only had 53 horsepower), the door flew up and Pete must have flown out, because he was nowhere in sight!
I screamed! Dwight turned the van around, as if on a dime, and we headed back from where we had come. Around the next bend, I saw Pete at a pull-off in the arms of a Canadian woman. As Dwight pulled into the pull-off, I jumped out of the van.
"Mommy, you shouldn't get out of the van when it's moving. You might fall on your face!" Pete said. He had landed on his bottom and fallen back on his shoulders, but had not hit his head. There had not been a truck or car traveling behind us to hit him when he hit the pavement. Later, when Dwight and our teenaged son went back to the accident site, they found Pete's little stuffed pig, Porkchop. It had hit the guard rail and was split open where it lay down the side of the mountain. It could have been Pete.
I took my son in my arms. At that moment, that big red ball of fire that is the sun began to drop behind a mountain peak in the west. Suddenly, a great peace came over me. I knew that God gives life and that God receives life in death. Death is so hard for us because what God gives in life is so very good. My questions still weren't answered, but in that moment I was graced with the gift of acceptance. I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that God gives life and that my son's life had been given back to us. I knew that God weeps with me over my father's painful dying process and is present with us always -- in life, in dying, and in death. Peter spent three days in a hospital in Watertown. When he was released, the diagnosis read only "minor abrasions and multiple trauma." We were able to continue our vacation.
Though this happened over 30 years ago, the experience is as vivid to me now as it was on that August day in the Canadian Rockies. God touched my heart and held me, even as I held our son. My questions were subsumed in the awesome presence of God-with-me and the assurance that, finally, God's gracious presence and care is all that really matters.
Linda J. Vogel has recently retired as Professor of Christian Education at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. She is a deacon in the United Methodist Church and is active at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple. Her most recent books, co-authored with her spouse Dwight, are Sacramental Living: Falling Stars and Coloring Outside the Lines (1999) and Syncopated Grace: Times and Seasons with God (2002), published by Upper Room Books.
Good Stories
Increase Our Faith
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you."
Luke 17:5-6
A bishop, accompanied by his mother and two nuns, was traveling on a ship across the White Sea in Russia. Many pilgrims were also on board. Hearing a fisherman tell of three strange old hermits who lived on a remote island, the bishop resolved to go there and deliver some religious instruction to them. After being rowed ashore, the bishop spent the entire day on the island teaching the Lord's Prayer to the hermits, who had considerable difficulty learning it. Finally satisfied that he had done God's work, the bishop was rowed back to the ship at day's end and sailed away from the island. As the moon shined over the water and the bishop was sitting on deck with his mother, she noticed a disturbance behind them on the water. It turned out to be the three hermits, who were running over the water toward them. When the hermits arrived, they apologized to the bishop for having forgotten the words of the Lord's Prayer after "Who art in heaven." Chastened, the bishop assured the old men that the way they chose to pray is well-loved by God. The hermits then turned and ran back over the water. The last words we hear are those of their original prayer: "Three are Ye; three are we; have mercy on us!"
Scrap Pile
A Spirit of Power and Love
by John Sumwalt
...for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7
My sister, Ruth Smith, and her husband Bruce operate a used-book store in Plymouth, Wisconsin, called "Dear Old Books." This summer at one of their sales I picked up Michel de Saint-Pierre's Bernadette and Lourdes, an inspiring biography of the 14-year-old French peasant girl who had visions of the Virgin Mary in February of 1858. What is perhaps as remarkable as the visions themselves is the choice of this small, sickly teenager as the recipient of this special grace, the great physical suffering Bernadette endured, and the skepticism and ridicule that greeted her when she began to tell of her visions.
Saint-Pierre writes that on the day of the first vision Bernadette "was perhaps the most wretched girl in all France." She lived in abject poverty and could neither read nor write. She suffered from asthma, a condition that was to plague her all of her brief life. Bernadette was stricken by cholera at the age of 11, a very serious illness which retarded her growth so that she appeared years younger than she was.
After the visions and after she had become a nun, Saint-Pierre tells that Bernadette endured "an unbelievable variety of pains and ills: acute rheumatism, toothache, vomiting and spitting up of blood, palpitations of the heart, stifling breathlessness, abscesses and tumors, bone infections which were so painful that she would spend whole nights 'groaning like an animal' until the lamentations were transformed into prayers. And at the break of day a small voice would be heard gasping morning prayers: 'My Jesus, my Jesus, my Jesus, my Jesus...' " (Michel de Saint-Pierre, Bernadette and Lourdes, Image Books, 1955, p. 190)
When encouraged to return to Lourdes, to the healing waters where so many had been made whole following her visions there, Bernadette said no, that this was for others but not for her. This attitude of genuine humility, which was characteristic of her life of service helps to explain her "behind the door" remarks (described above in this week's A Story To Live By).
Along with lifelong physical suffering, Bernadette dealt with constant testing and humiliation by both civil and church authorities. One example of this is an event that occurred during the seventeenth apparition on Wednesday, April 7, 1858:
"Bernadette had never failed to bring a lighted candle to the Grotto since the first time she had been instructed to do so by the Beautiful Lady. During this apparition, she unconsciously placed one of her hands over the flame of the candle. People witnessed the flame burning through her fingers. Bernadette did not even hear the cries of horror which arose from the crowd. She continued to pray for at least fifteen minutes while the flame burned through her hand. She emerged quietly from prayer unscathed. Then Dr. Dozous took another candle and, without warning, touched the flame to her hand. Bernadette immediately cried out in pain. Shortly after this apparition, the Prefect took matters into his own hands and ordered the Grotto closed, and the rustic altar was dismantled."
(For a more complete account of the sufferings of Bernadette, click on: http://www.medjugorjeusa.org/lourdes.htm)
(For more information about the "Dear Old Books" bookstore in Plymouth, Wisconsin, write to chinasmithbooks@bytehead.com)
**********************************************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Jodie Felton, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. Click on the title above for information about how to order. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A, which begins in December.
Other Books by John & Jo Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences
Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles
Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
You can order any of our books on the CSS website; they are also available from www.amazon.com and at many Christian bookstores. Or simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. (If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.)
**************
StoryShare, October 3, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 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.
What's Up This Week: "A Word of Comfort"
A Story to Live By: "Behind the Door"
Shining Moments: "I Am Sure That God Is Able" by Linda J. Vogel
Good Stories: "Increase Our Faith"
Scrap Pile: "A Spirit of Power and Love" by John Sumwalt
A Word of Comfort
by John Sumwalt
News of the continued violence in Iraq -- and another kind of violence, the attack commercials that bombard us every time we turn on the television during this election season -- leaves our souls battered and weary. Is there no end? "Is there any word from the Lord?" The writer of 2 Timothy offers a word of comfort from Paul in this Sunday's epistle reading: "...join with me in suffering for the Gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own power and grace" (1:8-9).
I think there may be a sermon in there somewhere. On this World Communion Sunday I plan to tell of the sufferings and triumphs of Bernadette of Lourdes. My message will explore the themes of humble service, sacrifice, and faith that are reflected in both the epistle and gospel readings. Check out Bernadette's witness in this week's A Story to Live By and Scrap Pile.
A Story to Live By
Behind the Door
"So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, 'We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!' "
Luke 17:10
One day Sister Marie-Bernard [Bernadette of Lourdes] suddenly put a strange question to one of her companions, Sister Philippine. "Tell me, what do you do with a broom when you've finished with it?"
"Why do you ask me that?" demanded the other in astonishment.
"Never mind," went on Bernadette insistently. "I do ask you: what do you do with a broom when you've finished with it?"
"What a question! Why, you put it back in its place, of course."
"In its place? Where is that?"
"Behind the door."
"Exactly! You see, I served as a broom for the Blessed Virgin. And when she no longer had any use for me she put me in my place: behind the door." And with a gentle gesture Bernadette added: "There I am, and there I shall remain."
(Michel de Saint-Pierre, Bernadette and Lourdes, Image Books, 1955, p. 192.) For more information about Bernadette's visions click on http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintb06.htm
Shining Moments
I Am Sure That God Is Able
by Linda J. Vogel
This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
2 Timothy 1:9b-10
In 1969 my father was dying (too slowly!) from a malignant brain tumor that changed his personality and robbed him of many life skills. He was less and less able to tell us things, because he might say he had "buttons" for breakfast when he clearly thought he had said "eggs." We could guess what he meant some of the time, but often there was not enough context for us to begin to guess, and he would become frustrated with us because he thought he had said what he meant. After many trips to Kansas to be with my parents, our family left for a much-needed vacation in the northwest.
I found myself struggling with a combination of anger at God and guilt, because I felt like a hypocrite. How could I presume to teach Christian Education to others when I found my own prayers bouncing off the ceiling and felt guilty about my frustration and anger? Remember, this was before Elisabeth Kubler-Ross had written her book on the five stages of grief, and no one had ever suggested to me that my feelings were "human" and that God understood!
After a lovely afternoon and early evening in the mountains in the Canadian Rockies, I settled our two youngest children, ages 4 and 2, in the back of our VW camper. Again, this was long before parents knew that children belonged in restraining seats, and the van didn't even have seat belts, except in the front seats. My husband and our 15-year-old son were in the front. All at once, our not-yet talkative 2-year-old said, "Pete gone! Pete bye-bye." I turned around and then screamed with terror. The back door must not have been securely latched. When my husband had downshifted ('69 VW campers only had 53 horsepower), the door flew up and Pete must have flown out, because he was nowhere in sight!
I screamed! Dwight turned the van around, as if on a dime, and we headed back from where we had come. Around the next bend, I saw Pete at a pull-off in the arms of a Canadian woman. As Dwight pulled into the pull-off, I jumped out of the van.
"Mommy, you shouldn't get out of the van when it's moving. You might fall on your face!" Pete said. He had landed on his bottom and fallen back on his shoulders, but had not hit his head. There had not been a truck or car traveling behind us to hit him when he hit the pavement. Later, when Dwight and our teenaged son went back to the accident site, they found Pete's little stuffed pig, Porkchop. It had hit the guard rail and was split open where it lay down the side of the mountain. It could have been Pete.
I took my son in my arms. At that moment, that big red ball of fire that is the sun began to drop behind a mountain peak in the west. Suddenly, a great peace came over me. I knew that God gives life and that God receives life in death. Death is so hard for us because what God gives in life is so very good. My questions still weren't answered, but in that moment I was graced with the gift of acceptance. I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that God gives life and that my son's life had been given back to us. I knew that God weeps with me over my father's painful dying process and is present with us always -- in life, in dying, and in death. Peter spent three days in a hospital in Watertown. When he was released, the diagnosis read only "minor abrasions and multiple trauma." We were able to continue our vacation.
Though this happened over 30 years ago, the experience is as vivid to me now as it was on that August day in the Canadian Rockies. God touched my heart and held me, even as I held our son. My questions were subsumed in the awesome presence of God-with-me and the assurance that, finally, God's gracious presence and care is all that really matters.
Linda J. Vogel has recently retired as Professor of Christian Education at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. She is a deacon in the United Methodist Church and is active at First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple. Her most recent books, co-authored with her spouse Dwight, are Sacramental Living: Falling Stars and Coloring Outside the Lines (1999) and Syncopated Grace: Times and Seasons with God (2002), published by Upper Room Books.
Good Stories
Increase Our Faith
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you."
Luke 17:5-6
A bishop, accompanied by his mother and two nuns, was traveling on a ship across the White Sea in Russia. Many pilgrims were also on board. Hearing a fisherman tell of three strange old hermits who lived on a remote island, the bishop resolved to go there and deliver some religious instruction to them. After being rowed ashore, the bishop spent the entire day on the island teaching the Lord's Prayer to the hermits, who had considerable difficulty learning it. Finally satisfied that he had done God's work, the bishop was rowed back to the ship at day's end and sailed away from the island. As the moon shined over the water and the bishop was sitting on deck with his mother, she noticed a disturbance behind them on the water. It turned out to be the three hermits, who were running over the water toward them. When the hermits arrived, they apologized to the bishop for having forgotten the words of the Lord's Prayer after "Who art in heaven." Chastened, the bishop assured the old men that the way they chose to pray is well-loved by God. The hermits then turned and ran back over the water. The last words we hear are those of their original prayer: "Three are Ye; three are we; have mercy on us!"
Scrap Pile
A Spirit of Power and Love
by John Sumwalt
...for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7
My sister, Ruth Smith, and her husband Bruce operate a used-book store in Plymouth, Wisconsin, called "Dear Old Books." This summer at one of their sales I picked up Michel de Saint-Pierre's Bernadette and Lourdes, an inspiring biography of the 14-year-old French peasant girl who had visions of the Virgin Mary in February of 1858. What is perhaps as remarkable as the visions themselves is the choice of this small, sickly teenager as the recipient of this special grace, the great physical suffering Bernadette endured, and the skepticism and ridicule that greeted her when she began to tell of her visions.
Saint-Pierre writes that on the day of the first vision Bernadette "was perhaps the most wretched girl in all France." She lived in abject poverty and could neither read nor write. She suffered from asthma, a condition that was to plague her all of her brief life. Bernadette was stricken by cholera at the age of 11, a very serious illness which retarded her growth so that she appeared years younger than she was.
After the visions and after she had become a nun, Saint-Pierre tells that Bernadette endured "an unbelievable variety of pains and ills: acute rheumatism, toothache, vomiting and spitting up of blood, palpitations of the heart, stifling breathlessness, abscesses and tumors, bone infections which were so painful that she would spend whole nights 'groaning like an animal' until the lamentations were transformed into prayers. And at the break of day a small voice would be heard gasping morning prayers: 'My Jesus, my Jesus, my Jesus, my Jesus...' " (Michel de Saint-Pierre, Bernadette and Lourdes, Image Books, 1955, p. 190)
When encouraged to return to Lourdes, to the healing waters where so many had been made whole following her visions there, Bernadette said no, that this was for others but not for her. This attitude of genuine humility, which was characteristic of her life of service helps to explain her "behind the door" remarks (described above in this week's A Story To Live By).
Along with lifelong physical suffering, Bernadette dealt with constant testing and humiliation by both civil and church authorities. One example of this is an event that occurred during the seventeenth apparition on Wednesday, April 7, 1858:
"Bernadette had never failed to bring a lighted candle to the Grotto since the first time she had been instructed to do so by the Beautiful Lady. During this apparition, she unconsciously placed one of her hands over the flame of the candle. People witnessed the flame burning through her fingers. Bernadette did not even hear the cries of horror which arose from the crowd. She continued to pray for at least fifteen minutes while the flame burned through her hand. She emerged quietly from prayer unscathed. Then Dr. Dozous took another candle and, without warning, touched the flame to her hand. Bernadette immediately cried out in pain. Shortly after this apparition, the Prefect took matters into his own hands and ordered the Grotto closed, and the rustic altar was dismantled."
(For a more complete account of the sufferings of Bernadette, click on: http://www.medjugorjeusa.org/lourdes.htm)
(For more information about the "Dear Old Books" bookstore in Plymouth, Wisconsin, write to chinasmithbooks@bytehead.com)
**********************************************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Jodie Felton, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. Click on the title above for information about how to order. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A, which begins in December.
Other Books by John & Jo Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences
Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles
Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
You can order any of our books on the CSS website; they are also available from www.amazon.com and at many Christian bookstores. Or simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. (If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.)
**************
StoryShare, October 3, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 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.
