Week 47—Saturday Philippians 2:3-5
Philippians 2:3-5
Week 47—SATURDAY
“NOW THAT I’VE DONE THAT
I’M READY FOR ANYTHING”
When you go low you can go high. Here was a woman who was put in the dust from a letter from her husband—“Divorced in Mexico.” He married a Japanese girl and had two daughters by her. She loved him still and wrote, “Let us be friends. Write to me.” He wrote to her that he was dying of tuberculosis in Okinawa. She wrote to him, “Send your two daughters and let me take care of them.” This was done, and she took care of them as if they were her own daughters. Then she wrote to the Japanese mother, “Come and take care of your two daughters in my home.” She came. When she met the Japanese mother at the airport she prayed this prayer: “Lord, let me love her as I would love for Carl to come home to me.” She really did just that. Telling about it she concluded, “I’m the happiest woman in this block.” And she was.
Another—a young married woman was bitter against the church and all religion, for the religion of her parents was forbidding and uninviting, based on fear. She became a semi-invalid, in and out of the hospital. The doctors thought she had a brain tumor, but could actually find nothing. Two church women called on her, did her household work for her, loved her. She was converted. All her ailments dropped away; she had been skin and bones, now she is a robust, radiant person.
An ex-superintendent of police in India was converted, volunteered to do the sweeper’s job at our Ashram. “Now that I’ve done that I’m ready for anything,” he said triumphantly. And he was! For from that moment he started to go up. After his resignation as police superintendent at forty-two he went on and got his theological education in England and America and is now one of the secretaries of the National Christian Council of India. Ready to do the little, he was ready for the big.
Blessed Redeemer, you have the marks of your descent upon you. And those marks are not mere scars—they are sacraments of your love. Through them we see deeper into the mystery of your love. We thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In my trying to be great I am never so small; in my lowliest task I am never so great.