Heart to Heart from Cheri

My handsome forty-something nephews from California sat at our dinner table last spring as I served them an Italian meal with steamed asparagus, fresh spinach salad, and hot bread.  They loved homemade spaghetti and the hospital food was getting old. Their mom, my sister Martha, was in Denton Regional about forty-five minutes away, in her last agonizing weeks of life from bone cancer.

As I served the Boston cream pie, with steaming cups of coffee, I heard the question again: “How could you all love us so much and care so much about us when we are just getting to know you? We didn't even know we had a family in Texas in our growing up years.  It’s hard to receive your and the other aunts’ love because we haven’t done a thing to deserve your attention or love…Uncle George’s flying us here,  meals and help from Aunt Georgia, Marilyn, Aunt Di, and you.”

As I shared with my nephews, God wove together His thoughts into the conversation.

“You know we knew you when you were just babies and toddlers. You are a part of our family.  Your mother brought you home to see us and our family drove all the way across the country from Texas to California to spend a week with you when you were little.  We had pictures of you framed on the walls along with the other nephews and nieces and couldn’t wait to see you again.

“When your dad took you away from your mom and got custody and another woman raised you, we were heartbroken. But it doesn’t change the fact that you are our nephews, that you are part of our family, our sister’s only sons. It doesn’t change the reality that I’ve been praying for you both your whole lives even when I didn’t get to see you. And your grandma, whom all the grandkids referred to as “Mamaw,” prayed for you until her address changed to heaven.

“We missed you all those years. But when we were reunited at the family reunion in 1993, when your mom got to put her arms around you and bring you back to the fold to be in the Heath family photographs and meet your twenty-two cousins (some who looked like you even though you’d never met them)—we jumped for joy because you were coming back to the family.  And we still loved you. Not because you were All-American athletes or played in the NFL, not because of your performance or looks, but because you’re you.  You’re a part of us.  We loved you when you were little boys and we love you in your adulthood.  Though your lives are in some degree of turmoil, that doesn’t take away from the fact that we love you still.”

And that’s how God feels about you and me only thousands of times more. He loved us when were not aware of His presence. He created each of us and formed us in our mother’s womb.  When we weren’t even interested in Him or His way of life or plans for us, He loved us. In fact He demonstrated His own love toward us, the Bible says, when we were yet sinners; when we were helpless, hopeless, and even hostile toward God (Romans 5:6-10)—Christ died for us, so that we could come home to the Father and be reunited with Him and His family.

What incredibly good news this is—not only for my long-lost and now-found nephews, but for all of us on planet earth: to realize anew God’s unconditional, unfailing love. To know that His arms are open wide today, whether you’ve been distant and disconnected from Him because of discouragement or busyness, hopelessness or hostility. God hasn’t moved, even if you have! He’s already demonstrated His unshakeable commitment to you and I in Christ Jesus. So we can draw near to Him today. And if you’re already close to Him, take a few moments in the midst of your busy life to express gratefulness for this amazing out-of-this world love the Father has shown us.

Just think: He has prepared not just a nice Italian meal for you, but a banquet of joy, peace, and fellowship in the Holy Spirit. God offers not just hot bread—but the Bread of Life, the daily manna of His Word—to sustain you every day in your journey on earth, and present you faultless with great rejoicing before His throne in heaven, where you’ll be with Him forever.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

 

Quote to Ponder

Faith is the heroic effort of your life, you fling yourself in reckless confidence on God. God has ventured all in Jesus Christ to save us, now He wants us to venture our all in abandoned confidence in Him.

                                    --Oswald Chambers

Book & Movie Reviews

Out of the Black Shadows: The Amazing
Transformation of Stephen Lungu
By Stephen Lungu with Anne Coomes
Monarch Books

If you want to be reminded of the power of Christ to transform a person’s life and experience again the joy of salvation, let me encourage you to read Out of the Black Shadows.  Perhaps my interest in this book is influenced by just having been to Zambia and South Africa to speak at women’s conferences which brought my new interest in books on the history and people of Africa.

Nevertheless, this book is a great read, a spiritual thriller you can hardly put down.  The pages fly as the story of Stephen Lungu unfolds. Stephen, the son of a teenage mother born into poverty in Salisbury, Zimbabwe who was desperate for his next meal, abandoned on the streets at three years old by his mother and father. By age eleven he’d run away from an abusive aunt, preferring life on the streets to the beatings and cruelty inflicted on him.

As a teenager, sleeping under bridges and scavenging food from white people’s trash cans, Stephen was recruited into an urban gang, the Black Shadows, which became a terrorist group. When a traveling ministry came to town and he was dispatched to bomb the event and the people gathered, he was riveted by the life-giving words of the evangelist, drawn to Christ, and the rest is stranger and more amazing than fiction. As God begins to change Stephen’s life day by day, he grows into an evangelist whose testimony and teachings impact countless people not only Africa but the U.S., Australia, Canada, and Europe.

Not only will your spirit be uplifted by reading Out of the Black Shadows, your own spiritual journey will be challenged and encouraged in new ways. I highly recommend this book!

Recommended Resources

Great Small Group Resource
Questions included in book and a guide will be available
on Cheri's Website at www.cherifuller.com