My Best Perfume August 24, 2009

My daughter is in 7th grade and was ready to go to a horse show.  She had applied a little make-up and fixed her hair, but the new thing she had discovered was perfume.  Oh, my.  For a horse show?  I can handle a lot of things, but perfume gives me a roaring headache.  Every time.  I sent her straight to the bathroom to wash her face, neck, arms, any where she had put the perfume.   We all loaded up in the truck, but I could still smell it.  It was hard to breathe. I asked her if she had washed and she said she had, but she had sprayed it on her hat, because it smelled bad…  We stopped the truck and she traded hats.  We had to roll down the windows on the way.  The smell permeated my every pore!

Look at verse 8 of Mark 14.  A woman found Jesus and anointed him with expensive perfume from an alabaster jar.  Some of those present were indignant.  Why did this woman waste this perfume?  But Jesus said of this woman, “She did what she could…”  What a beautiful verse.  “She did what she could.”  Jesus loved this woman.  He loved her for what she did for him.

Sometimes I think I have failed because I have not done great things for God.  I have heard of what others have done.  I have read about martyrs and those with great faith.  I have heard about people who have given up every material thing.  What about me?  What do I do for God?

I need to do what I can.  I don’t need to sit around wishing I could do what I see others doing, feeling guilty that I have not done what someone else has done.   I will do what I can.  I will honor and glorify God where I am, with what I have, using the measure of faith that has been given to me (Romans 12:3).  I will “waste” my best on him.  He will receive my best perfume.  All that I have is his.

What do I do for God?  I do what I can with what he has given me.  That is what I want said of me, like the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume,  “She did what she could.”

same kind of different As me February 27, 2009

Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver’s life was still hopeless-until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.

But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?

Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it.

from Barnes and Noble

Denver Moore, page 80:

I slept in the doorway of that United Way over on Commerce Street for a whole lotta years. And every mornin for all that time, a lady who worked there brought me a sandwich. I never knowed her name and she never knowed mine. I wish I could thank her. Funny, though. That United Way buildin was right next door to a church, and for all them years, nobody at that church ever looked my way.

For starters, I don’t like sad books. This book broke my heart. I cried several times. But it’s been recommended many times by many good friends…I felt compelled to read it.

I am so glad I did. It is a precious book. Maybe I don’t mind sad books after all. I was strengthened by the way this couple faced disaster. They included people in their struggle and maintained their service to God through personal pain. It helped them cope with their heart break.

I hope I will handle life’s pains and struggles with similar fortitude and focus on eternity.

The story is told through the eyes of Denver, the poor homeless man, and the eyes of Deborah and her husband, the wealthy volunteers.  The reading is awkward when Denver tells the story because the spelling and grammar try to be authentic.  However, it was worth the time and energy to see the lives of these three who are striving to die to themselves.

Let me know what you think.