On the Anvil - Max Lucado [25]
A new love.
A fresh love.
A love with the tenderness
of a lamb,
the grandeur
of a mountain,
the strength
of a lion.
And make us one. Intimately one.
As you made a hundred colors into one sunset,
A thousand cedars into one forest,
and countless stars into one galaxy . . .
make our two hearts as
one,
Father, forever . . .
that you may be praised, Father,
forever.
If you are married, or planning to be, consider the prayer above.
Do you share the love of God?
Are you united in Christ?
What can you do today to pursue one united heart?
45: Sarah
Sarah sat alone. Her hands, freckled with age, rested in her lap. She wore her finest dress. Her nursing-home room spoke of springtime: daisies in the vase, a poinsettia blooming outside her window.
“Sundays are special, you know.”
Her nursing-home wall spoke of family: an enlargement of grandson Jason hugging Brando the terrier; a framed portrait of her son Jerry, the dentist, and his family in Phoenix; Sarah and her late husband cutting their fortieth wedding anniversary cake. “It would have been fifty years next May.”
Sarah sat alone. “They came last Christmas,” she said brightly (as if defending her family).
A telegram and a birthday card were taped to the dresser mirror. A church group sang hymns down the hall. She had done her best to make the small room look homey, but a person can only do so much.
A thousand miles away a family played.
Sarah is not sick or ugly. She is not useless or decrepit. Sarah is simply old. Sarah is not senile, though at times, she confesses, the naïveté of senility is tempting. She doesn’t suffer from cancer or arthritis. She hasn’t had a stroke. No, her “disease” is much more severe. She suffers from rejection.
Our society has little room for the aged. People like Sarah come in scores. No one intentionally forgets them. Maybe that’s why it is so painful. If there were a reason: a fight, a mistake, a dispute . . . But usually it’s unintentional.
Unintentional rejection. It will kill Sarah; she’ll die of loneliness. It doesn’t matter how nice the convalescent home is; nurses and old folks don’t replace a grandbaby’s smile or a son’s kiss.
Spend all your love on her now.
Forget not the hands, though spotted,
The hair, though thinning,
The eyes, though dim.
For they are a part of you.
And when they are gone, a part of you is gone.
Is there a convalescent in your acquaintance who needs your care today? What can you commit to doing on his or her behalf?
Who else is a part of you—your church body, your community, your workplace—who might need some kind of care, whether physical or emotional? What can you do to spend love on them?
Why should we care for the sick and aged and lonely? What does Jesus say about them?
46: The Sonar Fish Finder
I’m not one to complain about new inventions that make life easier. I love our toasters, hair dryers, calculators.
I think they make the little snags smoother in our day-to-day rituals. Yes, I like new ideas. . . . But this time we’ve gone a little bit far.
It’s called the sonar fish finder, and it looks like a hair dryer. You put the nose end under the water and pull the trigger. A digital board responds to sensors on the nose, which in turn respond to the presence of fish. Gotcha! The poor little gilled creatures are victims of a radar system as advanced as anything used in World War II.
But the real loser isn’t the fish. It’s the fisherman.
I haven’t done a lot in my life, but one thing I have done is fish. My father is hooked on fishing. In fact, I can’t remember a single vacation during which we didn’t fish. Our fishing was as consistent as Hank Aaron’s bat. Hours on end. Riverbanks. Trout jumping. “Shhh, you’ll scare the fish.” Wet tennis shoes. Corks bobbing. Up early. Fifteen-horsepower motor. Minnows. Worms. Hooks. Stringers. Photographs. And man-to-man talks. (A fishing pole does wonders for conversation.) You name it, we talked about it. Football, girls, school . . . God. There’s always time to talk when fishing.
You see, it never really matters if you catch