Ed, my old neighbour from Saskatchewan, saw my face by way of Skype yesterday. He said, “If I knew you were looking that bad, I would have phoned instead." My face does look red, raw and burned in spots.
I will soon complete an eight-week treatment with cream that helps prevent the formation of skin cancer on parts of my face. Like many folks, I have had a couple of spots of skin cancer removed by surgery, and it is an on-going concern to prevent more. Thankfully, it has been manageable so far. I told Ed not to give up on me, as my face will heal again when the treatment ends.
It doesn’t take much to cause us to give up on others. Sometimes, it is because of the way they look, especially if they look contagious. Maybe it is the way they dress or how they act or speak. The colour of skin, hair, age, height or weight can result in a person being ignored or rejected. Thankfully, there are some people who never give up on others, even if they can no longer see them or can be certain where they are or if they are still alive.
A case in point comes from the earthquake that devastated Armenia in 1989 killing 30.000 people. As soon as the tremor stopped, a father raced to an elementary school to check on his son. The school had been leveled to a mass of stones and rubble. The father started to pull the rocks and rubble away with his bare hands in the area of his son's classroom. Others came, but only the father kept digging to find his son. He would not stop until he found him. A police officer encouraged the father to give up his search, but the father would not hear of it.
The father continued to dig in the rubble for 36 hours, and by hour 38 it seemed his hands were so sore and raw he could not go on. Miraculously as he struggled to pull another boulder, he heard his son’s voice. He called the boy's name, and his son answered him. Not only was he able to free his son from his destroyed classroom but the rest of his class also.
His son, trapped in the darkness of his classroom, kept telling his classmates that his dad would come for them. The darkness could not prevent the boy from having a bright and clear confidence in his father’s rescue. The father could not see his son for the rock and rubble covering him, but he would not stop digging to find him.
Light is so welcome when we are trapped in darkness. Some conditions like sickness, various diseases, severe pain, paralysis, blindness, deafness and death may keep us in the dark of hopelessness or helplessness. Large crowds flocked to Jesus because he brought them the light of healing to their physical conditions and their spirits as well.Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000248 EndHTML:0000002924 StartFragment:0000002579
Everyone sees the need for healing the body. Jesus came to Earth to bring God's cure, for sin and death, for our souls. The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin if we claim it as our own
