Tag Archives: remembered

Morning Musings

He Will Never Leave Us!

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      We have  here the account of a godly family living near Jerusalem …Martha (who seemed to run the house), Lazarus her brother, and her sister Mary. We don’t read of the parents so presumably they had died with the family continuing to live in their home.

    We first see them as opening their home to the Lord Jesus and presumably His disciples as well, and it was a convenient place for them to call in and rest. This particular day, Martha was bustling around getting a meal ready, but all Mary could do was to sit on a stool at Jesus’ feet listening to His every word. This bothered Martha and she went to Jesus saying, “Lord, tell Mary to come and help get the food ready! “

   But Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are fussing about too much….Mary has chosen the best thing by sitting down and listening to what I have to say!”  In other words, what you are doing will soon all be gone, but what Mary is doing will last as long as she lives! How often we fuss about things that don’t really matter, and forget the things that do! Let us take stock and make sure we do the things that matter first, and the other things afterwards!

    The next time we see the family, food was the last thing on their minds. Lazarus was very ill, and Martha sent a message to Jesus asking Him to come and see if He could do anything for her brother. She was sure that if anyone could he[p, He could. But to her utter dismay, He didn’t come straight away, and Lazarus died. How often our prayers don’t get answered the way we want straight away! But it was through this tardiness of His, that His power could be ultimately shown, and so it is with us too. We often learn more through our prayers being unanswered (as we think), than having our every whim granted. God is not a big Santa Claus in the sky….He always does what is best for us, even though we may not like it at the time. How else can we learn His grace and sufficiency in time of need? “ My grace is sufficient for you”, He says. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

   It was through this time of sorrow for the sisters, that they saw His power shown in bringing Lazarus back to life….the greatest miracle of their lives! This proved to both Martha and Mary that He really was, Who He said He was! So it is for us too! Hard times that happen to us during our life time, teach us that God is still there, and that He cares for us, and even though we may not able to make sense of what is happening around us, we can know that He is still with us as He said He would be.

  Finally we see the family gathered together with others, and once more it is centred around food, and again Martha is serving and seeing to the meal. But this time Mary is the one who is concerned with giving back to the Lord something of what she has been learning at His feet. She brings out this jar of sweet smelling ointment and rubs it into His feet, weeping while she does it. The disciples watched this with mixed emotions….they had no idea why Mary was doing this, and Judas in particular scornfully said, “What a waste!!”. But the Lord knew Mary’s heart. and He knew that she understood far more than the others, and He knew the real reason for her action. She was sorrowing for the things that were going to happen to Him, and for the pain that lay ahead for all of them.

    We can be thankful that He DOES know our motives when others don’t, and He can see the reason we do things for Him when others don’t understand.

Grandma's Stories, Stories for Teens

Sticks and Stones

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“Mum,” Betty wailed as she came into the kitchen, “Bobby’s calling me names!”

“Oh, come now,” said Mum, “He doesn’t mean what he is saying!”

“He does too!” said Betty, “He told me I was an old meanie-bum!”

“Well, what did you do to him?” Mum asked. She knew very well that Bobby wouldn’t call names if he hadn’t been provoked in some way.

“Well,” said Betty looking at the ground, “I did hide his phone, and I won’t tell him  where until he says he is sorry!”

Mum was used to this sort of thing, and she said mildly, “Don’t you think you should say sorry too and go and get his phone back for him?”

“I don’t think it was a nice thing for him to say I was a meanie-bum,” Betty said sulkily.

“Well, you remember the old saying that ‘sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me!’ ” said Mum, “And in this case don’t you think you deserved it when you took his phone?”

   Uncle Jeff came in just then with Bobby following close behind. “Well, well,,” he said in his big cheerful voice, “What’s been going on here?” as he noticed Betty’s aggrieved face.

“Bobby’s been calling me horrid names, Uncle Jeff”, she said.

“And Betty’s gone and hidden my phone!” Bobby said, “She deserves it!”

“Now, now,” said Uncle Jeff, “I think you should both say sorry and you go and give his phone back, Betty. Two wrongs don’t make a right you know!! You know, saying things like this is like ripples on calm water….they go for a very long way. Even some jokes hurt other people. I remember once when I was going to school, a boy called me ‘Bandy’. He only meant it as a joke, but I didn’t like it and I’ve never forgotten it!”

“Yes,” said Mum, “And I remember once I told a girl in my class that I liked what she was wearing and she took it the wrong way, and acted as if I’d slapped her in the face!”

“Ooh,” said Sarah who came in then and heard this last bit, “What happened then?”

“Nothing,” Mum said, “But I’ve never forgotten it. It just shows that what we say can go much further than we ever intend it to.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Jeff, “We should always say things that will build other people up and make them feel good. People will always remember you by what you say!”

    Betty had gone out of the room, and now she came back with her hands behind her back. “Here’s your phone, Bobby,” she said, pulling it out… “I shouldn’t have annoyed you by hiding it”.

“Oh, thank you Betty,” Bobby said, “And I shouldn’t have called you names either, but you did make me mad!”

“That’s great,” said Uncle Jeff, “Now what about that cup of tea? I’m awfully thirsty after all that!”