Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Jan­u­ary 14, 2003

Today’s scrip­ture read­ings are an inter­est­ing mixed bag.  In Hebrews and the Psalms, the ques­tion is pre­sent­ed “What is man that you are mind­ful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?”  Hebrews answers “that he, for whom and through whom all things exist” is not ashamed to calls us “broth­ers.”  The sto­ry in Matthew shows Jesus tak­ing the time to teach peo­ple and dri­ve an evil spir­it out of a man.  These things have always amazed me.  God is the cre­ator of the uni­verse, the author of every­thing that has gone before and that is to come.  The Alpha and the Omega.  And yet God is will­ing to lis­ten to my prob­lems and cares how my day has gone.  It seems impos­si­ble.  And yet this is the mod­el that Jesus presents.

I met Jana about sev­en years ago through church.  She is very active in the church.  She reads scrip­ture at ser­vices, sings in the choir, puts togeth­er bul­letins for Sun­day and writes a month­ly col­umn for the church newslet­ter.  Jana is a fas­ci­nat­ing, unusu­al and blessed woman.  In 1983, Jana was involved in a car-train acci­dent that result­ed in a severe head injury.  She will be in recov­ery, phys­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tion and speech ther­a­py for the rest of her life.  Jana walks with a pro­nounced limp.  Speech is a strug­gle for her.  She has a deep, raspy voice that strug­gles over each word.  I’m sure that many peo­ple who meet Jana for the first time are shocked.  Espe­cial­ly if they have read her won­der­ful and wit­ty columns.  Jana real­ized ear­ly on that she was faced with a choice.  Would she let her hand­i­cap or God’s call­ing dic­tate her life?  She had to choose between ser­vice or retreat­ing into a cocoon.  Jana is a woman with a heart for God.  She chose service.

Sev­er­al years ago, I served on the com­mit­tee that reads scrip­ture for Sun­day morn­ing ser­vices.  Jana approached us say­ing she would like to try.  My ini­tial reac­tion was that this was a real­ly bad idea.  How would the con­gre­ga­tion react?  How would Jana han­dle rejec­tion or embar­rass­ment?  Jana insist­ed that she felt a call­ing to do this.  She would work extra duty with the speech ther­a­pist.  Well, the morn­ing for Jana’s scrip­ture read­ing final­ly came.  I don’t know that I was as ner­vous as Jana, but it was prob­a­bly close.  I held my breath as Jana opened the Bible.  No, it was­n’t Pavarati or James Earl Jones, but it was won­der­ful.  It was an incred­i­bly touch­ing and mov­ing moment in my life.  What a hum­bling les­son for me.  Me, who does­n’t mind serv­ing God as long as it does­n’t take me out­side of my com­fort zone.  Recent­ly my senior pas­tor was diag­nosed with an incur­able can­cer.  Guess who was there to offer him sym­pa­thy and com­fort?  Guess who was the one to chal­lenge him about fol­low­ing his call ver­sus the ill­ness’ dic­tates?  Jana.  It’s always amaz­ing how God uses peo­ple to accom­plish His will.  Peo­ple are placed in our path and God uses them to mold our lives.  As the Psalmist says, “what is man that you are mind­ful of him?”  And yet day after day we see God’s love for us.

I give thanks for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wor­ship a God who is awe­some and per­son­al at the same time.  My prayer is that each of us can see the face of God in the face of those God places in our lives.  You know, I feel blessed today.