Jesus and the Little Girl

I have a birthday coming up in a few days. I try not to think about how old I am. I often lie about my age, as a matter of fact <gasp>. Don't judge me. Twenty-nine was a good year. I've decided to stick with that.

My birthdays often make me think of being a little girl. There were definitely a few good birthdays in those single digit years that make me smile. I had slumber parties and stayed up late dancing (if that's what you can call it). I ate too much and laughed a lot. There were some rough years in there, as well. Life wasn't always super in my house.

Jesus knew a little girl once. This is the story that the Gospels depict of Jesus' encounter with this little girl. Things apparently didn't go very well for her, either. You never hear her name. You never see her face. But you get to see what happens when she meets Jesus.

"While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.” Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.” When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.”

They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened."

So to sum it up, Jesus is busy healing one woman when Jairus walks up and doesn't even get the chance to ask Jesus to heal his daughter. Someone else tells Jairus that his daughter is dead. Don't even bother asking Jesus to heal her. She's gone. Jesus, in all His Glory says, "Just believe. I can still handle this." Jesus gets to Jairus's place and sees everyone crying. So he tells them to cut it out. Stop crying. She's not dead, but asleep. The word Jesus used for what we translate to mean "not dead" is "apothnesko ou" which means "absolutely not dead."

Everyone starts to laugh at Jesus. Not just laugh at Him, but laugh in scorn because they saw the girl die. Jesus hasn't even looked at her. How does He know? Right?

This is where it gets good. He walks into her room. He takes her hand. He says two words: "Pais, egeiro!" Pais means girl. Egeiro can mean two things. It can mean to rise from disease or death.  Or it can mean to to rise from ruins or non-existence.


I don't know what happened to that little girl. I don't know how she died. But I know whatever happened to her just didn't matter any more once Jesus got close.


I love this story. Once I was a little girl. And I died a long time before I even knew I was dead. I had some things taken from me. And then I started to give them away. But I was dead, nonetheless. But then Jesus walked in. He got close enough to me to hold my hand. And He told me to get up - to rise from my ruins, from the non-existence that I had made. And then my spirit returned and at once I was whole.

How do you not love Jesus? When this is what He does - when this is what His entire earthly ministry and every goal of His entrance onto this planet was, how do you not love Him?

If you would like to meet this Jesus, you let me know. I can introduce you.

Praying for you all -

Tricia

Everything Matters

God and I have been having this struggle lately. Wait, that's not right. I have been having this struggle with God lately. I've started to feel like maybe the things that I am going through aren't important. Does that make sense? Like what I am dealing with and how I am dealing with it don't really matter. Most of the time, the only people that see me are my husband and kids any way. I feel useless to the Kingdom. I feel impotent for Christ. That's like the exact opposite of what I want. That has led to me feeling like I'm not really good enough to serve Christ in the kind of capacity for which I thought He would use me. And that hurts.

But God has been speaking to me. He's not been telling me how great I am. He's not been telling me how important or smart I am. He has been telling me that He is great. He is important. He is sovereign. And it all matters.

God isn't ignoring me. He is growing me. God isn't looking away - He is waiting for me to look up. This is all about Him - this has nothing to do with me. And until I get that - until I really realize that my entire life is designed and built around glorifying God, I am making myself useless.

Every time I answer an angry word with a quiet word, I am making a difference for the Kingdom. Every time I notice my children and I correct or love them, I am making a difference. Even the smallest things - if I am doing them to and for the glory of God, they matter. Because they are glorifying God. Anything else that I do is worthless.

God has been telling me to live to His glory. If I want to make a difference, If I want to really make an impact, I have to live for His glory alone. I have to humble myself and seek Him and do whatever He asks. All the time.

When I think about it like that, it makes me feel silly for feeling any of the things I felt before. Because it's not about me. God is going to use me however He wants and even if I'm an idiot, that only increases the likelihood that I will be used! I just want to serve Him - I mean that with my whole heart. So God is telling me to relax, and remember whose greatness I should be seeking. If that means the only people I ever impact are in this house, then it still matters to Him. And that's all that matters any way.

What Now?

Well, I finished up with the past. Now I have to move on to the present day. Which forced me to really ask myself what I wanted this blog to be. I would like for it to be revelations as they come from God. I would like to be able to get out my daily redemption on "paper." God is always speaking, all the time and I really wanted to have a canvas on which to relate the various ways that He is working.

Here's my problem with that. I've been avoiding God. There. I said it. It's out there. I don't feel better - but there it is. God is definitely speaking to me right now. I just don't like what He is saying. So I'm ignoring Him. Wow, does that sound stupid when I say it out loud. Where do I really think I'm hiding? I'm not clever enough to outwit my 18 month old who still thinks he hides behind his hands. That must be what I look like to God - a toddler putting her hands over her eyes saying, " I don't see you!"

Why am I avoiding God, you ask? That's kind of a long story. The gist of it is I am having some problems with my family that I don't want to deal with. Turns out I'm a lot more angry about things that happened a long time ago than I would like to admit and I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to confront anyone, because I don't think that would do any good. But I'm really not good at pretending or patronizing someone by pretending I feel something for them that I don't, so I've just been avoiding people all together. God has been telling me for a while that I need to deal with it, I just don't know how. So I've been avoiding God, too, hoping the whole situation will just disappear. Turns out life doesn't just vanish when it gets difficult.

We met with a new small group last week and I was asked to put down on paper the situations in our lives that we can't run from but we don't have any power to change. I put my family relationships down and now, over the next two weeks I am to be reflecting on what God is saying to me about this particular thing. An entire week of my two weeks went by with me still trying to ignore the situation. But then I got the accountability carpet pulled right out from under me and I felt like I had to do something.

I had a quiet time this morning. I prayed first that God would show me something - anything to help me hear what He is telling me about this "weed." I was really hoping for something more than that I have to deal with it. I know I have to deal with it. I just need some motivation.

So I read in the Gospels. Specifically, I hit some Mark. Once I started reading, I didn't want to stop. I was reading in the chapters where Jesus does all of the healing. He heals a leper. He heals a paralytic that was lowered from a roof. He heals his friend's mom. He gets up early to pray and then travels to another town where he continues to heal the sick and chase demons out of the living.

In the middle of reading, it hit me. All of these injured, wounded and broken had to be carried to Jesus somehow. Someone had to bring these people to healing. Some were so desperate to get their loved ones to Jesus that they removed a roof and lowered the sick down right in front of the Son of God. He was too broken to get to God himself. So someone carried him. That has just continued to resonate with me all day long. They had to believe so deeply that Jesus was the only thing that could fix this person that they loved that they climbed some one's house, hitched a rope to the sick guy's bed, tore up the roof, and lowered their brother in - just to get him in front of Jesus. They weren't going to give up until they got that guy in front of Jesus. Man, I'm a bad sister.

I'm really not sure where God is going with this in me yet. I just know that I am "well." I'm not perfect - but I am healed. I have a relationship with Christ that I'm not sure many in my family have. I need to have faith that Christ can heal this thing that has been broken. I have no idea how that is going to happen. But I know it has to start with some restoration. If anyone is going to let me carry them, they are going to have to let me get close enough to them to put my arms around them. So that is what I will be praying for - restoration. And forgiveness.

Thanks for hanging in. I'll be praying for you all.

Tricia