Monthly Letter

“A MOTHER’S LOVE”

Dear Hopefulls,

In the Day 1 web posting for March 22, 2009 Donovan Drake offers some interesting insights. Here is my slightly edited version:

God has set forth a bail-out package of enormous proportions! The amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is gathering up our sins, our failures, our pains, our brokenness, our pasts, and our presents, into
the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection. This is huge–so huge that many cannot seem to fathom its size and scope. Instead they shrink it and trim it, preaching and proclaiming that God isn’t gathering up “all things,” just “some” things. You know, the more righteous of this world! The more pure of this world! The things that look right and behave correctly and have some redeeming qualities about them.

Well, what’s right, what’s pure, what’s redeeming? It may depend on who you ask.

My mother tells a story about my brother Mark when he was about 4 or 5 years old. The story begins with my mother hearing her young son shouting at a friend just outside the kitchen window. “Stop! Stop!” he yelled. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

My mom looked out and saw the neighbor boy stomping on the ground and my brother shoving him away. “What are you doing? They’re only ants,” shouted the neighbor boy.

“They’ve got a right to live too!” was the comeback from my brother.

My mother watched as my brother got down on his knees and with one hand he tweezered, one by one, little black specks into his other hand. Standing back up he looked
at all the wounded he had gathered up. “Oh little ants,” he said, “don’t worry! My mommy will take care of you!”

Who decides what is right, pure, redeeming? My brother saw something worth redeeming in a handful of broken ants. He knew that the love of his mom was so powerful that it could gather up all the hurt in this world and heal it. How much more powerful is the love of God? Paul sees God’s love as so great that it includes what the Greeks called “ta panta,” the totality. All things! That the ants, the neighbor kid, the cancers, the “ruler of the power of the air,” the “disobedient” spirits, the desires of the flesh and senses…will meet their deaths and be raised and reconciled with God!

In this month when we celebrate Mother’s Day, may we each share with those around us the powerful love we learned from our mothers.

Godspeed and love,

John Middleton