Blessings to you, loved ones.  Here’s your weekly update.

I can’t tell you how much joy you all brought me last Sunday during our 5th Sunday fellowship.  I’ve been talking about how we need to function as a church and that everyone has something to do, but when Cathy and I started talking about the practicalities, I wasn’t sure we were ready to embrace the idea so fully.  I was so wrong, and I am so blessed.  If Pastor David were permitted to speak to us now, I think He’d express the same kind of delight in the way you all responded to the call.  Thanks to everyone who brought food as well.

It was good to see Tim back again and doing better.  I think I understood that he transferred out of his chair into the pew.  He’ll be testifying before we know it.  Debra had a family event so she didn’t join us, but she came to the meeting of the Dallas Christian Fellowship of the Blind that meets the 4th Saturday of most months in our building.  She is doing much better.

We have a number of prayer needs that are posted each week on the Praise and Prayer Requests page.  If you find yourself at a loss for something to pray about, there’s always plenty of material there.  I think part of the reason we do this is that it draws our hearts closer to His.  As we spend time in prayer, we develop the same kind of compassion He has for those we pray for.  Cathy sent us another one yesterday and I regret not getting it posted as it was time sensitive.  In time we’ll come up with a more efficient means of getting things like that out.  We will still pass it along person to person but it would be nice to get it online when appropriate so that as many as possible can be praying.

Her request read, “Please add Maddie to your prayer list today.  She is a 3 yr old with downs syndrome who is going through heart surgery today.  Her older brother & his wife live next door to our daughter in Mabank.”

The event has passed, but this family can still use your prayers.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sharing with you about how Jesus often had a higher purpose for the miracles He performed.  In the account of the man who was paralyzed who was brought to Him through the roof, we saw Him prove his power to forgive through the healing.  Then we considered the healing of the man lying at the pool of Bethesda.  Here Jesus offers a sick man a level of respect he probably didn’t get anywhere else by first asking Him if he wanted to get well.  This was also a probing into the man’s heart.  But Jesus was up to something much more.  He was setting the stage for His ultimate act of sacrifice, through which the entire world can be healed from the greater sickness caused by sin.  But we must want to get well.  He will not impose it on us.

This time we’ll go a few chapter’s further and start with John 9:1-12.  This story takes the entire chapter, but we don’t have time to explore all of it at once.  Now we see something that hasn’t been pointed out in the other two cases, though it would be equally valid.  When Jesus and His disciples come upon a blind man as they travel, the disciples tactlessly ask Jesus, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”  Jesus’ response in part is this, “so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Now we see how it may be that suffering plays a part in God’s plan.  We’re not given this man’s age,  but we know that he is grown and has been blind from birth.  As with most people in his day with disabilities, he has few options and makes his living by begging.  His own people look down on him as evidenced by the question the disciples asked.  His life has not been easy, but it was all for a higher purpose.  Now he will glorify God in a way few people would ever have opportunity.  He displays the work of God, that the blind may see.  This story used to make me angry.  Now it brings me comfort and joy.  I am excited to share it with you!

I love you, and I want to see you on Sunday!

Larry