Boston

More Snow, Snow, Snow

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“‘Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.’
    This is God’s Message:
‘If your sins are blood-red,
    they’ll be snow-white.
If they’re red like crimson,
    they’ll be like wool.'” (Isaiah 1:18-19)

Well, apparently Middle Tennessee is catching up on all that snow we were supposed to get this year (according to the famed Farmer’s Almanac). Ok, it’s still not that much by New York or Boston standards, but snow is snow. And Nashvillians still can’t drive in it. Not that they can drive in any other kind of weather.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I can remember back when it used to REALLY snow. There was that one time when I was a freshman at Briarcrest High School when Memphis got 13 inches of snow. 13 inches! Again, that’s a light dusting for places like Minneapolis, but for us folks down South, that’s a big deal.

I also remember the Great Ice Storm of ’94 when I was a student at Union University and people lost power for a couple of weeks. Thankfully, the campus shared the same power grid as the nearby hospital, so we only went without power for a few hours.

This time, it’s nowhere near as dramatic as that. Still, even with only an inch or two on the ground, it is rather pretty. Even at night, there’s still enough light reflecting off the snow for me to be able to see out the front door when ordinarily I wouldn’t be able to see much beyond the glow of the streetlights.

I’m thinking how snow covers up so much ugliness and makes everything beautiful again. I wonder if that was what Isaiah was thinking when he penned the words about how “though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”

I’m hoping with all this Arctic (for Middle Tennessee) weather we’ve been having that there will be less bugs next summer. I wonder what the Farmer’s Almanac has to say about that?

 

Thoughts About the Boston Bombers

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I know there are some people out there that are celebrating the capture of the two individuals who allegedly set up the bomb devices that killed three and injured so many at the end of the Boston Marathon. I know many people out there want these two to die slowly and painfully so that they feel all the suffering they inflicted on their victims.

But I wonder how many out there will pray for them? I wonder how many out there really believe that Jesus really died for EVERYONE and that God’s love is truly UNCONDITIONAL. Even for terrorists and criminals.

I think so. Just ask the Apostle Paul.

I also wonder what might have happened if either of these two men had seen the love of Jesus lived out before them. If someone had come alongside of them years before and said, “I’m your friend,” not out of a need to convert somebody but out of a genuine love that expects nothing back in return.

I wonder who will mourn the tragic tale of two lives gone horribly wrong and how they got so blinded that they willingly embraced the lies and the hate that could only lead to nothing but destruction and despair.

I am saddened at the lives lost– all of them. I am glad that justice is served, but that doesn’t mean that I rejoice over death. Even God doesn’t rejoice in the death of the wicked (see Ezekiel 18:23 and Ezekiel 33:11).

Faith shouldn’t ever be about us versus them. It should be about us and God. It should be about who we are and who we would have been apart from the grace of God. It should be about seeing the best in people, not the worst, and helping them to see it, too. It should be about holding on to the Love that is stronger than Evil and Death and Hell and believing that this Love ultimately wins out in the end.