theexpandingshrink

Let Us Honor the Women Who Grieve

I did it! I did it. I had not done it in approximately a year. But this morning I jogged for two miles and without exhaustion; in other words I could have kept going.

I did it because my daughter Marita announced to me last week that she had just jogged for two miles. She asked me how I was doing. I hung my head and admitted that I had only jogged for one half mile one day this week.

But this morning after walking for two miles and feeling the sun on my back and energy within my body, I said to myself, ‘ I can do this; I can see myself crossing the two mile mark.

As I jogged along I saw the finish line in my mind’s eye but I could not allow myself to focus on ‘how I was doing’; or on ‘how far I still had to go’.

Rather I filled my mind with the sermon I am planning to preach this morning at LifeGate: “Let us Honor the Women Who Grieve.”

I thought of the mothers grieving this morning over the daughters abducted by the Boko Haram. Actually many of these girls were from a Church of the Brethren boarding school ( There are more members in the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, 150,000, than there are in the COB in the USA). I thought of those who grieve over the millions of children aborted and over this fatherless generation and over all those children who are abused.

I thought of how the mothers wept when all the boy babies were killed at the time of Moses birth and of “Rachel weeping for her children’ when the boy babies were killed at the time of Jesus birth.

I thought that great deliverances of God seemed surrounded by weeping.

I thought that we are His body; may we grieve and may we rise up with healing and deliverance ‘in our wings.’ for this generation.

We can do this with God’s help. We are meant to bring the Kingdom to earth. The Son is shining on us and we can victoriously run the distance.