Sermon Notes

On Sunday our pastor preached on 1 Jn 1:5-10, the well-know passage about walking in the light. During the course of the sermon I realized that I had not ever really understood exactly what was meant by "the light." He solved that for me by defining what is meant by "walking in the light": we need to expose and be exposed in our sin and brokenness. He further emphasised this point by saying that living a transparent life before the world is the only way to have true relationships - with God, our spouses, children, others and ultimately even ourselves. To paraphrase George Robertson: "If we are not confessing our sins to others and admitting the gap between what I am and what I say, it will be difficult to have real, authentic relationships with God or others." It was a very convicting and enlightening sermon for me, and it particularly hit home when he applied this point to last week's events at VA Tech by saying that we are all broken, flawed, imperfect and abnormal - every single human being is in need of the same thing: relationship with Christ who is in the business of restoring brokenness, flawed humanity and real community. He expressed his sorrow and sadness for the gunman in last week's events, who was so rejected, despised and broken that he did what he did. A creature in the image of God reduced to such sadness and evil. He is culpable for sure, and my pastor emphasized that fact over and over but he said "Could his story have been different?" He pointed out that the common theme in these horrific school shootings we've all witnessed over the years is not only the weapons used to commit the offenses, rejection, bullying and pain are all there as well. He finished up his aside on VA Tech by challenging us, seemingly looking everyone in the congregation right in the eyes and saying, "Let none of you think you are the standard for normalcy...live honestly and openly about your brokenness and need of a Savior." This challenged me personally in ways I don't yet understand and it challenged me as a mother to really pray for Charlie, pray that he has a soft heart for others, that he will be the one to reach out in love for the unlovely or the "un-cool." Jesus did that, after all - tax collectors, women, prostitutes? Surely we comfortable Americans-American Christians in particular-can pray for softer hearts and true compassion for the people in our society who are in need of real community and real healing.

On a lighter note, :) CHARLIE IS WALKING!! Talk about an answer to many, many prayers - 4 months ago he couldn't sit up or crawl. He's met 90% of his major milestones in such a short period of time and we could not be happier! Here are some pictures from the week-end...