Heros

A little girl was having trouble sleeping. She asked her mom to come and be with her in her room that night so that she could fall asleep. Following the little girl back to her room in reluctanct compliance to the request, the mom said "don't you know that Jesus is always with you?" "Yes, mommy, I know that, but tonight I think I also need someone with skin on." she replied.

It is a simple truth that sometimes we need other human beings to show us how present God is among us. This why God became flesh and blood and moved into our neighborhood called time and space. Jesus was born in a stable surrounded by the most common creatures on earth. His skin was baby soft and I am sure he cried. His mother Mary had said "do this according to your word," and like most of us committed to a fantastic task knowing very little about what she was really committing to do.

I love to read the gospels because there I see my favorite hero. He did have skin then and with that skin he did such things as healing the blind, touching the leper, looking deep into the eyes of women who had been cast out from society for no real reason. His compassion reaches us at our worst, offers us a hand, and puts us back on our feet again. Jesus is my favorite hero because he also teaches us about the constant availability of God. He was Immanuel, God with us, and made it possible for us to have the abiding presence of God with us every single day. I really do want to live each day with God's abiding presence. I need Him.

I also need other people around me that help me discover what it looks like to take God's abiding presence with me each day. Here are a few people who have showed me in flesh and blood what this looks like. Diana Fessler, Bette Keach, and Rev. Brooks Ambose from Bethel UMC in Moriarty, NM. Bette was my Sunday School teacher when I was in 5th grade. She loved Jesus and loved God's word. She also loved me and at the time I thought she loved me in a special way but come to think of it, she was the kind of person who made all the people in her life feel special. She inspired me to really dig down deep in the word and find my everything in Jesus. I loved her so much and it made me so sad when as a freshmen in college I heard that she had cancer and was going to die. I went home just to say good bye to her. She and I cried together and we prayed. She had peace in life's most challenging moments. I knew that Jesus was holding her tight as she passed from this life to the next. Diana Fessler was a young woman when she volunteered to help with our youth group when I was in the 6th grade. She was easy to talk to and always gave me excellent direction especially when I was wanting to go my own way and not listen to the wisdom of my mother. She was cool and a good example to me in my early teen years. Rev. Brooks Ambose was the pastor at Bethel during my growing up years. He was retired from the military, a second career, just out of seminary new pastor when he came to us. None of this was important to me as a young person. I didn't realize that he was inexperienced at being a pastor. I thought he was perhaps the most wise teacher and preacher ever. All I knew was that he loved Jesus and that he really wanted all of us to love Jesus also. He really believed in the spiritual disciplines and holiness of heart and life. He was a real Wesleyan. His laugh and smile are unforgettable. More than a few times, he came to our house and took a genuine caring interest in our family. We could call him in the middle of the night if we needed to be reassured that there were some people around living in that abiding divine presence with skin on.

I bless God for giving us all examples of life in the Kingdom of God. We are not left alone. We always have heros of the faith who have gone before us....even in their imperfection (the subject of my next blog), they show us that God is truly good and available to each of us everyday if we will simply welcome Him to be. We are all given the humbling and awesome task of bringing God-with-us to others.