Love One Another

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35

I am left speechless by the love and respect first responders have for one another. I expected many emergency vehicles on my trip to Webster today and there were many. Men and women in uniform stood in cold, snowy streets for hours directing traffic near the high school where calling hours were held for the fallen. Others stood in cold, snowy streets with boots in hand collecting donations for the families. Still others stood in long, cold, snowy lines to pay their respects to brothers they had never met but with whom they held a special kinship. This is love.

I find my heart broken today because this is the kind of love Jesus asked of His disciples, the love we often find so impossible to give, and yet here it was on the streets of my hometown and the sidewalks of my old high school. Why is this love so hard to find within the walls of the church and yet so dramatically displayed outside of it? I am humbled, and my heart is challenged to love, to love like these.

Hannah and I drove down to Irondequoit Bay to feed the seagulls. It is something I have enjoyed doing other years, but today it took us past caution tape and the stark lonely chimneys of burned out homes. I felt like an intruder... and I wondered how many regulars have been down to do something as simple as feeding the birds this past week. I think perhaps it will never again be simply feeding the birds. It will be instead a reminder of a lesson in love.

""This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. John 15:12-13

X is for eXtraodinary

X is for eXtraodinary.

It has been an emotional week in our corner of the world. It's kind of hard to play the ABC game without thinking of the extraordinary men and women who put their lives on the line to serve us each and every day. They include policemen, firemen, and first responders of every kind. I am ashamed to admit that I have too often forgotten to be thankful for all they do and risk every day in every community around the globe.

For more ABC Wednesday, click here.

December 2012

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 

Luke 2:11

  

December has not turned out the way any of us imagined. Instead it arrived full of tragedy and unanswered questions. Evil has raised its ugly head in an attempt to overshadow the reason we celebrate. A friend has said, "The world is in pain... that's why a Savior came." She is exactly right. God sent His son into this world because He loves us. He wants so much to give us hope, a hope that lives on when Evil tries so desperately to take it away.

Last Christmas the town of Webster, NY mourned, and this Christmas they are in mourning again. This is the little town where I grew up. This is the place my daughter calls home. This is where so many hearts are aching and broken today. But we all know it doesn't stop there. It never does, because the arms of Webster, NY reach far beyond a little town on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and just like the entire country grieves for the town of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, there are people across this land who also grieve for Webster, NY.

Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because He loved them and felt the pain that sin had brought them. He came to save them from their sin, but they didn't want anything to do with Him. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" Matt. 23:37 He came to save us too. He came to give us hope. He came to give us a song, a song to sing in the face of Evil and in spite of it. "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"

Oh, So Sad

I am having an im- possible time trying to brighten up a holiday that comes in a month so seemingly dark. Not only has it been a year since our own family tragedy, but one tragic event follows another this year. It has been reported that four firefighters were shot this morning responding to a fire. Two are said to have died. And this time it didn't happen on the other side of the world, country, or state. It happened in Webster. It happened near where we go to toss bread to the seagulls and geese down between Irondequoit Bay and Lake Ontario. It happened not far from Bethany's new house. When will the insanity end?