Well we are really happy today to celebrate your progress
and the victory you have tasted.
We are proud of you for the steps you have taken and for the courage and
determination you have put forth toward your own recovery. Well done.
We know that for all WE can try to offer you here at Healing
Hearts…support, programs, accountability, instruction, and care, there are two
significant things that must be present for you to truly have your freedom.
The first is the precious gift of choice that you have. It is the amazing power given to every
human being to choose how they will live in the face of needs, hurts, daily
hardships, temptations, fears, and everything that comes against us. We’ve been given this thing called free
will, which is mankind’s most astonishing opportunity and has caused its deep
brokenness. We have ALL failed in
using it well, made excuses, and blamed others. But what a precious gift it is!
The second thing is the truth that you are dearly loved,
endlessly treasured, and created for the utter joy of a God who is crazy about
you. We can provide classes and
tools, but the very best thing we can offer you, make no mistake about it, is
the truth about who God is in all His goodness, to remind you that you were
designed by Him with GREAT things in mind, and to walk with you as you take
hold more and more of the freedom and peace and provision He longs for you to
have and died and rose to give you.
He came to earth that long ago Christmas morning so there would always
be enough.
This God, who thought of sunsets and mountains and
wildflowers and giraffes, and spoke them into being, thought of each of us,
envisioned who we could be, and smiled, then gave us life and spoke our
names.
We’ve all screwed up His great plan, but even in all the
things we’ve done to take our lives to the brink of destruction, we are here,
each of us in this room and together today. Coincidence?
I don’t think so.
Ten years ago this spring, I was in the midst of planning a
several room art installation and meditation space for Easter. One of the rooms was to be set up
as a beautiful wedding banquet symbolizing the feast ahead in heaven. DeWayne’s wife Maja and I had been
friends for a year or two at that point and when she heard the plan for the
event, she offered to arrange for us to borrow some wonderful dishes and
glassware. We carried crate after
crate from the home of the lovely lady who was loaning them to us, packed them
into the car, drove to the event location, hauled them up the steps, and carefully
got all the fragile pieces unpacked and in place. I was thinking about that this week. How we had together prepared a place
where truth was displayed through beauty and words. Not so unlike here, and this past year of watching the
growth of Healing Hearts from a two-room agency with no office phone to the
multiple location, many phone facility we are today and are still
becoming. Both the Easter
Vigil and Healing Hearts, at the core, were established to offer tastes of
God’s goodness to those who come our way.
But neither have been done without great effort, a lot of hours of
planning, excitement, frustration, and on-going prayer.
The same is true for our stories. Great things don’t happen unless we take hold of our life
and decide we want it to count.
You have been made wonderfully, been gifted with abilities and talents,
set loose in the world to make a difference and to participate in good. This community needs you and will
benefit by what you, uniquely, have been designed to offer it. But it takes persistence.
Forty-two years ago, as I was just leaving high school, I
began an experiment…to see if this God I’d been introduced to really meant what
He said, really was who He claimed to be.
The way I figured it…
If God could take a thought and turn it into a star-filled
galaxy,
If He could take a widow with nothing and give her a
houseful of containers filled with enough oil to take care of the needs of
herself and her son,
If He could really touch blind eyes and restore their sight,
lame legs and make them walk again, hard hearts and show them how to love,
If He could turn a bloody and hate-filled crucifixion Friday
into an empty tomb and very much alive Sunday morning,
If He could take a bunch of confused disciples and transform
them into wise, courageous, and caring men and women,
How could I not be curious about what He would do with my
life if I gave Him room and time to work.
This is what I’ve learned…
He is the most coolest person who has every lived. (Come
on…He walked on water and fed thousands with one kid’s lunch!)
He has the very best ideas.
He has the power to unfold them, in the most unexpected
ways. (He never once has written
the script the way I would have.)
He has all the resources to make His dreams for us come
true.
He IS peace.
He has the best sense of humor, but never at our expense.
He is endlessly faithful. He keeps all of His promises.
And it isn’t easy to learn to trust Him, for we’ve been
disappointed so often and let down by those who were supposed to care, and
sometimes horrendous things have been done in His name.
But when given a chance,
He heals us.
He alone gives us real freedom and strength.
And…He generously lets us in on that kind of work. Here is what He invites each of us
into: In His own story He tells
us…
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has
anointed me to bring good news to the suffering and afflicted. He has sent me to comfort the
brokenhearted, to announce liberty to captives, and to open the eyes of the
blind. (On a side note…I have a
friend who was recently on a trip overseas, prayed for a man and watched his
eye, having had no cornea, re-form in the 20 minutes he was praying for
him.. He showed me the
pictures—AWESOME!) He has sent me
to tell those who mourn that the time of God’s favor to them has come, and the
day of his wrath to their enemies.
To all who mourn he will give:
beauty for ashes; joy instead of mourning; praise instead of
heaviness. For God has planted
them like strong and graceful oaks for his own glory. And THEY shall rebuild the ancient ruins, repairing cities
long ago destroyed, reviving them though they have lain there many
generations.” Isaiah 61:1-4
We have every reason to hope because He is not done!
We are not alone.
We are never without His help.
And it’s not too late for God to do brilliant things in all of us. He desires for us to have an amazing
story and to know the One who writes magnificent adventures and miraculous
endings in our book.
It’s a stunning invitation we are given to receive all that
He has and to share in all that He is and does.
We each have a life and breath today. There are more pages in our story to be
written. Try handing God the pen
and go follow Him and see what surprisingly good pages He will write in your
book.
Take that free will that you possess and go get the treasure
that’s waiting for you. It’s going
to be awesome. And you better
always come back and tell us your stories so we can keep celebrating with you.
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