Published: July 04, 2008 08:43 pm            

The Joy Lady: Jesus can turn lives around

TERRE HAUTE — Well, I must admit, I am a bit flummoxed. Yes, that is exactly the word I wanted to use. Bewildered didn’t quite carry the meaning. Confused didn’t work either, because that is sometimes a normal state of being for me. Surprised couldn’t quite carry the nature of things. Nope, the only word that works is flummoxed, as in being totally taken aback, twirling in a bewildered and awestruck surprise. This morning, I was flummoxed, and I’m still reeling.

I was ready to e-mail off my column to the copy editors of the Tribune-Star. They like it if I’m on time with things, and I was going to have to rush to get things done this morning. I knew if I didn’t send it off this morning, I never would, for my grandchildren are coming to spend the night, and I don’t do anything but play and hand out warm cookies and cold milk and lots of hugs while they are here.

But first, I checked my e-mail to see if anyone had sent me anything important. There was one from Joy Dragon, a friend of mine since the good old days at Garfield High School. It was a forward, actually, of a little ditty on YouTube. Hillside Christian Church in Amarillo, Texas, put together a program May 22 they called “Cardboard Testimonies.” The front of the cardboard told, in a few words, what life was like for the individuals holding the sign BEFORE Christ changed them. Then they would flip the cardboard and display what their life is AFTER Christ changed them. It was eight minutes of inspiring testimony.

A man stepped forward, holding his sign that read, “$$Bondage and Pornography.” Then he flipped the sign and displayed his life now: “Freedom through obedience.” A big, strapping man walked to center stage and held up his sign: “Christian men seemed weak.” With a barely discernible grin, he flipped his sign: “Now I am one!”

A married couple held up signs that declared they had gone through a sinful divorce. When they turned their signs over, they declared that God had restored their marriage. The woman looked at her husband and mouthed, “I love you.” He smiled and took her hand as they walked out of camera range. There was a woman whose sign identified her as a “convicted felon.” But her life AFTER Christ changed her showed her to be a “Bible Study Teacher.”

The signs that touched me the most came from an attractive, smiling woman and a rather distinguished looking gentleman with just a touch of gray at his temples. He held his sign down so it couldn’t be read while she held up a sign that said, “Diagnosed with MS in May 2007.” Then he held up his sign: “Donna’s Neurologist. Unchurched.” She looked at him and smiled her encouragement as he turn his sign around. “Baptized Easter 2008.” She glowed with happiness as she turned her sign around: “Worth it!”

Just as those people turned their signs around, Jesus can turn lives around. I know because he did just that for me.

“It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing,” (Ephesians 2:1-10, The Message Version of the Bible.)

Thank you, Joy. This morning, I needed to be flummoxed by the power of Jesus Christ.

        

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