Pastor's Corner: The Best
By GAYLORD GOERTZEN
Ebenfeld Mennonite Brethren Church
From "Stories for the Kindred Heart," comes a story by Connie Lounsbury called "Their Best." It happened on a cold January day in 1950 when Connie was eight years old.
Connie was standing close to the wood stove along with her brother and three younger sisters trying to stay warm. From upstairs came a popping sound like marbles bouncing on the floor, so her dad went up to check. Halfway up the stairs he shouted, "The house is on fire!"
Connie and her family lived way out in the country, so the house with most of their belongings burned to the ground before help arrived. Family photographs, her mother's treadle sewing machine, and a few personal belongings were all they managed to pull from the burning house.
Connie's dad had been unemployed all winter so they had no money and no insurance to replace anything they had lost in the fire. After living with relatives for a few weeks, Connie's dad borrowed some money and rented a dilapidated old farm house nearby and their family set up housekeeping with odds and ends of furniture, bedding, and kitchen utensils people from the community donated.
Connie's family didn't have much before the fire yet she never felt poor. But now as she stood in someone else's too large dress, in a colorless, bare-windowed house, looking at a paint-splattered table from someone's garage, mismatched chairs from someone's attic, and worn towels from the back of someone's linen closet, Connie couldn't help but cry.
Although her family was grateful for everything they were given, it was a difficult, dreary time for the family. Then a neighbor came with a gift. She smiled and handed Connie's mother a set of brand-new, never-used hand-embroidered pillowcases. The sight of the pure white cotton pillow cases with a hand-stitched pink, lavender, and green floral design almost took Connie's breath away. She could hardly believe the neighbor had given them such a beautiful gift. Other neighbors had given things they did want themselves but this neighbor gave them the best she had.
Connie's dad found work in another part of the state so they moved out of the community a few months later, but even now Connie remembers the sense of self-worth those hand-embroidered pillow cases gave her.
"We must be okay for someone to give us such a beautiful and precious handmade gift," Connie thought.
That neighbor gave the best she had. That's also what God did. Our lives have destroyed by the fire of sin. The fire of sin, however, was not an accident that just happened but a choice we made.
God said, "Don't play around with the fire of sin and fire won't destroy your life."
All of us, however, have chosen to play with fire because we think we know best. The result is that the fire of sin has consumed us and destroyed us.
God could have said, "It's your fault the fire destroyed you. I told you not to play with the fire of sin but you wouldn't listen. So now you have to live with the mess."
But that's not what God said. God said, "I love you. You are special, so I'll give you the best that I have so that you can have new life."
God's best was his son, Jesus Christ. This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. (John 3:15 The Message)
Because he loves us. God sent his son Jesus into our burned-out world, not to point his finger at us and shame us for destroying our lives, but to give us new lives to replace the ones we destroyed by our sin. Jesus died on the cross then rose from the dead to offer us new lives as a gift of his love. But with the gift comes a choice. We can keep our burned-out lives and try to rebuild our lives ourselves or we can choose to accept the new life God offers us. Those who choose Jesus choose new life. God wants to give us his very best.
Will you choose to receive it?
