The Blindness That Blesses

A man married a very beautiful wife. He loved her very much.

One day his wife developed a skin disease. Slowly she began to lose her beauty. She became depressed because she did not want her husband to see her in her ugly condition. She prayed for God to help her.

It so happened that one day, her husband left for a work assignment in another state. While returning home, he met with an accident and lost his eyesight. It was tragic but it seemed to answer the wife's prayer.

Their married life continued happily as before. Even though the wife continued to lose her beauty, she did not worry too much about it. After all, her blind husband couldn't see her face or appreciate whatever beauty that was left. She was no longer depressed.

The husband found a home-based online business and he spent more time with the wife. The wife helped him in the business by reading all the online orders that came in. The husband did the packing of products that needed to be mailed to the customers.

The husband continued to love the wife deeply in spite of the fact that his wife's diseased skin had made her really ugly.

The wife took little notice of her deteriorating physical condition but continued to take good care of her husband.

She was his eyes and in most evenings, they sat close together at the balcony of their townhouse, as she described the activities of the street below for him to appreciate.

Many years later, the wife passed away. Her death brought the husband much sorrow. He missed her so badly.

At her funeral, a good mutual friend asked him what would he do without his wife to help him now... since his blindness was such a handicap to him.

He turned and looked at the friend in the eyes and said, "I am actually not competely blind. I can still see quite clearly in spite of the accident. I was acting as though I was totally blind. The reason is that if my sweetheart was to know that l could see her ugliness, it would have pained her more than her disease.

During our time together, she had never mentioned about her ugliness. She really thought that I could not see her skin condition.

I love her much more than her physical beauty and moreover, she was such a good wife. I believe that she was happy till the day she passed away.

One day, when I see her in heaven, my darling will not only be beautiful inside but she will be gorgeous outside too."

Moral of the story:- *In order to be a blessing to the people you love, it is good for you to act blind and ignore their shortcomings. You will not only bring harmony to your relationship but also great joy to the one you love. God bless you as you learn to become 'blind'*

Author unknown

Adapted by Albert Kang

I COULD HAVE DONE MORE

Oskar Schinler

The film Schindler's List chronicled the heroic efforts of a German industrialist named Oskar Schindler. Through his unselfish activities, over a thousand Jews on the trains to Auschwitz were saved. After Schindler found out what was happening at Auschwitz, he began a systematic effort to save as many Jews as he could. For money, he could buy Jews to work in his factory which was supposed to be a part of the military machine of Germany. On one hand he was buying as many Jews as he could, and on the other hand he was deliberately sabotaging the ammunition produced in his factory. He entered the war as a financially wealthy industrialist; by the end of the war, he was basically financially bankrupt.

When the Germans surrendered, Schindler met with his workers and declared that at midnight they were all free to go. The most emotional scene of the film was when Schindler said good-bye to the financial manager of the plant, a Jew and his good and trusted friend. As he embraced his friend, Schindler sobbed and said, "I could have done more." He looked at his automobile and asked, "Why did I save this? I could have bought 10 Jews with this." Taking another small possession he cried, "This would have saved another one. Why didn't I do more?" (James Forlines, Men's Beat of Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions, April 1999, 4.)

One day Jesus is going to split the eastern sky and come for His own. It will not matter then how much money we have in a mutual fund or how many bedrooms we have in our homes. The temporary satisfaction we have in vacations and nice cars will be gone. Only what we have done for the cause of Christ will matter. The Privilege we have only now, is to use God's resources for things that eternally matter.

(From a sermon by Matthew Kratz, The Grace of Giving, 6/11/2011)

Wesley Took Action!

He Got Involved

by Ron White

Wesley Autrey took action when others wouldn't.

Wesley is the New York City man who jumped on the subway tracks when a man having a seizure faced sure death as a subway sped toward his helpless body. Wesley said later that he knew something needed to be done and “I'm the only one to do it.”

Wesley jumped on the tracks, rolled with the man to a hole and covered the man's body with his own. The subway train just barely skimmed the body of Wesley as it passed over the two men.

Cameron Hollopeter is alive today because a man took action and got involved in the life of another. I believe Wesley when he said he thought, “I am the only one to do it.” Most will watch tragedy with onlooker curiosity, but very few will get involved in the life of another. And nothing I could write will most likely change that instinct.

However, the greater tragedy is this: many not only watch the lives of others helplessly unfold without getting involved, but also watch their own lives unfold as spectators and fail to get involved in their own lives and destiny!

Take a lesson from a New York City hero and get involved in life! Get involved in your OWN life. Jump on the tracks of life today and don't be a bystander. Be courageous with your ideas, set goals, dare to be rejected, dare to fail, dare to look like a fool, dare to lose it all and dare to get involved in your own life.

You don't have to jump in front of a subway train to get involved in your life—but you do need to get involved.Jump on the tracks of life and don't be a bystander in your own life.

Henry Nott's First Convert in 22 Years

In 1797, Henry Nott was the first missionary to Tahiti. During his first five years on the mission field, three missionaries were killed and four others deserted the field. Henry built a friendship with the island’s chief Pomare, and soon new missionaries arrived to help support Henry.

Then in 1803, Pomare he died and his son assumed the title Pomare II. He was even more vicious and violent than his father. After eight years of fruitless labor and the missionary house being ransacked, six more missionaries abandoned Tahiti, again leaving Nott alone to minister. He repeatedly went on long, arduous preaching tours throughout the island. He spent months and years over his lexicons, in the study of Hebrew and Greek, and in the translation of the New and Old Testaments into the language of Tahiti.

Henry did not see his first convert until he had been in Tahiti 22 years. It took several decades, but he was successful in translating the Bible into the Tahitian language.

Henry returned to England only two times during 47 years on the field. His perseverance at preaching the Word finally took hold in Tahiti.  

The Lord asks us to be faithful both in season and out of season. In His time, He will bless. Today in prayer, praise Jesus for His great patience and seek to be patient in all that you do.

"Obedience is the fruit of faith; patience the bloom on the fruit."  - Christina Rossetti

By Peter Kennedy

The Pig and the Horse

There was a farmer who collected horses; he only needed one more breed to complete his collection. One day, he found out that his neighbor had the particular horse breed he needed. So, he constantly bothered his neighbor until he sold it to him. 

A month later, the horse became ill and he called the veterinarian, who said:"Well, your horse has a virus. He must take this medicine for three days. I’ll come back on the 3rd day and if he’s not better, we’re going to have to put him down."

Nearby, the pig listened closely to their conversation.

The next day, they gave him the medicine and left. 

The pig approached the horse and said:"Be strong, my friend. Get up or else they’re going to put you to sleep!"

On the second day, they gave him the medicine and left. The pig came back and said: "Come on buddy, get up or else you're going to die! Come on, I'll help you get up. Let’s go! One, two, three..."

On the third day, they came to give him the medicine and the vet said: "Unfortunately, we’re going to have to put him down tomorrow. Otherwise, the virus might spread and infect the other horses."

After they left, the pig approached the horse and said:
"Listen pal, it's now or never! Get up, come on! Have courage! Come on! Get up! Get up! That’s it, slowly! Great! Come on, one, two, three... Good, good. Now faster, come on.... Fantastic! Run, run more! Yes! Yeh! Yes! You did it, you’re a champion!"

All of a sudden, the owner came back, saw the horse running in the field and began shouting: "It’s a miracle! My horse is cured. This deserves a party. Let's kill the pig!"

Points for reflection: this often happens in the workplace. Nobody truly knows which employee actually deserves the merit of success, or who’s actually contributing the necessary support to make things happen.

Moral: LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT RECOGNITION IS A SKILL!
If anyone ever tells you that your work is unprofessional, remember: amateurs built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic!

This post originally ran on hiyamedia

Pencil And Eraser

Pencil: I'm sorry 


Eraser: For what? You didn't do anything wrong.


Pencil: I'm sorry because you get hurt because of me. Whenever I made a mistake, you're always there to erase it. But as you make my mistakes vanish, you lose a part of yourself. You get smaller and smaller each time. 


Eraser: That's true. But I don't really mind. You see, I was made to do this. I was made to help you whenever you do something wrong. Even though one day, I know I'll be gone and you'll replace me with a new one, I'm actually happy with my job. So please, stop worrying. I hate seeing you sad.

You Cannot Take Me! I Am Already Dead!

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7-8)

I have read how Dwight L. Moody told about a young man who was called to serve in Napoleon Bonaparte's army but didn't want to go. A friend volunteered to go in his place and was accepted as his substitution. Unfortunately, the friend was later killed in battle.

However, because of a clerical error the same young man was called up to serve again. "You can't take me. I'm dead. I died on the battlefield," he told the astonished officers.

After checking the records, the officers found documentation of his name and alongside it the name of the friend who died in his place. The case was presented to Napoleon who, after examining the evidence, said, "Through a surrogate, this man has not only fought, but has died in his country's service. No man can die more than once; therefore the law has no claim on him."

And that's exactly what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did for you and me. He died in our place to pay the just penalty for all our sins so we could be freely forgiven and given the gift of eternal life. When we accept God's pardon, we will never have to pay the price for our sins because Jesus did that for us. He was our surrogate. 

Dick Innes

Why Did You stay So Long?

At the close of World War II, Jimmy Durante, the famous comedian, was invited to entertain wounded soldiers at a veteran's hospital. He said he would be able to do only one very short routine as he had two radio shows to do that day.

The man who invited him was amazed when Durante didn't rush off but gave three complete routines.

"Why did you stay so long," the man asked, "you've probably missed your radio shows?" Durante answered, "Look at the men and you will see for yourself."

There on the front row were two men, each of whom had lost an arm, who were applauding by clapping their two remaining hands together."

Elizabeth Dirks Drowned as Anabaptist

An Anabaptist lady being drowned for her belief

Elizabeth Dirks was a trailblazer and a woman of great courage. Raised in a nunnery in East Friesland, she learned to read Latin and read the Bible through and through. She became certain that monasticism was not the way taught in Scripture. With the help of milkmaids she escaped and became a follower of peaceful Menno Simons. She was one of the first Reformation women ministers, probably a deaconness.

In 1549, Catholic authorities arrested her. When they found her Bible they knew they had the person they were looking for. Mistakenly, they thought she was the wife of Menno Simons. When they tried to get her to take an oath at her interrogation, she refused, saying Christ had taught that our yes should mean yes and our no mean no.

The record of her inquisition shows that the examiners asked her to inform on those whom she had taught. Knowing that this would lead to their arrest, she refused.

"No, my Lords, do not press me on this point. Ask me about my faith and I will answer you gladly."

"We will make it so tough that you will tell us," they threatened.

When she would not reveal who had baptized her or whom she had taught, they questioned her beliefs. She insisted that church buildings were not the house of God, for our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. She denied that the New Testament spoke of the bread and wine as a sacrament but rather as the Lord's Supper. Asked if she were saved by baptism, she replied, "No, my Lords. All the water in the sea cannot save me. All my salvation is in Christ, who has commanded me love the Lord, my God, and my neighbor as myself." She denied that priests have authority to forgive sins--only Christ.

Still refusing to reveal who had baptized her, she was taken to the torture chamber and said, "So far we have treated you gently. Since you won't confess, we will put you to the torture."

A man named Mr. Hans applied screws to a thumb and fingers until blood spurted from under her fingernails. Still she wouldn't give away her friends, but her agony was so great that she cried aloud to Christ and received relief. So they lifted her skirt to apply torture to her shins. She pleaded that she had never allowed anyone to touch her body and they promised to respect her.

Then they crushed her leg bones with screws until she fainted. The men thought she was dead, but she came to and assured them she was not. Realizing that they could get nothing out of her, the authorities condemned her to die. Rather than burn her, as was customary, they tied her in a bag and drowned her on this day, March 27, 1549.

Bibliography:

1. Bainton, Roland H. Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg, 1971.
2. Williams, George Huntston. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1962.

The Kind Clerk

One stormy night many years ago, an elderly man and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia. Trying to get out of the rain, the couple approached the front desk hoping to get some shelter for the night.

"Could you possibly give us a room here?" the husband asked. The clerk, a friendly man with a winning smile, looked at the couple and explained that there were three conventions in town.

"All of our rooms are taken," the clerk said. "But I can't send a nice couple like you out into the rain at one o'clock in the morning. Would you perhaps be willing to sleep in my room? It's not exactly a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night."

When the couple declined, the young man pressed on. "Don't worry about me; I'll be just fine here in the office," the clerk told them. So the couple agreed.

As he paid his bill the next morning, the elderly man said to the clerk, "You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States. Maybe someday I'll build one for you."

The clerk looked at them and smiled. The three of them had a good laugh.

As they drove away, the elderly couple agreed that the helpful clerk was indeed exceptional, as finding people who are both friendly and helpful isn't easy.

Two years passed. The clerk had almost forgotten the incident when he received a letter from the old man.
It recalled that stormy night and enclosed a round-trip ticket to New York, asking the him to pay them a visit.

The old man met him in New York, and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. He then pointed to a great new building there, a palace of reddish stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the sky.

"That," said the older man, "is the hotel I have just built for you to manage."

"You must be joking," the young man said.

"I can assure you I am not," said the older man, a sly smile playing around his mouth.

The older man's name was William Waldorf Astor, and the magnificent structure was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The young clerk who became its first manager was George C. Boldt. This young clerk never foresaw the turn of events that would lead him to become the manager of one of the world's most glamorous hotels.

"We are not to turn our backs on those who are in need, for we might be entertaining angels".

Life is more accurately measured by the lives you touch than the things you acquire.

Story recommended by Pastor Betty Wong
It is not what we take up or what we receive that makes us rich but what we give up that makes our lives much more fulfilling, purposeful, and meaningful. The lives we touch go beyond measure. It is more rewarding to give than to receive.
Pastor Betty Wong
Malaysia

Thirteen Tears: A Columbine Legacy

In Death, Rachel Scott Becomes A Powerful Witness For Christ

Rachel Scott was having lunch with a friend outside when the horror began to unfold at Columbine High School near Denver on April 20, 1999.

Two of their classmates, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, approached with guns and fired several shots, wounding both.

As the boy lay stunned and Rachel tried to crawl away, Harris lifted Rachel by her hair and asked, “Do you believe in God?”

“You know I do,” she answered.

“Then go be with him,” Harris said, and shot her in the head.

She was the first to die that morning.

Rachel was 17, and in the year before her murder she had grown more committed in her relationship with God.

Like most teenagers, she struggled with things like sexual temptation and alcohol abuse. She was no perfect saint, but something had changed. She had become kinder to others, including those like Dylan and Eric, who were part of the “trench coat mafia” — teens who dressed in black, listened to nihilistic music, played violent video games and hated Christ and Christians.

In an Internet video, Klebold said, “Thank God they crucified that a______.”

Rachel counted the cost of her decision to follow Christ and suffered the deep pain of loneliness when her friends at Columbine turned away from her because of her faith. But she would not go back.

In one of her journal entries, dated April 20, 1998 — exactly one year to the day before she died — she wrote: “I am not going to apologize for speaking the Name of Jesus, I am not going to justify my faith to them, and I am not going to hide the light that God has put into me. If I have to sacrifice everything … I will.”

A few days later, she wrote: “This will be my last year, Lord. I have gotten what I can. Thank you.”

She often told friends she believed she would die young and wouldn’t live long enough to marry or have children.

Sometime after she died, her father, Darrell Scott, received a telephone call from a stranger in Ohio. The man told Darrell “you’ll probably think I’m crazy when I tell you why I called, but I have had a recurring dream about your daughter. …”

In his dream, the man said, he had seen a stream of tears flowing from Rachel’s eyes, and they were watering something, but he couldn’t see what it was.

Would that mean anything to him or his family, the man asked.

No, Darrell said, it didn’t mean a thing. But he took down the man’s number and promised to call if it ever did mean anything.

Darrell had forgotten about the strange message until seven days later when he got a call from the sheriff’s office telling him he could pick up the contents of his daughter’s school backpack, which had been riddled by bullets.

Sitting in his truck, Darrell sorted through Rachel’s belongings and read through her final diary. When he got to the last page, there was a picture Rachel had drawn the morning she was murdered. It was of a pair of eyes crying, and the 13 tears turned to drops of blood as they watered a rose that grew out of a Columbine plant.

Thirteen was the number of victims that Harris and Klebold killed that day before taking their own lives.

I heard Darrell Scott tell this story to a crowd of thousands of teenagers at Ichthus in Wilmore, Ky., in April 2002 — days after a similar deadly rampage at a secondary school in Germany.

He believed his daughter knew she would be used by God for something good. She had said she would touch millions of lives around the world. On the day of her funeral, which was a tribute to her faith, CNN had its largest audience ever.

Rachel believed little acts of kindness could make a big difference as others paid them forward.

“I have a theory that if one person will go out of their way to show compassion, it will start a chain reaction of the same,” she wrote.

After her death, her family found an image of her hand that she had traced on the back of her dresser in which she had written, "These hands belong to Rachel Joy Scott and will someday touch millions of people's hearts."

Ironically, at almost the same time, Eric Harris had also used the phrase “chain reaction” in one of his hate-filled messages: “We need to start a revolution,” he said. “We need to get a chain reaction going here.”

Some would say these things are coincidences and that it’s naive to think tragedies like Columbine have any meaning. There was a time I would have thought so too. I’m  a journalist with a liberal arts education and therefore prone to skepticism. At times, I have doubted that God exists. But I’ve come to  believe there is a struggle going on in our world between the spiritual forces of darkness and light.

What other explanation could there be for the Holocaust or the horror of Rwanda in 1994, when nearly a million people were butchered by their neighbors? How else could one account for the incredible stories of forgiveness, redemption and grace that followed those tragedies? And how else could the death of a 17-year-old girl in Colorado lead hundreds of young people at a rock music festival in Wilmore to come forward to repent of their sins and choose to be reborn into a more abundant life?

I believe that at the end of this spiritual conflict, Christ will be the victor and will make all things new, as he promised. It is a struggle in which no one can remain neutral. Rachel Scott learned that at a tender age and chose a side.

Which side are you on?

by Randy Patrick

http://kyvoice.com/winchestersun/newerworld/?p=418

Loyalty and Faithfulness

Sullivan Ballou was a lawyer, a politician and a Major in the United States Army, but may best be remembered for the letter he wrote to his wife the week before he fought and was killed in the Battle of Bull Run. 

July the 14th, 1861 Washington D.C.

My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure—and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine O God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows—when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children—is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death—and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me—perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar—that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. 

Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.  

Sullivan

There’s a message here for the masculine heart.  “A man must have a battle to fight, a great mission to his life . . . a cause to which he is devoted even unto death.  That is why God created you—to be his intimate ally, to join him in the Great Battle.”  (Wild at Heart, John Eldridge)

The Lord will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war.  He will utter a shout, yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against his enemies. Isa. 42:13

The Cross Broke In - The Sacrifice of Edith Stein

On August 2, 1942, the German S.S. stormed a Carmelite convent in Echt, Holland, and demanded that one of its nuns, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, be handed over immediately, along with her sister Rosa.

The convent was thrown into confusion: The prioress begged for more time, sisters threw together some belongings for the two women, and alarmed neighbors gathered outside. Only Sr. Teresa maintained her composure. “Come, Rosa,” she said calmly. “We are going for our people.”

Thus began the final chapter in the story of St. Edith Stein, who had taken the name Sr. Teresa when she became a Carmelite. And it’s this final chapter, including her death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, that is the most familiar to us. But while the climax of Edith’s story is riveting, the entire journey of her life can speak to us even more powerfully. Edith Stein’s heroic death was in essence the culmination of a life lived under the cross of Christ, a life that had been “crucified” with him for years.

Growing Up in a Jewish Family. Edith was the youngest of eleven children of Auguste and Siegfried Stein in Breslau, Germany—now Wroclaw, Poland. She was born into this devout Jewish family on October 12, 1891, on the feast of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Edith’s father died when she was two years old, and her mother took over the family’s lumber business, making it a great success. Yet despite the demands of business and family, Auguste regularly attended synagogue, observed all the holy days, and freely showed generosity and hospitality to the needy around her.

Edith showed great potential from the beginning: With so many older siblings, she was reciting the names of famous German writers before starting school and even considered kindergarten beneath her dignity. Immediately following her sixth birthday, with the school year half over, Edith enrolled in first grade. She could neither read nor write, but she finished the year near the top of her class! She often exasperated her classmates, one of whom exclaimed: “Oh, for once, let me be right!” Still, Edith’s academic drive did not dampen her enthusiasm for life or her outgoing nature. She always seemed to have many friends.

At age twelve, after dropping out of school because she was bored, Edith spent a year with her sister, Else, in Hamburg. Since neither Else nor her husband practiced their faith, Edith returned home having made the conscious decision to give up belief in God. Her mother tried to dissuade her, but Edith would not be moved. Too many questions needed answers, and she could not find them in the faith of her childhood.

Edith attended the University of Breslau to study philosophy, but transferred to Goettingen to study under Edmund Husserl, the pioneer of a new philosophical approach called phenomenology. Along with Edith Stein, Husserl’s teachings influenced thinkers as varied as Jean-Paul Sartre and Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II. Edith thrived in her new setting: deep philosophical discussions with her friends, poring over the writings of Husserl, and the freedom to explore new ideas. In many ways, it seemed an ideal life for the young, determined intellectual. But a series of events happened that brought her face-to-face with the cross—and challenged her most fundamental assumptions about life, God, and faith.

The Cross Breaks In. In late 1917, one of Edith’s professors and close friends, Adolf Reinach, was killed on the battlefields of Flanders. He and his wife Anna had been married for less than five years and were Jewish converts to Christianity. Edith was asked to help set Professor Reinach’s papers in order, and she dreaded the task. How could she, with all her uncertainty, offer any comfort to a young widow? But Edith found Anna neither distraught nor depressed but peaceful and filled with the hope of the resurrection. In fact, it was Anna who ended up comforting her! “It was my first encounter with the cross,” she wrote. “For the first time I was seeing with my very eyes the church … triumphant over the sting of death. That was the moment that my unbelief collapsed and Christ shone forth—in the mystery of the cross.”

But Edith was not ready for baptism. She had too many questions, and until they were resolved, she felt, she could not embrace Christianity.

A turning point came in 1921, when Edith spent the summer with another couple who were philosophers. Looking for a good book to read one night, she randomly picked up the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. Once she started reading, she couldn’t stop. She read straight through the night, and as she finished the book, she realized that she had found the truth. St. Teresa seemed to challenge Edith to put aside her questions for a bit and let God fill her heart. Prayer, not research, was key. Edith responded immediately by buying a missal and a catechism and preparing for baptism.

A Share in the Passion. After her baptism a few months later, Edith faced one of her toughest challenges: telling her mother. She was prepared for an angry confrontation but was shocked when her mother simply began to weep. Edith remained a devoted daughter, accompanying her mother to synagogue, but reading the psalms from her missal. 

Edith spent the next eight years teaching at a Dominican school for girls, where she enjoyed sharing the sisters’ communal life. During this time, she gave up scholarly aspirations and devoted herself to prayer. Still eager to apply her talents, however, she translated St. Thomas Aquinas into German and did some additional philosophical writing. In 1930, she was approached by the Association of Catholic Women Teachers to speak about contemporary issues. Edith’s approach, grounded in faith, resonated deeply with her audience, and she toured widely.

In the midst of her growing fame as a philosopher, however, Edith was developing an intense prayer life. She was known to pray for hours before a picture of Our Lady of Sorrows, gazing at another Jewish woman who had embraced Christ and allowed his suffering and his cross to pierce her heart.

In 1933, after an outbreak of anti-Semitism in Hitler’s Germany, Edith began to understand that Jesus suffers when his people suffer: “I said to the Lord … that it was his cross that was now laid on the Jewish people. Most of my people did not understand that, but those who did had to bear it willingly in the name of all the others. I wanted to do that… . But in what way this bearing of the cross would happen, I still did not know.”

When Edith lost her teaching position because she was a Jew, it seemed all her ties to her former life were severed. She decided that the time had finally come to enter the Carmelite convent in Cologne, Germany. Before starting her novitiate in October 1933, Edith spoke with the prioress, who felt there was so much she still could do outside the convent. Edith replied simply: “It is not human activity that can help us but the Passion of Christ. It is a share in this that I desire.”

A share in Christ’s passion is exactly what she got, but in an unexpected way. Edith was so clumsy and unskilled at housework that it was painful to watch. But she persevered with good humor and accepted any humiliation that arose out of these deficiencies. As Edith learned how to empty herself, she grew more content and even joyful, although her joy was colored by an insightful dose of realism. When a friend rejoiced that Edith would be safe from persecution in the convent, she replied, “Oh no, I do not think so. They will surely get me out of here.”

“It Could Cost You Your Life.” As anti-Jewish violence increased in Germany, the Carmelites sent Edith to their convent in Echt, Holland, for “a change of air” in December 1938. Just a few months later, on Passion Sunday, 1939, Edith wrote to her prioress: “Please may Your Reverence allow me to offer myself to the heart of Jesus as a sacrifice of expiation for true peace, that the reign of the Antichrist may perish, if possible, without a new World War… . I should like to do this today, because it is the twelfth hour. I know that I am nothing, but Jesus desires it.” Edith felt strongly that she, like Esther, had been chosen by God to intercede for her people and to give her life freely so that they could receive God’s mercy.

Edith’s convictions were also evident in a meditation for the sisters’ annual renewal of vows in September 1939: “Will you remain faithful to the Crucified? Consider carefully! The world is in flames, the battle between Christ and the Antichrist has broken into the open. If you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life.”

Edith’s sister Rosa had converted to Catholicism following the death of their mother and arranged to join Edith in Echt in 1940. They lived there in relative peace for two more years, while Edith devoted herself to writing The Science of the Cross, an in-depth study of St. John of the Cross. Her work crystallized her own convictions about sharing Christ’s passion: “As Jesus, in his abandonment before death, delivered himself into the hands of the invisible and incomprehensible God, the soul must do likewise—casting herself headlong into the pitch darkness of faith, the only way to the incomprehensible God.”

Final Sacrifice. When Holland’s Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter critical of the Nazis in July, 1942, the Nazis quickly retaliated against Jewish Catholics. This is what brought the S.S. to the doors of the Carmelite convent in Echt on August 2. The sisters had gone to great lengths to arrange for another transfer of Edith and Rosa to Switzerland, but the paperwork did not come through in time. And so Edith and Rosa Stein were handed over to the Nazis for “deportation.” The detainees were packed into cattle cars and traveled for days by train.

The week that followed brought scattered reports of Edith. Witnesses said they saw a nun, “like an angel,” caring for the panicked mothers and children left alone; a calm but sorrowful figure, “like a Pieta without the Christ”; an island of consolation bringing comfort to many others.

Most remarkably, during that week, Edith Stein was able to write to the sisters at Echt. She left a few scribbled notes, but one in particular seems to sum up her life: “I am content about everything. One cannot acquire a knowledge of the cross unless one begins by really suffering the weight of the cross. From the very beginning, I have had this inner conviction, and I have said from the bottom of my heart, Ave crux, spes unica [hail to the cross, our only hope].”

By August 9, Edith and Rosa arrived at Auschwitz and were gassed the same day.

Lessons for Today. The “parable” of Edith Stein’s life may seem spectacular: An intellectually gifted woman, a famous writer and speaker, leaves it all behind. She converts from Judaism to Catholicism and enters a convent. Finally, she freely offers her life in the Holocaust. And through it all, her steady growth in holiness and the preparation of her soul for its final sacrifice came to her the way it comes to all of us: through encounters with the cross. For Edith, the cross broke in to challenge her intellectualism; next, it revealed the person of Jesus at her conversion; then, what followed were a series of sacrifices of detachment from her “script” for her life.

While we may never be called to die for our faith, we are all called to embrace the cross. God sees every sacrifice we make, and these sacrifices, no matter how small, make us more Christlike and open the way for God’s kingdom to advance in the world. 


Edith once wrote: “The more an era is engulfed in the night of sin and estrangement from God, the more it needs souls united to God… . The greatest figures of prophecy and sanctity step forth out of the darkest night.” 


Like Edith Stein, each of us can be one of those figures. 

Hallie Riedel lives in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Corporal Jason Lee Dunham (1981 -2004)

In 2004, during a patrol near the Syrian border, Corporal Jason Dunham of the 3rd Battalion 7th Marines, United States Marine Corps, found himself fighting an insurgent hand-to-hand on a dusty road. When two other Marines ran over to help, the Iraqi dropped a hand grenade. Instead of rolling away, Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet, shielding his men.

Though peppered with shrapnel, the other Marines walked away alive. A grenade fragment penetrated Dunham’s brain, sending him into a coma. He died eight days later and was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in the War on Terror, and the first Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War.

In the combat you face every day, Jesus will never abandon you. How will you react to the battles which you will encounter as you follow Christ? Will you run or will you stand and fight?

Joshua 4, 1 Samuel 17, Psalm 18, Hebrews 11

Lose It or Give It?

A chaplain was speaking to a soldier on a cot in an army hospital. 

"You have lost an arm in the great cause," he said. 

"No," said the soldier with a smile. "I didn't lose it--I gave it." 

In that same way, Jesus did not lose His life. He gave it purposefully.

Life In A Jar - The Irena Sendler Story

When Hitler and his Nazis built the Warsaw Ghetto and herded 500,000 Polish Jews behind its walls to await liquidation, many Polish gentiles turned their backs or applauded. Not Irena Sendler. An unfamiliar name to most people, but this remarkable woman defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a health worker, she sneaked the children out between 1942 and 1943 to safe hiding places and found non-Jewish families to adopt them.

For many years, this elderly lady, gentle and courageous, lived inmodest existence in her Warsaw apartment - an unsung heroine.

Her achievement went largely unnoticed for many years. Then the story was uncovered by four young students at Uniontown High School, in Kansas, who were the winners of the 2000 Kansas state National History Day competition by writing a play Life in a Jar about the heroic actions of Irena Sendler. 

The girls - Elizabeth Cambers, Megan Stewart, Sabrina Coons and Janice Underwood - have since gained international recognition, along with their teacher, Norman Conard. The presentation, seen in many venues in the United States and popularized by National Public Radio, C-SPAN and CBS, has brought Irena Sendler's story to a wider public.

The students continue their prize-winning dramatic presentation Life in a Jar. They have established an e-mail address isendler@hotmail.com.

Irena Sendler was born in 1910 in Otwock, a town some 15 miles southeast of Warsaw. She was greatly influenced by her father who was one of the first Polish Socialists. As a doctor his patients were mostly poor Jews.

In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and the brutality of the Nazis accelerated with murder, violence and terror.

At the time, Irena was a Senior Administrator in the Warsaw Social Welfare Department, which operated the canteens in every district of the city. Previously, the canteens provided meals, financial aid, and other services for orphans, the elderly, the poor and the destitute. Now, through Irena, the canteens also provided clothing, medicine and money for the Jews. They were registered under fictitious Christian names, and to prevent inspections, the Jewish families were reported as being afflicted with such highly infectious diseases as typhus and tuberculosis.

But in 1942, the Nazis herded hundreds of thousands of Jews into a 16-block area that came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto. The Ghetto was sealed and the Jewish families ended up behind its walls, only to await certain death.

Irena Sendler was so appalled by the conditions that she joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, organized by the Polish underground resistance movement, as one of its first recruits and directed the efforts to rescue Jewish children.

1948, 1st of May, Warsaw. 1st May Parade.
Irena in the car of Social Welfare Department in front of a governmental stand.

To be able to enter the Ghetto legally, Irena managed to be issued a pass from Warsaws Epidemic Control Department and she visited the Ghetto daily, reestablished contacts and brought food, medicines and clothing. But 5,000 people were dying a month from starvation and disease in the Ghetto, and she decided to help the Jewish children to get out.

For Irena Sendler, a young mother herself, persuading parents to part with their children was in itself a horrendous task. Finding families willing to shelter the children, and thereby willing to risk their life if the Nazis ever found out, was also not easy.

Irena Sendler, who wore a star armband as a sign of her solidarity to Jews, began smuggling children out in an ambulance. She recruited at least one person from each of the ten centers of the Social Welfare Department.

With their help, she issued hundreds of false documents with forged signatures. Irena Sendler successfully smuggled almost 2,500 Jewish children to safety and gave them temporary new identities.

Some children were taken out in gunnysacks or body bags. Some were buried inside loads of goods. A mechanic took a baby out in his toolbox. Some kids were carried out in potato sacks, others were placed in coffins, some entered a church in the Ghetto which had two entrances. One entrance opened into the Ghetto, the other opened into the Aryan side of Warsaw. They entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians. "Can you guarantee they will live?" Irena later recalled the distraught parents asking. But she could only guarantee they would die if they stayed. "In my dreams," she said, "I still hear the cries when they left their parents."

Irena Sendler accomplished her incredible deeds with the active assistance of the church. "I sent most of the children to religious establishments," she recalled. "I knew I could count on the Sisters." Irena also had a remarkable record of cooperation when placing the youngsters: "No one ever refused to take a child from me," she said.

The children were given false identities and placed in homes, orphanages and convents. Irena Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the children's original names and their new identities. She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor's back yard, across the street from German barracks, hoping she could someday dig up the jars, locate the children and inform them of their past. In all, the jars contained the names of 2,500 children.

But the Nazis became aware of Irena's activities, and on October 20, 1943 she was arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo, who broke her feet and legs. She ended up in the Pawiak Prison, but no one could break her spirit. Though she was the only one who knew the names and addresses of the families sheltering the Jewish children, she withstood the torture, refusing to betray either her associates or any of the Jewish children in hiding.

Sentenced to death, Irena was saved at the last minute when Zegota members bribed one of the Germans to halt the execution. She escaped from prison but for the rest of the war she was pursued by the Gestapo.

After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she placed with adoptive families and to reunite them with relatives scattered across Europe. But most lost their families during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps.

The children had known her only by her code name Jolanta. But years later, after she was honored for her wartime work, her picture appeared in a newspaper. "A man, a painter, telephoned me," said Sendler, "'I remember your face,' he said. 'It was you who took me out of the ghetto.' I had many calls like that!"

Irena Sendler did not think of herself as a hero. She claimed no credit for her actions. "I could have done more," she said. "This regret will follow me to my death."

She has been honored by international Jewish organizations - in 1965 she accorded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem organization in Jerusalem and in 1991 she was made an honorary citizen of Israel.

Irena Sendler was awarded Poland's highest distinction, the Order of White Eagle in Warsaw Monday Nov. 10, 2003.

This lovely, courageous woman was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Her courage enabled not only the survival of 2,500 Jewish children but also of the generations of their descendants. 

She passed away on May 12, 2008, at the age of 98.

An Obedient Dog

How we admire the obedience a dog shows to its master! 

Archibald Rutledge wrote that one day he met a man whose dog had just been killed in a forest fire. Heartbroken, the man explained to Rutledge how it happened. Because he worked out-of-doors, he often took his dog with him. 

That morning, he left the animal in a clearing and gave him a command to stay and watch his lunch bucket while he went into the forest. His faithful friend understood, for that's exactly what he did. Then a fire started in the woods, and soon the blaze spread to the spot where the dog had been left. But he didn't move. He stayed right where he was, in perfect obedience to his master's word. With tearful eyes, the dog's owner said, "I always had to be careful what I told him to do, because I knew he would do it."

Our Daily Bread

Carl The Quiet Man

Carl was a quiet man. He didn't talk much. He would always greet you with a big smile and a firm handshake. Even after living in our neighborhood for over 50 years, no one could really say they knew him very well.

Before his retirement, he took the bus to work each morning. The lone sight of him walking down the street often worried us. He had a slight limp from a bullet wound received in World War II. Watching him, we worried that although he had survived the war, he may not make it through our changing uptown neighborhood with its ever-increasing random violence, gangs, and drug activity.

When he saw the flier at our local church asking for volunteers for caring for the gardens behind the minister's residence, he responded in his characteristically unassuming manner. Without fanfare, he just signed up.

He was well into his 87th year when the very thing we had always feared finally happened. He was just finishing his watering for the day when three gang members approached him. Ignoring their attempt to intimidate him, he simply asked, "Would you like a drink from the hose?" The tallest and toughest-looking of the three said, "Yeah, sure," with a malevolent little smile. As Carl offered the hose to him, the other two grabbed Carl's arm, throwing him down. As the hose snaked crazily over the ground, dousing everything in its way, Carl's assailants stole his retirement watch and his wallet, and then fled.

Carl tried to get himself up, but he had been thrown down on his bad leg. He lay there trying to gather himself as the minister came running to help him. Although the minister had witnessed the attack from his window, he couldn't get there fast enough to stop it. "Carl, are you okay? Are you hurt?" the minister kept asking as he helped Carl to his feet. Carl just passed a hand over his brow and sighed, shaking his head.

"Just some punk kids. I hope they'll wise up someday." His wet clothes clung to his slight frame as he bent to pick up the hose. He adjusted the nozzle again and started to water.

Confused and a little concerned, the minister asked, "Carl, what are you doing?"

"I've got to finish my watering. It's been very dry lately," came the calm reply.

Satisfying himself that Carl really was all right, the minister could only marvel. Carl was a man from a different time and place.

A few weeks later the three returned. Just as before their threat was unchallenged. Carl again offered them a drink from his hose. This time they didn't rob him. They wrenched the hose from his hand and drenched him head to foot in the icy water. When they had finished their humiliation of him, they sauntered off down the street, throwing catcalls and curses, falling over one another laughing at the hilarity of what they had just done.

Carl just watched them. Then he turned toward the warmth giving sun, picked up his hose, and went on with his watering. The summer was quickly fading into fall. Carl was doing some tilling when he was startled by the sudden approach of someone behind him.

He stumbled and fell into some evergreen branches As he struggled to regain his footing, he turned to see the tall leader of his summer tormentors reaching down for him. He braced himself for the expected attack.

"Don't worry old man, I'm not gonna hurt you this time." The young man spoke softly, still offering the tattooed and scarred hand to Carl. As he helped Carl get up, the man pulled a crumpled bag from his pocket and handed it to Carl.

"What's this?" Carl asked.

"It's your stuff," the man explained. "It's your stuff back. Even the money in your wallet."

"I don't understand," Carl said. "Why would you help me now?"

The man shifted his feet, seeming embarrassed and ill at ease. "I learned something from you," he said. "I ran with that gang and hurt people like you. We picked you because you were old and we knew we could do it. But every time we came and did something to you, instead of yelling and fighting back, you tried to give us a drink. You didn't hate us for hating you. You kept showing love against our hate." He stopped for a moment "I couldn't sleep after we stole your stuff, so here it is back." He paused for another awkward moment, not knowing what more there was to say. "That bag's my way of saying thanks for straightening me out, I guess." And with that, he walked off down the street.

Carl looked down at the sack in his hands and gingerly opened it. He took out his retirement watch and put it back on his wrist. Opening his wallet, he checked for his wedding photo. He gazed for a moment at the young bride that still smiled back at him from all those years ago.

He died one cold day after Christmas that winter. Many people attended his funeral in spite of the weather. In particular the minister noticed a tall young man that he didn't know sitting quietly in a distant corner of the church.

The minister spoke of Carl's garden as a lesson in life. In a voice made thick with unshed tears, he said, "Do your best and make your garden as beautiful as you can. We will never forget Carl and his garden."

The following spring another flier went up. It read: "Person needed to care for Carl's garden." The flier went unnoticed by the busy parishioners until one day when a knock was heard at the minister's office door. Opening the door, the minister saw a pair of scarred and tattooed hands holding the flier. "I believe this is my job, if you'll have me," the young man said.

The minister recognized him as the same young man who had returned the stolen watch and wallet to Carl. He knew that Carl's kindness had turned this man's life around. As the minister handed him the keys to the garden shed, he said, "Yes, go take care of Carl's garden and honor him."

The man went to work and, over the next several years, he tended the flowers and vegetables just as Carl had done. In that time, he went to college, got married, and became a prominent member of the community. But he never forgot his promise to Carl's memory and kept the garden as beautiful as he thought Carl would have kept it.

One day he approached the new minister and told him that he couldn't care for the garden any longer. He explained with a shy and happy smile, "My wife just had a baby boy last night, and she's bringing him home on Saturday."

"Well, congratulations!" said the minister, as he was handed the garden shed keys. "That's wonderful! What's the baby's name?"

"Carl," he replied.

That's the whole gospel message simply stated.