THE PEACE CHILD

There is a wonderful story told of a couple, Don and Carol Richardson, who, along with their seven-month-old baby, risked their lives to share the Gospel with a tribe of cannibalistic headhunters in New Guinea known as the Sawi.

The Richardsons became proficient in the Sawi language, but Don struggled to find a way to help the villagers understand the Gospel. The cultural barriers made it seem impossible. As historian Ruth Tucker wrote, "In their eyes, Judas, was the hero, and Jesus was just a dupe to be laughed at." Until one day, God gave them the key to help the Sawi to understand the subtitutionary atonement of Christ through a their own mythology.

Three tribal villages were in constant battle at this time. The Richardsons considered leaving the area, to keep them there, the Sawi people came together and decided that they would make peace with their enemies.

Ceremonies were held in which a young child, known as the ‘Peace Child’ was exchanged between opposing villages. One man ran toward his enemy's camp and literally gave his son to his hated foe. From this, Richardson was able to present the analogy of God's sacrifice of his own Son and the Sawi began to understand the teaching of the incarnation of Christ. Many were converted to Christianity.

Since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, we have found ourselves at odds with and alienated from God. We have made ourselves enemies of God. We joined the enemy camp. God did not declare ‘war’ on us, we, in essence, declared war on Him.

But God did not hate us, even then, He hated sin, in part, because of the separation it causes. So, rather than allow us to, as John Howe states, ‘suffer the dreadful consequences of so desperate and unequal a war against the Almighty’, God in a divine act of grace began to reveal the ground work for a reconciliation between man and Himself. Rather than allow us to ‘suffer the consequences of our own ruin and eternal death, He chose Himself to die for us’.

When the angel appeared to the shepherds in the field, saying, ‘there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord,’ and the multitude of angels chimed in with, ‘Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men.’ they were presenting to the world the ‘Peace Child’ that had been promised by Isaiah when he said ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.’ (Isaiah 9:6)

On Christmas Day, over 2000 years ago, He who was and is eternal God was born. God became man and took upon Himself true humanity. It was the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s peace treaty, as it were, with men, a treaty that was signed in His own blood at the cross. In that atonement, the Scriptures say he ‘destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility . . . thus making peace . . . to reconcile them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near." (Eph. 2:14-17.)

At the cross, the enmity on the part of God was removed and all that remains is for each of us to accept that offer of peace. – Rachel Whelan © Dec 2009

POLITICS AND RELIGION

People are quick to say you should never discuss politics and religion. What they don’t tell you is that if you don’t discuss religion a lot of people are going to Hell and if you don’t discuss politics the country will. -- © 1999 Rachel Whelan

SMALL MIRACLES

This past year, just before Christmas, a young woman I know received a most unexpected gift. She was expecting her first child to be born in the spring, however, because of medical complications, neither she or her doctor had foreseen, the child was born three months early.

Since the child weighed only slight over one pound, there was much reason for everyone’s concern about the child’s chances for survival.

To everyone’s amazement, the child, up to this time, is doing well and, as a note of interest, when anyone in the room makes a clicking noise with their tongue, the child repeats the sound.

At a time when there is much discussion over when life begins, I find it amazing to watch a life so small, surviving against the odds, more than surviving, flourishing.

As we begin a new year, may we be reminded by the small miracles such as this that occur around us everyday. How precious the gift of life really is at any age, from the youngest to the oldest. May we each learn to cherish all life, never take it for granted, not for ourselves or for others. Life truly is a gift, one with no promise of tomorrow. May we strive to love and care for one another while we are here. --- © 1999 Rachel Whelan

THANKSGIVING PRAYER

Father, we thank you for the many blessings you have
given us, even those which come disguised as problems,
because ultimately they all work to bring us closer to you.

We thank you for our friends and our family and the times
we have together even though they are few.

It's also our prayer that the love we have for one another
will not end in this world, but that it will continue into the
next. And Father, as we look around us today at all the
empty seats around the table, it is our prayer that there
will be no empty seats in heaven. -- © 1999 Rachel Whelan

OH HOW LIKE SPOILED, SELFISH CHILDREN WE ARE . . .

Are there any of God’s laws I can honestly say I haven’t broken? Some of them a little less shattered than others perhaps, but broken just the same. Yet, I keep my sins hidden safely away, hoping no one will ever notice. Oh, yes, I know God sees everything, but sometimes I can almost forget that little point. I can almost fool myself into believing maybe this time He didn’t notice. Better yet, try to make myself believe maybe it’s not such a big deal after all. I mean, I’m still standing. He didn’t turn me into a puff of smoke.

Like a spoiled child who doesn’t want to clean her room, I try not to really clean up my life. I hide things under the bed, stuff them into closets and dresser drawers, hoping none of the edges will stick out where someone could see them. May it never be that someone actually takes a closer look, or opens one of them, exposing what I have tried so carefully to hide away.

But like any good parent, God knows His children, especially when they’re trying to con Him. To add even more audacity to it, sometimes I’ll even try to pull a ‘Hardy’ on Him. I make wrong, stupid, selfish choices, then cry out to God, ‘Now look what you’ve gotten me into and just how do you intend to get me out of this one.’

If I could only learn to appreciate the full extent of His love, His grace. If He were only a 'just' God, He would have turned me into that puff of smoke long ago, but He is so much more than just. He is loving and merciful. He is grace itself.

I accepted Christ as my savior years ago. That part was actually easy. The real problem is that I have a hard time dealing with His lordship. It’s so easy to accept His forgiveness, but being told what to do is quite another thing.

What a pitiful creature I am, to fuss and rant and rave about the injustice of it all. Like that child who didn’t really clean her room, I try to bluff my way through, make excuses for the stuff sticking out. I comfort myself by saying, 'I’m as good as I can be after all, I’m only human'.

I am so thankful that He doesn’t fall for any of that. Like any good parent. He insists on the best. Not for His benefit, but for mine. He wants what’s best for me and no matter how much I whine and cry and pout. No matter how much I stamp my feet or beg, He will do whatever is necessary to make sure I turn out to be the best that I can be. He will accept no less than perfection and He will do whatever it takes to instill that perfection in me. He will give up whatever He must. He will sacrifice anything to see me grow up to be just like Him. -- ©2000 Rachel Whelan

COUNTING THE COST

We are told that we are entering a ‘new age’. An age of tolerance and enlightenment. Tolerance for anything, that is, so long as you don’t happen to have the extremely bad taste to be a Christian. Christianity, you see, is based upon a set of absolute truths. Something that just cannot be tolerated in a day and age where anything goes. Of course, it isn’t just Christians who are criticized, they also reserve that right for anyone who doesn’t go along with their twisted, illogical, politically-correct agenda for whatever reason.

I, for one, happen to believe that there are certain absolute truths. Truths that you can and should base your life on. Our forefathers believed in those absolute truths. They not only believed in them, they were willing to fight and die to preserve them, both for themselves and for their children. But the world has bought into the lie. It has drunk the poison. It has gone mad. The absurdity of its thinking is beyond any sense of reason or logic.

For instance, pity the poor girl who has bought into the lie of ‘safe sex’. She’s heard it preached from the pulpits of the public schools, from the movies, from society in general, for as long as she can remember.

Suppose one day, this young girl and her boyfriend of the moment indulge in their ‘right’ to enjoy the pleasures of non-marital bliss. No big deal. Everybody’s doing it. Even her parents, in many cases, have bought into the lie that ‘living for the moment’ and sex outside of marriage has no consequences. They’ve been told it’s a natural, basic instinct and that they can’t control those urges, so they might as well give into them, right?

Most of the time they use some form of birth control, the liberal thinkers idea of virginity. You’re pure and safe if you ‘use something’. Of course, they don’t bother to tell them that those things don’t always work and the guys don’t always want to be inconvenienced by them.

Anyway, suddenly this young girl finds herself pregnant and alone. She’s been taught not to trust her parents. They are, in essence, the enemy. They’re just old 'fuddy-duddies' who don’t understand and want to spoil her fun. And the love of her life? He’s gone. He just wanted some fun, not a commitment. So now what? According to our ’enlightened’ leaders, she’s supposed to have an abortion.

Suddenly this child who’s been consistently told by those in authority that she's old enough to do whatever she wants and doesn't have to listen to, or answer to, those who love and care about her, is told she’s not really all that grown up after all. She’s told she’s too young to be saddled with a baby.

Now, this child who has been encouraged to do whatever she wants with her own body is told that she’s too young to bear the consequences of that grown-up act they encouraged her to commit. Suddenly this child has been told the truth, by those who have lied to her most of her life.

She’s been told that she is only a child, that she has her whole life in front of her, why ruin it, they’ll say. Why should she be ’burdened’ with that mere ‘product of conception’? She should just get rid of it. Go on with her life. By then, she’s probably known or heard of other girls having an abortion. It’s no big deal, she's told, just a simple procedure and no one, least of all her parents, needs to know. But, if it’s no big deal, why does she suddenly feel as though it is?

To add more drama, suppose the girl waivers between her natural instinct to love, nurture and protect the child and her instinct for self preservation . . . the urge to hide her mistake. What if she takes too long deciding what to do? She is after all confused, torn. What if she has the child in secret? It’s happened.

Suppose that then, out of fear and desperation, she decides to do away with the child herself. From the moment she buys into that sin, she is condemned, even by her liberal-thinking 'safe-sex pushers’, as a cold-blooded murderer.

But what’s changed, if she’d displayed the ‘good sense’, even up to the moment of birth, to have a doctor rid her of 'that little problem', she would have been lauded for making the right choice, at least according to their ‘Alice-through the Looking Glass’ logic.

What absurdity! No wonder our children are so confused, with such illogical, irrational, nonsensical, twisted, ‘situational thinking’ coming from those who claim to be the new age moral authorities. Those who claim to be ‘beacons of truth’ for the modern, non-puritanical thinkers.

If that is the best we can expect of these ‘gurus’ of modern thinking, how can we expect any better of our children. The result is the same, the only difference a little matter of who actually murdered the child, the doctor or the mother.

If the mother did it, it’s a crime, if the abortionist did it, then it’s perfectly legal and somebody has made a nice, tidy profit from this child’s tragedy. A tragedy they propagated and we have allowed them to get away with at our children and our society's expense. It is a perfect example of how far down the path of corporate insanity we have come and all I can say is may God have mercy on us all. -- ©2000 Rachel Whelan

But whosoever shall cause one of these little ones which believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. - Matthew 18:6

BUT FOR ME THE MOON IS BLUE

Once upon a time there chanced to meet
Two men upon a country street
Upon a lovely. cloudless night
When all the stars seemed very bright

And then one man did chance to speak
Greetings to the other,
As people are quite apt to do
Upon meeting one another.

“Oh, I love these nights when you can see
The moon so bright and true
Don’t you love to see it shine
That lovely shade of blue.”

“What’s that you say?
Did I hear right?
No, No, my foolish fellow.
Did I hear you say the moon is blue?
Dear friend, the moon is yellow.”

“Oh, yes, I guess that could be
From your point of view,
So you see what you want to see
But for me the moon is blue.”

“My friend, what can I tell you,
The fact is absolutely true
The moon’s as yellow as can be
How can you say it’s blue?”

“Well, my friend, what can I say,
While for you that might be true,
There’s no one way to look at things
So for me the moon is blue.”

“How can you say that this is true
My newfound friend what’s wrong with you?
Tell me, if you add up two plus two,
I get four and what of you?”

“My, dear friend, why do you fret
I guess you just don’t get it yet.
Let me try to help you see
The answer’s plain as it can be.

While two plus two for you is four
For me the answer may be more.
It may be more, it may be less
It’s whatever number that I guess.

Though two plus two for you is four
For me it’s five or six
It depends upon the mood I’m in
The answer that I pick.”

So while for you it may be true
That two plus two is four
I find it so old fashioned
I find it such a bore.”

“My friend, if what you say is right
Then nothing can be true
And for me the world is upside down.
How can that work for you?”

“My, dear friend, do you not see
A moon that’s blue is right for me
And since I have no wish to fight
Let’s make this work, we’ll both be right.

It can be day and still be night
I believe that to be true
And something wrong can still be right
So for me the moon’s still blue.

There can be two sets of truth
One for me and one for you
Let’s just agree to disagree
Truth is whatever works for you.”

“I’ve listened to all that you have said
And now it really hurts my head
The moon is blue,
The grass is red
And two plus two is three
I find, at last, I must admit
That you and I cannot agree.

“We could go ‘round and ‘round this thing
Till we drop, both, to the man
And still be in no closer place
Than when we first began.

“And so I now must take my leave
You must believe what you believe,
There seems to be no one thing
On which we two agree.

“For I believe there are some things
On which the world is based, you see.
Some things which are always true
And cannot change for you or me.

“So, you go your way and I’ll go mine
And perhaps within the space of time
You will one day confront the truth
That some things are absolute.”

And so the two men parted ways
Each one to his own life
Neither one to meet again
On such a moonlit night.

But one day both men came to their lives’ end
As all men finally do
There are no two ways to think of that
It’s positively true.

For to every man there comes a time
When what he thinks meets up with truth
And he finds he cannot change the fact
Some things are absolute.

© 2003 Rachel Whelan
From "The Stone Boy and Other Selected Stories" by Rachel Whelan

IT'S ALL GRAVY

I’ve tried to explain it to a few people before, but they just don’t seen to get where I'm coming from. They want to argue the Scriptures with me and tell me that the resurrection is the cornerstone of our faith. That if Jesus didn’t rise from the grave, we are of all men most forsaken. Thing is, I know that’s the truth. I know that’s sound theology. I understand that with my head, but in my heart everything after God's forgiveness is all ‘gravy’. It’s ‘dessert’. It’s over the top.

If Jesus were to look me in the eye and tell me that ‘This is it, there is no Heaven. Your life on earth is all you get - once around and your gone - you will live and die. You have your time here on this earth and that will be the end of it. There is no eternal life, but while you live I want you to know that I love you and you are forgiven. Go and live in peace.’ I would still take it. Just to be forgiven by Him is so much more than I deserve, so much more than I could hope for.

For Him to look at me and say ‘I love you and I forgive you’ for this lifetime, let alone to give me the promise of a world to come, is so much more than I could ever hope for, so much more than I would have dared to ask from Him. Anything beyond that forgiveness . . . eternal life . . . heaven, (pardon me while I mix my metaphor’s) that’s all ‘icing on the cake', to someone who didn’t have the nerve to even ask for the ‘cake’. They’re all ‘extras’ as far as I’m concerned. I would have ‘settled’ for ‘forgiven’. Just to have Him come near, to experience His peace, His love, His forgiveness in this lifetime would have been more than enough.

But God is so good, while it would have been enough to have Him draw near and offer me His forgiveness in this life, He has promised me that it will never end. His love and forgiveness is for this life and the next. And He promises that the last will be better than the first. As someone so aptly put it before me, ‘Ain’t it just like God.’ Ain’t it just like God to save the best for last, to give us so much more than we could ever dare ask for, or hope for, or deserve. --  © 1998 Rachel Whelan