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Dr. Paul W. Brand, the noted leprosy expert who was chief of the rehabilitation branch of the Leprosarium in Carville, Lousiana, had a frightening experience one night when he thought he had contracted leprosy. Dr. Brand arrived in London one night after an exhausting transatlantic ocean trip and long train ride from the English coast. He was getting ready for bed, had taken off his shoes, and as he pulled off a sock, discovered there was no feeling in his heel. To most anyone else this discovery would have meant very little, a momentary numbness. But Dr. Brand was world famous for his restorative surgery on lepers in India. He had convinced himself and his staff at the leprosarium that there was no danger of infection from leprosy after it reached a certain stage. The numbness in his heel terrified him.
In her biography of Dr. Brand, Ten Fingers for God, Dorothy Clarke Wilson says, "He rose mechanically, found a pin, sat down again, and pricked the small area below his ankle. He felt no pain. He thrust the pin deeper, until a speck of blood showed. Still he felt nothing...He supposed, like other workers with leprosy, he had always half expected it...In the beginning probably not a day had gone by without the automatic searching of his body for the telltale patch, the numbed area of skin." All that night the great orthopedic surgeon tried to imagine his new life as a leper, an outcast, his medical staff’s confidence in their immunity shattered by his disaster. And the forced separation from his family. As night receded, he yielded to hope and in the morning, with clinical objectivity, "with steady fingers he bared the skin below his ankle, jabbed in the point--and yelled."
Blessed was the sensation of pain! He realized that during the long train ride, sitting immobile, he had numbed a nerve. From then on, whenever Dr. Brand cut his finger, turned an ankle, even when he suffered from "agonizing nausea as his whole body reacted in violent self-protection from mushroom poisoning, he was to respond with fervent gratitude, ’Thank God for pain!’"
Dorothy Clarke Wilson, Ten Fingers for God, pp. 142-145.
“Ouch and Thanks A Lot!” 1 Samuel 5:6-10 Key verse(s): 6:“The Lord’s hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors.”
What good is pain anyway! Couldn’t God accomplish a whole lot more in our lives if we were tuned into Him through a comfort rather than a pain? When we are suffering in pain it is pretty hard to think about anything else other than the pain. Pain has a way of doing that, especially that of the blinding variety.
Dr. Paul W. Brand, the noted leprosy expert who was chief of the rehabilitation branch of the Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana, had a frightening experience one night when he thought he had contracted leprosy. Dr. Brand arrived in London one night after an exhausting transatlantic ocean trip and long train ride from the English coast. He was getting ready for bed, had taken off his shoes, and as he pulled off a sock, discovered there was no feeling in his heel. To most anyone else this discovery would have meant very little, a momentary numbness. But Dr. Brand was world famous for his restorative surgery on lepers in India. He had convinced himself and his staff at the leprosarium that there was no danger of infection from leprosy after it reached a certain stage. The numbness in his heel terrified him.
In her biography of Dr. Brand, Ten Fingers for God, Dorothy Clarke Wilson says, “He rose mechanically, found a pin, sat down again, and pricked the small area below his ankle. He felt no pain. He thrust the pin deeper, until a speck of blood showed. Still he felt nothing...He supposed, like other workers with leprosy, he had always half expected it...In the beginning probably not a day had gone by without the automatic searching of his body for the telltale patch, the numbed area of skin.” All that night the great orthopedic surgeon tried to imagine his new life as a leper, an outcast, his medical staff’s confidence in their immunity shattered by his disaster. And the forced separation from his family. As night receded, he yielded to hope and in the morning, with clinical objectivity, “with steady fingers he bared the skin below his ankle, jabbed in the point--and yelled.”
Blessed was the sensation of pain! He realized that during the long train ride, sitting immobile, he had numbed a nerve. From then on, whenever Dr. Brand cut his finger, turned an ankle, even when he suffered from “agonizing nausea as his whole body reacted in violent self-protection from mushroom poisoning, he was to respond with fervent gratitude, ‘Thank God for pain!’” (Dorothy Clarke Wilson, Ten Fingers for God, pp. 142-145)
The comfortable whispers and pain shouts. Sometimes, in order to get our attention, God needs to shout in our lives. The methodical process of living often puts us into a rut of sorts. We find ourselves simply going through the motions, not really ascribing anything of great value to God in the process. It becomes our process and our path, not His. It is at times like this when a gentle whisper may not be “loud” enough to get our attention. That’s when God will often insert a painful message into our lives. “Know that I am your God and that all things are under my control, not yours.” Our almost maniacal work ceases and we are forced to focus on the pain and reflect on the crazy paths we cut through life attempting to reach our goals. It’s unfortunate that it sometimes takes pain to wake us up. Like the Philistines who did not grasp at first the seriousness of their situation, it may take pain to awaken us to the fact that God is trying to send us a message. “Hey! I need your attention. Look at me!” Isn’t it great to know that God cares enough to shout at us occasionally through pain? It’s at times like these when the pain is truly blessed.
There are sayings about every thing these days. Here are some that may cause you to smile and some may even make you laugh. When all else fails, lower your standards. I don’t know, I don’t care, and it doesn’t make any difference. I don’t have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success. When things just can’t get any worse, they will. Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. Laugh at your problems, everyone else does. It’s bad luck to be superstitious. Everybody is somebody else’s weirdo. According to my best recollection, I don’t remember. Plagiarism is copying from one source; research is copying from two or more. When a person is dying the words they udder are captured and can whole a lot of meaning. Roman Emperor Augustus: "Did I play my role well? If so, then applause… " Stonewall Jackson "Let us pass over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees." Isaac Newton, great Christian Scientist, "I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Leonardo da Vinci: Italian inventor and artist, died in 1519 "I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have" Churchill: English Statesman - He said this at his death bed: "What a fool I have been" Ludwig von Beethoven: "Friends applaud, the comedy is over." John Newton b. 1725. d. 1807. Originally a slaver, he had a dramatic mid-ocean change of heart that led him to turn his slave ship around and take the people back to their homeland. He became a Methodist then he pastored Presbyterian & Baptist Churches and preached against the slave-trade. He is most famous for having authored the words to the hymn "Amazing Grace". As he neared his end, exclaimed, "I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon."
POWER OF A PRAYING MOTHER
The year was 1820 and Peter Richley was a grateful man. He had survived one of the strangest and most harrowing events known to mankind. The ship which he had been traveling on sank. He was rescued. By some strange twist of circumstance, however, this ship sank.
He was rescued again. But, this third ship sank likewise. He was rescued for a third time. Yet, his fourth ship of passage soon sank. And unbelievably, he was rescued for a fourth time, but this fifth ship sank as well.
It would have been laughable had it not been so serious. On the high seas, however, he floated with the serene confidence that somehow God did not want him to die. And sure enough, as if on cue, another ship came by and answered his call for help.
This ocean liner, The City of Leeds, was named after it’s British city of orgin. It was bound from England to Australia and traveled the same sea lane as Peter Richley’s downed ships. The crew of The City of Leeds hoisted Peter aboard. Dry clothing was provided to Peter. The ship’s doctor gave him a cursory exam, pronounced him fit, and then asked an unusual favor.
“There’s a lady on board who booked passage to Australia,” the doctor explained. “She’s looking for her son who disappeared years ago. She’s dying and she’s asking to see her son. She knows everybody on board and since you’re the only newcomer, would you pretend to be her son?”
Peter agreed. After all, his life had now been saved for the fifth time. He followed the doctor below deck and entered into a cabin. There on a small bed lay a frail woman with silvered-hair. She was obviously suffering from a very high fever. Deliriously, she was crying out. “Please God. Let me see my son before I die. I must see my son!”
The ship’s doctor gently pushed the young man toward the bed. Soon, however, Peter Richley began sobbing. For lying there on that bed was the reason that he couldn’t seem to die. Here was the lifeline that had kept him from drowning five times. For lying on that bed was none other than Sarah Richley—who had p...
SLEEPING THROUGH THE STORM
Years ago a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast. He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops.
As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received a steady stream of refusals.
Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached the farmer. "Are you a good farmhand?" the farmer asked him.
"Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man.
Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help, hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man’s work.
Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore – one of those storms coming off the Atlantic ocean. Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed next door to the hired hand’s sleeping quarters. He shook the little man and yelled, "Get up! A storm is coming! Tie things down before they blow away!"
The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows."
Enraged by the old man’s response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm. To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred. The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down. Nothing could blow away.
The farmer then understood what his hired hand meant when he said that "he could sleep when the wind blows." And he returned to bed to also sleep while the wind blew.
OUR LIVES ARE LIKE A...
Listen to what the Bible compares our lives to, and as you do, notice that the central theme of each comparison is the idea of the BREVITY of our lives upon this earth:
* First, our lives are compared to A VAPOR (James 4:1) - Think about the vapor from a teapot. It is there one moment and poof!--it’s gone.
* Our lives are compared to GRASS AND FLOWERS THAT WITHER AFTER A SHORT TIME IN THE SUN (Psalm 103:15-16) – Here in Germany in the Spring we see stunningly beautiful wildflowers along the roads and in the fields. But very soon, the highway department or farmers come and mow them down. Their lifespan is only a very short time.
* Our lives are compared to A SHADOW (Job 14:1-2) – Stand stationary in your yard tomorrow in the morning, and you will have a long shadow. But by midday it will be gone.
* Our lives are compared to A STORY (Psalm 90:9 – I remember when my kids were little, before they went to bed, they would beg me for a story. So I would make up elaborate tales of knights and dragons and ladies in distress and courageous acts of daring do—all in a few fleeting moments, until their eyes drooped and they dropped off to sleep.
* Our lives are compared to A WIND THAT PASSES BY (Psalm 78:39)
* Our lives are compared to A WEAVER’S SHUTTLE (Job 7:6) – A weaver's shuttle can make a complete rotation in about one second.
* Our lives are compared to FOAM ON THE WATER (Hosea 10:7) - Go to the ocean and watch a wave come in. As the water recedes, it leaves little foam bubbles. But within seconds, they disappear before another wave rolls in.
Aside from the masterful poetic beauty of these passages, one thing stands out in each of them--our lives are SHORT!
Here are some twisted facts from various media sources (not true but reported as true): The following information is from the website legendsofamerica.com.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
More people working in advertising died on the job in 1996 than those who died while working in petroleum refining.
Babies are born without knee caps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
Elephants are the only mammals that can’t jump.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
Four sunken nuclear submarines sit at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. One, a Russian sub resting in deep water off of Bermuda, holds 16 live nuclear warheads. Scientists and oceanographers are unsure what the impact of the escaping plutonium will have, but warn that corrosion could create the proper chemical environment for a massive nuclear chain reaction.
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
After complaining about the smell in their room, a couple staying in a hotel in the United States discovered the body of a murdered girl under their bed.
It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
Ants always fall over on their right side when intoxicated.
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds.
Starfish haven’t got brains.
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
The average secretary’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
There are more chickens than people in the world.
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
The name for Oz in the "Wizard of Oz" was thought up when the creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z, hence "Oz."
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