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Thoughts for a Woman's Heart |
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encouragement in things that matter |
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"AIDS"
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No, I am not about to discuss a physical disease with you. I believe though that many of us to some degree have a spiritual disease called "AIDS." Life experiences cover a multitude of spectrums that encompass the varying behaviors, habits, physical appearances, personal histories, and even the thought processes of us all. Choose a particular life experience and study the spectrum of its manifestations, and a whole kaleidoscope of human experience will be seen. Spectrums also reveal the norms of life experiences, that which is more common, and which sometimes we insist is more reflective of what is "right." Again, focusing on a particular human experience, you and I would both be represented somewhere on a graphic rendering of that spectrum. And that’s where "AIDS" begins to infect our thinking, and our behavior. "AIDS" is short for Avoiding Individual Differences Syndrome. Although all of our differences are represented by the spectrum, compared to "me," there are vast numbers of people who are to the left or the right of "me." There are those who are better off than "me" financially, and there are those who struggle to live from paycheck to paycheck, and often have more monies going out, than coming in. There are those who are more educated and those who are less educated. Some are more popular; others seem to fade into the shadows of anonymity. Our skin tones vary, our politics, and even our theology. Then there are those who even seem to stand alone – the bereaved, the one with a darkened past, the handicapped, the one who struggles with sin, the one for whom life just isn’t going right. And in our discomfort, we isolate ourselves from the one who is different, avoiding their presence as if acknowledging it would disrupt our sense of what is "right," when it is we ourselves who have been infected with "AIDS."
What would Jesus do? That’s easy, because the gospel accounts of His life clearly show us. Jesus chose a despised tax collector to be one of His disciples. He touched the leper with compassion, and sought out the deformed to bring healing to them. He was willing to teach the arrogant. He met the screams of the demon-possessed with deliverance. He came face to face with uncleanness, death, and fear, even while He refused to let others go hungry. He took children in His arms and blessed them, and met honest questions with patience. He hung in untold agony on a cross, willingly suffering its shame and anguish, to redeem a lost and undeserving humanity. In the midst of His own suffering, His ears and His heart were open to the penitent moans of a thief. We can do no less than shake off the indifference and isolation of our infection. Dependent on the same grace and love that has radically transformed our own lives, we can be imitators of Jesus, and find that "AIDS" is fully curable.
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— Bev |
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