One of the most heart rendering experiences I've ever had occurred on a mission trip to the south pacific. My niece came with me along with a dozen other workers. We arrived at the airport in Manila Philippines for our return flight to America. My niece reached for her passport...and it wasn't there. One thing for certain, you're not getting on an international flight without a passport. It was lost on the bumpy ride to the city. She had everything, but not quite! Everything.. but the most important item... which gave her right of passage. At that point, nothing else mattered. I recall her weeping on my shoulder, "Uncle John, there going to keep me here forever". How God bailed us out of that jam was amazing and a great devotion for another time. What I'm reminded of from this is the story of the rich young man that came to Jesus in Matthew 19. He had everything and had kept all the law. He would have been like the Bruce Wayne of Palestine. He had money, ...
"When we pray the heart of God and man align." Because of our humanity we are not shielded nor able to escape the issues of pain, hardship, and suffering that awaits every mortal being. The beauty of our relationship with God, and I would even say the purpose, is how His grace and power works through the frailties of our life; displaying His manifold power in the deepest and darkest valley's of our human experience. People who live outside of this alignment constitutes the majority of mankind. It is among the masses in which we derive a vocabulary of words with seemingly universal application. For example; the word bad, in the sense of badness, is the opposite of good. Bad is bad. If I say to you that I am good you would not think bad. Good is good; bad is bad. However, the carnal words; used by man; often universal in use; are irrelevant and pale to a spiritual lexicon and perspective. Only in alignment with God; through the lens of faith; do we regard our life ...
The novel Up At The Villa by W Somerset Maugham is a love story set in early 1940, during Nazi occupation, of a sleepy Italian village in Florence. An aristocratic widow, Mary Panton has her future and wealth sealed upon the death of her abusive, womanizing, yet extremely wealthy husband, an Italian diplomat. In a short time, her heart and love is intrigued for an enigmatic Rowley Flint. An American with with a mysterious past. She falls for him but her aristocratic pride will or would not accept his advances. Flint has truly fallen madly in love with her but soon realizes she has her nose stuck up to high to be associated with him. He deals with his un-requited love and begins to fall into a sense of sadness. As the novel continues, and skipping to the meat of the story, Mary Patton murders a man, after a one night stand, over a senseless and reckless mistake. Mary resorts to the only man that could help her with this conundrum, The America...
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