Miracles

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out! " - John 11:43

mir·a·cle - A highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment

When I was a kid believing in miracles was easy.I believed from the bottom of my heart that miracles happened and that God is a God of miracles.My prayers and petitions,no matter how fantastic they were,had a kind of cocky self-assurance that God can and God will.And God did.Then something happened.I grew up.I became more rational.I became more cerebral.I became more analytical.I never lost my faith.I just started putting an asterisk  '*'  to my more extravagant prayer requests.So,whenever I was asked to pray for something or some cause which seemed to be highly improbable and requiring of a miracle,my prayer would be something like this - Lord please do this for me *
* now I know Lord this thing I ask for is really far fetched and You could be busy with other important things too,so if possible do it,if not then no hard feelings 

I don't know how many of you suffer from the above mentioned emotion in prayer.I believe most of you.C'mon now be honest with yourselves,how many times when supposed to pray for what seemed to be an impossible cause in your mind have you used the word 'May Your will be done' not because you really believe in these words but because you want to give a leeway to God.Some elbow room for God,so that He doesn't look bad.Dearly beloved there is news for you and me - "God is still in the business of doing miracles".That was one of the messages from this Sunday's gospel reading.Lazarus raised from the dead.Our puny little brains can't comprehend the capabilities of God our father.He is the one who parted the Red Sea,He is the one who produced manna in the desert,He is the one who fed the multitudes,He is the one who rose from the dead.So,don't limit God in your prayers.From now on when you pray,pray with a renewed assurance and understanding that He is infinitely able.No petition or request is too big for Him.And yeah,He is never too busy for you 

Be audacious in the Lord today.

A simple lesson in faith…

Here’s a small incident which helped open my eyes a little bit more to understanding what Jesus meant by wanting us to be like children…...

Last Friday I had to take an auto from home to take our 3½ year old son Daniel to his playschool. I had to walk a small stretch of road with him to get to the main road, and then we stood there for a while waiting for an auto to pass by. The road to the school was pretty bad and bumpy and it was also dug up to lay some pipes. So no autos were passing that way, and those that did refused to go where we wanted to - and it was getting late for school.

After a while I spotted one auto coming our way and I told Daniel 'Let's ask Jesus to help us' and added a small prayer aloud for him to hear ,'Jesus, please let that auto stop'. When the auto came nearer, I realized that it already had a passenger. So I put my foot back and told Daniel, 'This won't stop, it already has someone in it'. But Daniel pulled me forward again holding my hand, and said,'But....but….Jesus…...'. He didn't complete the sentence because he didn't know how exactly to phrase it, but I knew that what he meant to say was, 'But didn't we tell Jesus?'. Feeling sorry that he was disappointed, I explained to him 'I know, we prayed to Jesus, but this auto can't stop because someone else is already in it....'

To my surprise, the auto stopped on the side and the driver told us to get in. The passenger, who was an elderly person, scooted to one side to make room. It was a 15-20 minutes ride to school, and that kind man had lost 10 minutes of his time in the process of taking the deviation to drop us. I was so grateful to both him and the auto driver, and when I thanked him, the man said 'not a problem. I only did what I would have done for my daughter'. Knowing auto drivers in Bangalore, it is truly a miracle that the auto driver and the man showed the kindness to stop for us.

Even though it's been awhile, the way Daniel said 'But….but… Jesus….' and the expression that went with it still stays fresh in my mind. With the amount of faith I had, I believed that Jesus could make the auto stop, provided it was unoccupied - whereas the child believed firmly that Jesus could stop the auto no matter what. Isn't that a HUGE difference?

Though a small incident, I believe it came with the big lesson for me that this is the kind of 'blind faith/trust' that Jesus asks of us. Praise God!

Lucy (Feb 2008)

Two men of faith whom I have been blessed to know contd ..

I continue my writing about Shaju brother from the earlier posting. (Link to earlier post)

As I told you Shaju brother's small family serves Jesus through their service of the destitute they pick up from the streets. At Akashaparavakal you can call them at any time of the day about a destitute that you find on the roadside needing help. Shaju brother and his companions will come with an ambulance which one of their well wishers have donated and take him in. They never say no when a brother of theirs is in need of their service. So their house is always over flowing with people they care for. Shaju brother’s family consists of him, his wife Shiji and their 4 year old son Michael. Their lives are dedicated in service of these "Makkal" that they have adopted into their lives. I have seen Michael freely playing around with these people from his infant years, loving them and treating them as members of their own family. Shaju brother, his family and his companions take care of the people God has put in their care with lots of love and care. They believe that their house belong to the "Makkal" and they are the servants, God has put in that house in service of the destitute.

When I went first to Akashaparavakal, they were in a small house of which one room was set apart as a chapel and the whole house overflowing with people. It would have been big enough for a small family to live comfortably and it had Shaju brother’s small family, two other brothers from Akashaparavakal whose lives have been dedicated to the service of the destitute and then 10 - 13 of Gods people they were taking care of. That small house was never enough. After some time, they were offered a piece of land and a small building on the outskirts of the city with another small house and soon they had two houses which were full. Seeing their plight, a person who was into construction business offered his services free to build a better house on the first plot of land, with the condition that Akashaparavakal would find the money for the building materials. The building contractor himself drew up the plan and God inspired them to build a house which could house 20 people. The estimate came up to 7 lakhs (700000) with Shaju brother having a few thousand rupees with him. Shaju brother started off the construction in faith and still he never went out soliciting money for the construction. God provided, all through different people and the house got constructed with never more than a few 1000 rupees in hand at any time. Jesus provided the right amount of money at the right times through different people, often people whom Shaju brother had never even met before. That house is now full with Gods beloved.

Then again God inspired the contractor who built this house to offer to build a bigger house on the other plot of land also on the same conditions that Akashaparavakal would provide the materials and he would provide the labor at a much reduced cost. This time God inspired them to have a house which could house 100 people with enough facilities for taking care of them. The estimate came out to be 50 lakhs (5,000,000). During this time, the Collector of the area in the suburb of Bangalore where Shaju brother was doing his service came to know about the work he was doing among the destitute and offered to do every thing in his capacity to get him all clearances for foreign funding and help him to get the funds also. Shaju brother and his companions prayed together and decided that the people whom they take care belong to this land and God would provide from his abundance through the people of this land itself. So they rejected the idea of going for foreign funds. They came to the conclusion that they would not be able to experience the faith in Gods providence that meets their every day needs and nothing more if they had the plentiful access to foreign funds. So now the construction of the new building is going on. The final cost has gone up from 50 lakhs. The construction is in crisis lots of times because of paucity of funds. But as Shaju brother says, Jesus has never allowed the construction to come to a stand still and it continues. Shaju brother still continues to depend on the abundant graces of his loving God while he on most days just has enough to feed the people through the next few days. But Gods abundance never runs out and Shaju brother’s faith also never runs out.

Recently I was there at Akashaparavakal to spend a day there. I joined with them for the prayer service that they have before lunch. It was nothing great like the beautiful praise and worship services that I go to. It didn't have any beautiful prayers. It mostly consisted of a lot of Hallelujahs’ said by the makkal thanking god while one of the brothers

thanked God for the simple things God provided for in their lives, like the food on their plates, the clothes on their back, the roof over their heads, the strength in their limbs etc. And the inmates would say hallelujah. There were a few familiar songs sung with the people joining in very off key. But I could feel the presence of Christ walking among his beloved people. I could feel the love of Christ flowing through which brought tears to my eyes. What a treasure they had, the infinite love and graces of a God who had their names engraved in his palms and provided every thing that they needed from his abundance. Jesus asked nothing back from them other than their child like love for Him. I enjoyed true praise and worship. I enjoyed the love of God flowing through. And I still learn the basics of faith from Shaju brother and the other brothers at Akashaparavakal.

Two men of faith whom I have been blessed to know

Dear Friends I wanted to write about two men of faith I have been privileged to know. I will write about them in a few posts so that this will not become one looooong post.

The first one, I came into touch with him when he was started his ministry a little while back. I met him when a very good friend of mine Fr.Varghese took me to visit Akashaparavakal (means Birds of the sky), a home for looking after the destitute picked up from streets. Fr Varghese had a mass there and I tagged along. There I met the person who started the house in Bangalore, Shaju brother. A simple man with an unkempt beard and wearing a simple kavi (saffron) attire and no sandals on his feet. Since then I have known him for almost 5 years and I have never seen him with out a pleasant heart warming smile on his face.

I was touched by his work, he had a small house and it was overflowing with people. All of them were destitute people picked from roadsides, some were sick and dying, 90% were people who were mentally ill. They had either wandered out of their homes or were left on the roads to survive for themselves. They didn't know who they were or where they had come from. Some of them had festering wounds on their bodies collected through their wanderings. He told me there were maggots in those wounds when he found some of his children (makkal), as he calls them. He and the two other brothers he had with him to help, along with his family nursed them back to good health.

I asked him how he manged the food and medicines for them all, as most of them needed psychiatric as well as other medicines. He told me "God's providence" keeps him with out lack all through. I was touched and I told him any time you are in need of money you can call me. I gave my number to him. Two or three months passed by before I again accompanied Fr. Varghese to mass at the Akashaparavakal. The first thing I asked Shaju brother was, why he had never called me, didn't have any lack of money during this time at all ? He told me that they had even come to stages where there was not even a morsel in the house but they all prayed together, including the "children", at the chapel and the food came through. He described an incident a week ago, where they had nothing to cook and in the evening they were all praying together at the chapel asking the good Lord provide them with their supper. A man they had never met walked in with 10 KG of rice and he had heard of the house from a friend of his. He thought it would be nice to take a bag of rice when he went to visit them first. I was touched but was skeptical. I asked him, why he didn't call me at all with such need. He told God does not let His beloved to beg, he will provide from his abundance. He also added if you are provided for more than your daily bread, one will not be able to exercise your faith. I took the money I had in my pocket and gave it to him. He counted it gave me a receipt for that and said, I needed this for settling the account at the provision shop and if we didn't we would not have got our provisions at all. I was a little bit amused. I still was not convinced. I kept visiting house and helped out in any way I can. There used to be brothers from near by seminaries who came to stay there and help out during their holidays and semester breaks. I happened to be there when a few of them completed and were going off. They shared their experiences while they were staying at the house. And they told me about several incidents like these where God provided at the right moment what was needed, nothing more nothing less. They all went strengthened in their faith from there. I heard numerous such incidents all though my association and have come to expect that these every day miracle will happen in their lives. I would be surprised if those little miracles did not take place.

As our friendship grew, Shaju brother told me the secret of how he prayed. Every morning he wrote down the needs of the house on a piece of paper in the chapel, gave it to God and went on with his daily chores keeping the paper in his pocket. When ever he put his hand in his pocket for taking out some thing, the piece of paper came out with it and he prayed for the needs. And unfailingly His God provided.

I will continue writing about Shaju brother in my next post. Let me stop here and thank the God who is his and mine for His generosity in our lives. I have been blessed abundantly with material riches in my life, but Shaju brother has been blessed with more, with an abundant faith which can provide for every thing else.

Tough like a Tractor

This reflection comes from an incident which happened sometime back when it was raining heavily. That nice evening while it was pouring we made a visit to a JY family and just near their house the road was being repaired, layered with mud. I soon discovered that the car was just sliding through the mud and by God's grace managed to just stop in front of their house. It wouldn't move an inch, the tires half sunk in mud. We went to visit  them but ended up staying there overnight!

I was quite taken aback by something I saw while struggling with my car. One man was driving a tractor through the knee deep mud like a hero. It was just a cakewalk for the tractor while the car  was stuck in the mud. I wished I had  a tractor! 

This taught me about the Gift of Fortitude - the need to be Tough like a Tractor in the muddy situations of life. As the saying goes 'when the going gets tough the tough gets going' and we know it is a Gift of the Holy spirit. This imagery has reminded me many times I need to be tough like a tractor.

Lets pray with St. Thomas Aquinas "Grant me the gift of fortitude so that I may overcome courageously all the assaults of the devil, and all the dangers of this world which threaten the salvation of my soul".

"Let not your heart be disturbed, Do not fear that sickness,nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is my Mother?Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything." (Words of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego).Happy New Year!

Testimony from South Africa

This is a sharing by one of my friend,sis called Abigail from South Africa.She sent this over to me .She was in Bangalore few years back for studies.She was born in an Islamic family but now is standing for Jesus Christ,more than any of us. Let us read her testimony below!

Praise the lord my dear friends! i would like to share with you the most amazing hell of a ride,with what happened to me,and how God helped me,get through this...He helped me,and he will help you too....just have faith in him and he shall calm the storms that you going through in your life, all things are possible with God....!!! in him you shall seek refuge,in his arms he will protect and shield you.
Anyways,heres what happened on Tuesday night 5 august 2008 .......i was been falsely accused and blamed for,all the students living with me in the house turned against me at that time (i recall,when people put false accusation on our Lord Jesus and yet he forgave them and his love for them remained the same),,i accepted the blame inorder to avoid arguments even though they were lying, some of the stuff they were saying wasnt true...and some were, of which i accepted...dirty and nasty things were said and i was sweared at like i quote them as sayin "u r the worst person on this earth" and deep down i said thanks coz maybe i am...some i wont mention as twas really bad...but i thank God that i was strong enough to bear the pain at that time,and now i realized that God had given me the strength and wisdom ,and that he was holdin my hand and sitting next to me whispering his precious words,"You will be fine", "forgive and love them for i will forgive you and i love you", "i will!
never put you into trials that u cannot bear",trials come to make you strong,"i will never leave you"...all this wonderful words of his touched me and healed me, his gentle hands holding me....why dint i realize it at that time,that he was there???one thing i knew that he had answerd my prayers coz i asked him to give me inner strength and wisdom...when this people were nagging and falsely accusing me,i could smell and feel a bad aroma in that surrounding,i couldn't understand what it was,i couldn't see them anymore i could just see something wierd in them...i cant explain what it was...it was just too harsh and very cruel surrounding...but i was happy and not scared coz Jesus was holding my hand...i know he will neva put me down...well i asked them for forgiveness and dint get their response,i learnt that wen i was told, i am the worst human being on this earth,that very moment God told me "not to take it to heart" and that "i shouldnt think that i am worst,coz i created !
everyone perfect", "it doesnt matter what people say, for i am your wi
tness",what matters is what God thinks of me..he is my witness and my judge.Well i do accept that what i did after everything was said to me was wrong,coz i was just tooo hurt ,after that i guess God allowed me to cry alone in my room though he was there...and when i planned to commit a suicide by overdosing 6 tabs, couldnt eat more coz water was finished ,i think Jesus said twas enough and besides he never liked what i did,he tried to stop me but i guess i was too stubborn to listen to him, so Jesus found a way, and that was, there was no more water left in the glass or the bottle and i was feeling very low or lazy i should say to get another glass of water and so i ended up not eating the rest of the tablets.,it wasnt my time to die and besides why would i hurt myself for what people do or say to me???i should be hurt if i do something that is unpleasing to God!!!for he is my lord ,my saviour,my friend,my master,my king whom i serve!!!.
But now i have this sudden joy and happiness in me that i cant describe,,sometimes am just tooo confused that i shud be crying over what happened, but instead i am happy...alot of good things are happening after Tuesday(the day of hell) and am glad that it is Jesus' way of makin me happy...he knew i love animals and the next day,in the mornin i saw a cute dog and i smiled praising the lord...my friend got me a chocolate,he knew i was sad,and Jesus told him i guess to get me one (i love chocolates,lol),my other friend took me out for lunch and after fifteen minutes got a call from my other frend who took me for a coffee lol i guess i was pretty spoiled hmmm.. (non of these friends knew the hard times i went through)......well in all this people, i knew i had lunch with Jesus and a chocolate from him..lol...He is amazing!!!God works in miraculous ways in our lives,it was a hell of a ride but it was exciting and amazing and fun to be with Jesus all this tym Hallelujah!!!!
My dear beloved,wonderful children of God,
Never give up on Jesus!!!,when times are tough and the roads are rough and there is nowhere to run try Jesus,in a lightening of a second he will get you out of it without you knowing it,all you need to do is have faith in him and trust him with all your heart.He knows your problems,your weaknesses,he cries wen you cry,his hurt when you hurt,he understands the pain you going through...he loves you more than your own earthly parents,his love for you and me is unconditional,and he proved it on the cross so that we the sinners might be saved!!!!
He hold me tightly in his arms,i felt safe,he hugs you and me everyday,but we just dont have the time to realize it.He talks to us but we dont have time to listen to him,every second of everyday he says he loves us,when we are asleep he watches over us with a smile on his face,even if we dint have time for him,his love for us never change....Let us have time for our precious lord Jesus christ,and see how our lives can be changed...let us give ourselves to him...and keep him the first in our lives...
Jesus is my everything!!! and so he shall be yours...
God be with you always...He loves you,you are precious in his eyes....and i love you too...
your sis in christ
Abigail