By April Terry (personal blog at http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

Last week, I think I mentioned that I have a one-track mind.  It usually becomes a nuisance when I am in a restaurant and trying to order and listen to a conversation at the same time.  I literally have to be tapped on the shoulder and told to answer the question.  I think something went seriously wrong in the wiring of my brain.  When I was a kid, our family used to say that I was in my own world. 

Maybe because I was so single-minded, my dad used to talk to us about the importance of paying attention to what is going on around you.  He was always warning us to be aware of our surroundings and who is nearby.   He was teaching us how to be ready to protect ourselves in case of danger, but I think there was a greater benefit there.  When we are paying attention, we notice people.  When we notice people, we can be of greater service to them.

I often notice things about people.  I went out to lunch with a friend the other day and noticed a couple sitting at the next table over.   For some reason, I tuned in on and off during our lunch and midway through our meal, I noticed that the woman was crying.  I felt for her, and so I tuned out of our conversation long enough to silently say a prayer for her.  I won’t ever know what life problem she was dealing with, but I figured I had a couple of seconds to spare in order shoot off a prayer. 

If prayers were visible rays of light shooting straight up to heaven, how much light would you be shooting up into the atmosphere?  I like to think that someday I will know the true value of those prayers that I send out.  I believe I will see the validation of my prayers one day and that I will be amazed.  My hope is to see a replay of myself praying as a fire engine or ambulance goes by and then to see the affect of those prayers on the lives of the people I prayed for. 

The more aware we become of those around, the more we become part of the world.  Otherwise, we are just a visitor on a foreign planet, but when we start to tune into to others, we become like extended family members.  Then, we are no longer strangers.  Prayer is a funny thing.  I sometimes wonder why God would require it of us.  After all, God already has the capacity to help or not help people.  It’s within His power and His desire.  He knows what will happen and what is best for us, so why does He need us to pray?  The answer that comes to my mind is that there is an effect on us as we pray for ourselves and others.  Prayer changes us.   Prayer has the capacity to reunite humanity back into a brotherhood.  Without prayer, we are distant relatives, twice removed.  With prayer, we are brothers and sisters and that is exactly what God is trying to show us.  He wants to remind us at every turn that we are siblings and He wants us to be co-laborers in His creation. 

Being the fourth daughter of six children, I know what it’s like to be part of a big family.  Still, it would be great if we could all understand that we are all part of a huge family.  Without noticing and being aware of one another, we remain distant and unaware of our siblings.  When we pay attention and notice someone, we begin to sense the attachment that exists between all of us.  No longer are our associations random and coincidental.  We are connected to everyone and everyone is connected to us.  We treat family better.  We love family better.  We need family more.

By April Terry (personal blog http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

In the front seat of our car, I sat tuned into my new cell phone complete with the latest data plan.  In the back seat, my son was texting a friend.  My low-tech husband suddenly felt ignored, rejected, and yes, more than a little lonely.  When he finally said something about it, I stopped and shut off my hand-held device and placed it into my purse.  “You’re right,” I said, “Son, put your phone away and let’s have dinner as a family together.”  We entered the restaurant disconnected, yet reconnected to one another.

I’ve just finished reading a book called, “The Last Christian,” by David Gregory.  It’s a futuristic story about a young woman who emerges from the jungle after living all of her life as a missionary with a tribe of natives and emerges into a world where Virtual Reality and other technological breakthroughs have changed the scope of the man’s view of himself, his relationships, and his faith.  The compelling thing about the story is how it contrasts the rise of technology in society with the decline of faith and community.   One thing in particular that I found particularly fascinating was that in this futuristic world students in college no longer searched for the answers to questions since they already had access to the entirety of human knowledge through technology.  Instead, their pursuit was in finding the right questions.  If I don’t know something, I can Google it and I am finding more and more that people are more intrigued by questions than by answers.  I have to admit that my career is in the field of technology and I was compelled by the ideas presented in this book because I am linked to the world of technology from the pin code of my online bank account to the web access on my cell phone.

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by Jacob Siever

(This is a very personal, incredibly vulnerable piece written by my eldest son, Jacob.  It’s a clip from his journal last October, 2009. I have often felt that his rejection of Jesus was at least partly because of our own difficult relationship.  The moment he describes here may have been a turning point, an epiphany…maybe even an encounter with God.  I don’t know, really.  All I know is that he felt compelled to send this to me, which says a lot about where our relationship is today.  Later he gave me permission to share it here, and said that perhaps he was compelled to write it because it was something that needed to be shared.  I  wanted to post it because it speaks about the power of noticing others.  And because it touched me and encouraged me as a dad who loves his son more than he can express.

BTW:  This is the same son I mentioned in my comments on a post earlier last year, where I recounted a very similar experience in my own life:  I Met Jesus at the Quick Mart).

Death.  Birth.  October 16, 2009. The face of truth seems to exist in the most unexpected locations, and perhaps bears a thousand omni-directional mirrors with no escape.  Some say extraordinary things occur when astrological elements coordinate in particular order.

Department of Motor Vehicles.  Clothing.  Food.  Money.  Energy efficient flat screen televisions.  All elements contributing to our own demise if you ask me.  On second thought, I guess food does sort of keep us alive…but too much of it is what I’m getting at.  Never the less, all things we worry over.  Ironically, today all these things came together to cause something much greater to occur.

The look of sadness, loneliness and abandon in the face of a stranger with none of these things has caused a revelation within me.  I see these people on street corners every day in every shopping center I pass by.  For some reason, the man I saw this October evening reached into the depths of my selfish heart, and held my eyes open.  Suddenly overtaken by emotion, all I could think of was giving this poor soul a shake of the hand, and some money so that he might eat.  He smiled, and said “God bless you, sir.”  Tears came rushing to my eyes as I reviewed my own concerns of late;  how I had spent too much on food that wasn’t up to my standards.  How I had to deal with an hour wait at the DMV to renew my driver’s license, and attend to registration on my Cadillac, Toyota pickup, and Honda motorcycle, and how much it all cost.  How I had been so stressed about finding a new location for my business, and if I am going to make enough money to satisfy my own needs.  The quality of the food I ate, three f’ing vehicles, and my own business I have been stressed about.  And here this man is, standing at a stop sign in a grocery store parking lot with his head hung in shame, hoping someone will care enough to help him eat maybe once today.  There is something terribly wrong with this picture.

I have been in possession of a film I rented for about a week and a half, called “Knowing”.  The whole time I’ve had it something always seemed to stop my girlfriend and I from being able to watch it.  We finally had planned watch it this evening, which ended up being directly after encountering the homeless man on the corner.  The main character in the film is an astrology professor who has his doubts about the origin of our world as we know it.  He also happens to be the son of a preacher.  At this point I’m already thinking this is a little bit of a strange coincidence.  Long story short, he finds a prophetic writing in a time capsule indicating all the major fatal tragedies that had occurred since 1959, and also the end of the world.  Which happens to be October 19, 2009.  Now this all seems really weird.  His son is followed by a few frightening characters, which turn out to basically be angels, in that they take his son and another girl to safety in a plethora of light and atmospheric shift.  He must let his son go.  The man then understands what had been happening the entire time that he had been trying to decode and stop what was being foretold in the writing. He reunites with is father at the end of the film, moments before the flare sweeps across the planet and incinerates everything.  His father says to him, “this is not the end son”, with a smile as he hugs him.  He replies, “I know, dad.”  He and his three family members embrace as the disaster consumes everything.  Now all I could think of was embracing my own father, and thanking him for always being there for me no matter what I had done or said.

I can’t help but think that all this occurred in the way it did for a very profound reason.  I also can’t seem to evade the possibility that a homeless man may have inadvertently saved my life.  Or was he an angel sent by God?  Thank you, my unknown friend.  I will remember you for the rest of my life.  I hope you are safe, and have food to eat.  And God bless you, too.