After the Rain

Whatever our cross, whatever our pain,
there will be His sunshine after the rain.

We may stumble, perhaps even fall;
But God is always ready to answer our call.

He knows every heartache, He sees our every tear,
a word from His lips will calm our every fear.

Our sorrows may linger, throughout the night,
But will vanish in His dawn's early light.

The Father is waiting, somewhere above,
giving us His grace in Jesus and sending His love.

Poem by Jane Day

Living the Call Together - - - - - - - - - - All for the Glory of God

The Stranger

A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small town in eastern Pennsylvania. Way back then people were used to helping each other out by necessity. From the beginning, my Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. Mom taught me to love the Word of God. Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were his daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, my brother and I to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars. The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up - while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places - and go to her room read her Bible and pray. I wonder now, if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house - not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in our home - not even for cooking. But the stranger felt he needed to exposure us and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely about sex. His comments were sometimes suggestive and generally embarrassing to me. I know now that my early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced by the stranger. As I look back, I believe it was by the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. Many years have passed since that stranger had moved in. But if I were to walk into my parent's den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name? We always called him TV.

Living the Call Together - - - - - - - - - - All for the Glory of God