Why is it “Grammy winner” but “Nobel Laureate”? Do they use the word laureate for anything except the Nobels? If not, we could just leave that word off and say he/she was a laureate. And if you pay for your kids’ college education, when they graduate aren’t you the backalaureate?
We have a mute button for the TV. Why don’t they give us a hide button? It would keep the audio going but turn off the picture.
I confess, I’m a news junkie. But why did they think any of us wanted to see pictures of the underwear from the guy who tried to blow up the plane? Browned shorts. Uhm....
Reading WORLD Magazine this afternoon I came across their list of people who died in 2009. Included was Clyde Charles, the first person to use federal civil rights law to sue for DNA testing which proved him innocent of a rape for which he had already served 18 years of a life sentence. The test results not only proved Clyde’s innocence, they proved his brother Marlo committed the crime.
Lots of layers here. He knew he was innocent, but then found out his own brother let him spend almost two decades in Angola, one of the toughest prisons in America. Cold.
Cheryl Holdridge also died, at the age of 64. If you remember The Mickey Mouse Club on TV you remember “Cheryl!”
I remember Lloyd Peterson, my pastor growing up, talking about “trophies of God’s grace.” Everyone who is saved (passive verb) is the recipient of God’s grace, without which there would be no salvation for anyone. But I agree with Pastor Peterson (long since with the Lord). Some people have personal testimonies that especially illustrate God’s grace in reaching into their life and bringing them to himself.
I was raised in a home where I was taught that Christ died to pay the penalty for my sins and rose from the dead as evidence of that provision. We went to a church that reinforced those truths. I can’t remember a time I didn’t believe in the substitutionary atonement. That doesn’t diminish my complete dependence on God’s grace, but it came to me through fairly predictable means.
I can’t get enough of the life stories from those whose salvation runs against the grain and surprises everyone. Their testimonies shout God’s sovereignty and goodness. They are, indeed, trophies of God’s grace. I love hearing how he worked to draw them to himself out of the most antithetical circumstances.
In each church I’ve pastored we’ve had at least one of these trophies, and Pathway is no exception. Without their permission I won’t mention names here, but if you visit us some Sunday I’ll introduce you. One of them has a story so remarkable that I told her the two of us need to sit down together some Sunday so I can interview her and the rest of the people can hear her testimony. I think that scared her a little; she is so humble. I am sure that humility comes from her own realization of God’s grace in her life. (This is a woman who has achieved some pretty remarkable things in her life, which makes her humility in the face of God’s grace all the more exemplary.)
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t diminish the significance of my own path to faith at all. It was God who placed me in that family and in that church. But don’t you get a special joy from hearing the testimony of these trophies?
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