This week I had the privilege of ministering at a local Senior Care Home. This ministry has been a blessing to me for several years. I go along with my dear friend Bambi who was the one responsible for encouraging me to be involved. We joyfully minister to these dear saints with hymns, Bible devotions and prayer.
Monday was a miraculous meeting for us. We felt the Holy Spirit moving throughout the hearts of the dear ladies who attended. We saw the tears of joy and hope that came into those sweet aged eyes.
I met Gertrude, a marvelous saint who smiled with the joy of years with God in her heart. She could no longer see with her eyes, but perhaps that allowed her to see more deeply into the heart of God. I met Lois who told me that she had ministered in her church for 64 years in playing the organ and the piano. She planned to teach children who could not afford to take piano lessons as soon as her leg was better in rehab. She wept for me when I shared that my own father was in a group home because of the ravage of Alzheimers in his mind. Dear, dear soul. How I cherish the thought that she will be praying for me.
We prayed for women who could no longer form thoughts enough to speak, to those who wept for their families. For Pauline I prayed that God would comfort her--the last of her family--she cried when she told me that she was so lonely, but could agree with me that she still had God to comfort and would at the called time be joining them--how they must be saying "we can't wait to see our dear Pauline". I looked into the sad eyes of a small woman and could only utter to her over and over, "you are forgiven, you are forgiven" as a tear trailed down her cheek.
The message God gave me to speak to the group was "A Fresh Start". That morning God spoke deeply into my spirit. That each day is a fresh start. I read from
2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.
"Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you.
How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.
A Fresh Start, whether we have known the Lord for 64 years or have never met him. This verse assures us that we can have a fresh start--a fresh start for a new life or a fresh start this very day because we've fallen away from God (in a big or small way).
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