Based On a Troubling Story

“What do I care if they are hungry?” Comrade Snezhana scoffed.  “We’ve put up with them all day long, and are taking a well-deserved break.”
Lyosha could hear whimpering down the long halls in the orphanage and it made her feel uncomfortable. She knew how little the children had to eat today, and it wasn’t any better yesterday, or last week either.

A half-hour later Comrade Roksana handed her a glass of wine to go with the expensive white chocolates that were topping off the meal but she felt too full or was it sick, to take another bite.
A toddler’s fretful whimpers were turning into lusty wails. Lyosha knew she should go comfort Klava before Comrade Snezhana strode over there and started slapping her around. But Lyosha didn’t dare. She knew she had the reputation of spoiling the ‘brats’ and didn’t have the nerve to make a scene in front of the other comrades including hardened officers who were partying with them.

I suppose you are horrified that something like this really did happen in Russia during the war. Why is it that we can sympathize with physical needs and want to do something, yet hardly hear the hidden cry of our or their hearts?
How many children, young people, and others are starving spiritually while those of us that should be helping are feasting on what the world has to offer and barely take enough spiritual manna to keep our own souls alive?
When’s the last time we have had a truly satisfying hour of studying the Bible? When is the last time we fasted, not to be seen of men, but because we had such a deep longing to pray, that food or earthly pleasures just didn’t seem important? I fall so far short but oh I pray that I can do better!

What Really Matters

I made myself a new friend. Ah me, what a dream, I haven’t even met her! Let’s start again; I wish I could have her for a dear friend. Everyone applauds her for her sewing ability and no doubt, it was wonderful, but I don’t think that is the reason people cried when she died suddenly. Would you weep just because someone who made you a garment passed away? I think not. Would you if you were desperately poor, and it was the only decent thing you had to wear? I doubt it, after all, a brand new, possibly heavy, homespun garment would last quite a while, and even if it didn’t, that isn’t what you would remember her by.

               Really? So what was? Dorcas was one special woman. Her heart was overflowing with love. These were poverty-stricken widows and others to whom she ministered. Widows, get that? Wives’ and mothers whose husbands’, the father to their children, had died, possibly drowned at sea because Joppa was a seacoast town. They were heartbroken, lonesome and she cared.

Sure, they showed anyone interested the tangible evidence of how kind she was to them, but that wasn’t the most important part.

Here was someone that loved them, shared their suffering and when she died they couldn’t bear to let her go.

               I guess Peter couldn’t either, because when he was summoned from a nearby town, he dropped everything he was doing, and came.

               It was a tremendous miracle when Dorcas rose from the dead and many became Christians because of it, but let’s not remember her for doing acts of mercy, but for showing compassion.

               Hey, Dorcas, may I get to know you in Heaven and be your friend, there?