It's a Wonderful Life

"Everyone on earth should believe, amid whatever madness or moral failure, that his life and temperament have some object on earth. Everyone on earth should believe that he has something to give to the world which cannot otherwise be given. Everyone should, for the good of men and for the saving of his own soul, believe that it is possible, even if we are the enemies of the human race, to be the friends of God." (G. K. Chesterton)

Ragman

Ragman
by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

I saw a strange sight. I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for.

Hush, child. Hush, now, and I will tell it to you.

Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: "Rags!" Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.

"Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!"

"Now, this is a wonder," I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn't disappointed.

Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

"Give me your rag," he said so gently, "and I'll give you another."

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.

Gospel Identity

All of Life, is Jesus Christ

Because of Him, we're dead to sin

Hidden with the Son, victory won

This is our story, destined for Glory

- Ken Johnson

We've Moved!

We have for some time been praying that the Lord would provide a place for us to meet on Sunday mornings. And I'm happy to report, as the psalmists frequently gush, "The Lord heard our cry..." So, beginning this Sunday, February 3rd, we will be gathering for worship at a new location and time.

Where: 701 Kittitas St., Wenatchee

Time: 9:30 - 11:00 am

We are very thankful to Wenatchee Valley Praise Center (a.k.a. The Living Room) for hosting us in their facility over the past several months. Pastors John and Sal and were exemplary hosts, and we remain grateful for their generous hospitality.

We'd love for you to join us as we begin a new chapter at King's Cross Church. Blessings! 

Out of the Abortionist's Mouth the Heart Speaks

Abortionists are threatened by informed consent. They’re traumatized by the limp body parts they look at every day. They’re torn by the contradiction that they became doctors to preserve life but use their profession to end it. Here are some eye-opening confessions from current and former abortionists.

“They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t want to have an abortion.” (Dr. Randall, former abortionist)

“Even now I feel a little peculiar about it, because as a physician I was trained to conserve life, and here I am destroying it.” (Dr. Benjamin Kalish, abortionist)

“You have to become a bit schizophrenic. In one room, you encourage the patient that the slight irregularity in the fetal heart is not important, that she is going to have a fine, healthy baby. Then, in the next room you assure another woman, on whom you just did a saline abortion, that it is a good thing that the heartbeat is already irregular… she has nothing to worry about, she will NOT have a live baby… All of a sudden one noticed that at the time of the saline infusion there was a lot of activity in the uterus. That’s not fluid currents. That’s obviously the fetus being distressed by swallowing the concentrated salt solution and kicking violently and that’s to all intents and purposes, the death trauma… somebody has to do it, and unfortunately we are the executioners in this instance.” (Dr. John Szenes, abortionist)

“Telling those women their fetuses feel pain is heaping torment upon torment. These women have real pain. They did not come to this decision easily. Creating another barrier for them to get the medical care they need is really unfair.” (Abortionist Dave Turok)

 “This is why I hate overuse of forceps – things tear. There are only two kinds of doctors who have never perforated a uterus, those that lie and those who don’t do abortions.” (Anonymous Abortionist)

“I got to where I couldn’t stand to look at the little bodies anymore.” (Dr. Beverly McMillan, former abortionist)

“I think in many ways I’ve been lucky to have been part of this. If I hadn’t gotten involved, I would have gone through life probably being perfectly satisfied to go to the medical society parties and it would have been very, very dull. I would have been bored silly.” (Dr. Jane Hodgson, late abortionist)

“Sorrow, quite apart from the sense of shame, is exhibited in some way by virtually every woman for whom I performed an abortion, and that’s 20,000 as of 1995. The sorrow is revealed by the fact that most women cry at some point during the experience… The grieving process may last from several days to several years… Grief is sometimes delayed… The grief may lie sublimated and dormant for years.” (Dr. Susan Poppema, abortionist)

“If I see a case…after twenty weeks, where it frankly is a child to me, I really agonize over it because the potential is so imminently there…On the other hand, I have another position, which I think is superior in the hierarchy of questions, and that is “who owns this child?” It’s got to be the mother.” (Dr. James T. McMahon, abortionist)

“We know that it’s killing, but the state permits killing under certain circumstances.” (Dr. Neville Sender, abortionist)

Saving Innocent Lives, One Woman at a Time

This is national "Right to Life" month and this coming Sunday I (pastor Gene Helsel) will preach the last sermon in a short series on abortion and the sanctity of life. This past week I had the privilege of gathering together with some of my fellow Wenatchee area pastors and listen to the testimonies of some local ladies who had abortions several years ago, and, via a class called, Surrendering the Secret, were able to tap into the amazing grace of God. Listening to theses dear sisters was one of the most profoundly stirring and edifying experiences of my adult Christian life. We pastors sat riveted to our seats as we listened to testimonies that recounted a handful of tear-soaked journeys from regret to rejoicing. And as we did, we were wondrously awash in the mercy of our Heavenly Father as again, and again, these brave women demonstrated with their stories Paul's astounding declaration that "where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more." I sincerely wish that I could publish every one of their heartfelt offerings, but I think what follows will suffice to give you a taste of the gravity and glory of that humble gathering.

Here, in its entirety, is the first talk that we heard. The talks that followed were generally a little more biographical than this one. But this first talk set both set the tone and provided a theological framework for everything that followed. Please join me in praying that God will increasingly use these and similar testimonies in the great struggle against abortion-on-demand to "save innocent lives, one woman at at time."

As I went through this class for post-abortive women, what became increasingly clear to me were the far-reaching, and common themes with each woman who has made this choice. 

The class is called Surrendering the Secret—and I had never realized this terrible part of my history was actually a secret.  It had been something so heinous, it was unspeakable.  As an individual, I was able to seize the grace of forgiveness offered thru Christ – but further than that was unable to really look at this ‘issue’ as a ‘landscape.’ – with so many others out there like me, who had walked a very similar path.  It was like we were all ghosts, survivors of something we had done to ourselves, and to our children, but invisible to one another—phantoms, sitting by each other, but never speaking of this terrible, most influential event in each of our lives.

 

Donkey's Delight

In C.S. Lewis' wonderful poem "Donkeys' Delight" the Oxford don likens salvation to entering into "the excellent joke" which at first glance seems a tad strange, or at the very least, a little trite. But when you consider the essence/makeup of jokes it actually makes perfect sense. Every joke has a "setup" which takes the hearer in a particular direction. The "punchline" is simply an unexpected diversion from the path established by the "setup." Here's an example:

Setup - "When I die, I want to go like my grandfather did, in his sleep..."
Punchline - "Not like all the other people in the car, screaming and yelling."

The setup establishes certain stock scenes and/or motifs. The punchline wrenches us from those scenes and takes us (quite unexpectedly) to an entirely different scene. And when it does, we laugh, giggle or guffaw.

Now, this being the case, Lewis is spot-on. Salvation is the ultimate "excellent joke."

Setup - Adamic and personal sin against a three-times holy God invoking His just and holy wrath.
Punchline - Free grace, pardon, cleansing and adoption as sons.

And so Lewis concludes:
I repented, I entered
Into the excellent joke
The absurdity. My burden
Rolled off as I broke
Into laughter; and soon after
I had found my own level;
With Balaam's Ass daily
Out at grass I revel,
Now playing, now braying
Over the meadows of light
Our soaring, creaking Gloria
Our donkeys' delight

Hmm...no wonder we Christians laugh/bray so much, and so heartily...