Roses in January--and Treasure out of the Junk Yard

Roses in January are not very common.

I didn't dream I'd have roses blooming inside our sliding glass doors this January--
the first one blooming on New Years Day.
Up with the dawn, this is the beautiful morning scene out our sliding door.

And then this is the zoomed in scene at sunset out the door on the other side of the house.

And I'm sure there are people who wonder why I get homesick for Pennsylvania
when I get to enjoy sunrises and sunsets like these!
I'm blessed to have a happy, loving family...

wonderful friends,

and even pumpkin pies many times a year!

I was blessed this week to have a friend take me out to a Chinese restaurant.
It's great to have a friend with such a friendly, laid back, positive attitude.

And the Chinese decor took me back to my experiences on my Bible trip I took to China
back before I got married.

I ordered chicken and snow peas and egg drop soup. 

And in the middle of a relaxing hour away from usual duties, I told her about a book I found at the library called "Souls in the Hands of a Tender God."

Just the title caught my eye, my attention, and my heart.

We've all heard about Jonathan Edwards' sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
And God used that sermon, at the heels of much prayer, to fuel an amazing revival in America.
But sometimes there are people who need something different--
such as people who have grown up hearing about an angry God all the time
and hardly know the tender side of Him--
and people who are struggling in different ways and whose hearts need tenderness and gentleness.
I read this book, and as I read, I cried, as the author told tender story after tender story of his reaching out to rejects of society, mental cases with bipolar disorder or manic depression, and other people.

He himself had experienced a period of terrible depression in his third year of college.
There was no rhyme or reason, just a terrible depression that caused him to leave college, go home, find himself crying in his parents' living room, and go driving down the road with the concrete supports of a bridge beckoning his car.
He did not know what was the matter with him or what he was doing. 
Had he chosen to smash into the bridge and end his life could  he have been accountable for it
when he literally did not know what he was doing?
Mercifully he drove on by, found an exit and a little road and a little lane that ended in an abandoned spot where some potter had been working with clay.
Something about the scene sparked the author's curiosity--and gave him a reason to live again.
Little by little he improved and got back to his old self.
But he always had a place in his heart for people whose brain was malfunctioning in ways
that brought on depression or worse disorders.

It doesn't take much to cause different levels of issues with a person's mental attitudes and functions.
Our brains are intricately made, and if one intricacy fails, there are problems.
And what if many intricacies fail?
Later, he spent much of his life ministering to people on the street who were rejects of society. He saw one after another restored--
because someone cared about them and helped them get the help they needed.
He would walk beside them, cautiously and gently, till they would trust him,
and then he could start gently suggesting help and contacts, havens and doctors.

This book was a little slice of another aspect of reaching out to hurting humanity.

"God is where people are hurting," said one of the people to whom the author ministered, "not in a courtroom somewhere, waiting to pass judgment."

Christ "welcomed those whom others reviled. He affirmed the worth and dignity of the lowly."

"Time and time again, the Scriptures call upon us to love one another, and to love especially those most at risk among us: the ill and frail, the widow, the orphan, the infant, the poor, the oppressed. In the end, this is every one of us. We are all in some way wounded, stumbling, lame, uncertain, insecure, and in need of tenderness. We may armor ourselves emotionally, move about in motorcades, put our hands to the levers of power, live in pomp and ostentation, and bask in the light of prominence among our fellow humans. 

We may see ourselves as first and best.

But in the actual count, we stand side by side with our most troubled neighbor, neither better nor worse, but fully equal as humans."