March 9th, 2010
29 years ago in a small hospital somewhere in small town USA, a little girl was born. The pregnancy was nothing out of the ordinary, and the labor was hard, but then again, aren’t all first time deliveries hard? The parents were young, working-class, humble, but good looking parents who just wanted a healthy baby to have for their own.
After the months of growing in her mother’s womb, and the encouraging word from the nurse to “Push!”, these shocking words were heard. ”This baby is naked!” and a hush fell over the delivery room. The doctors and nurses were happy that mom had been sedated and dad was not in the delivery room. After cleaning her naked body, they quickly wrapped the baby in a blanket and brought her to her mother and laid her in her arms as if she had never been born naked.
Years past and the baby grew and so did her cloths. She became very aware of her desire to wear clothes that were stylish and colorful, but most of all that covered her. Many times her mother would walk into the bathroom and find her sitting naked in a tub of water. It was often wondered if there was something that was deeply rooted inside her that drove her to the urges to sit naked in a tub. Others claimed it was just a bath.
As the girl grew the tub incidents became acceptable and the parents quit looking for such activities hoping that wearing cloths would be the “norm” and that soon this little girl that they loved so much would find friends in school and direction in life that would never trigger the instincts that must be continually driving her every action.
Today that little, naked born girl is 29 years old and has children of her own who were born naked too. These are precious to me, because that little girl I have been talking about is my daughter and her children, my grand children.
I know that others struggle with this topic and that it is not a common subject of discussion, but I vowed that I would not rest until we find a way to help every child that is born naked. My daughter has lived as a productive member of society and deals with the public everyday on her job and unless you were told, you might never know that she was born naked.
No, she is not perfect and yes, she wears nice clothes now, but on that day, 29 years ago my daughter was born naked, and I love her. Happy Birthday Cristi!
Tags: birthday, born naked, daughter, Pastor Tim Fowler, wife
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March 5th, 2010
Wouldn’t it be cool if we all had our own personal psychic? Someone who could tell us more than the winning lottery numbers, because after all, if we all had the winning numbers there would be very little winnings per person. I’m talking about when things are going really different from what we want to happen and we just need to know how and when we will get through it.
For centuries people have been conned and have conned others with the promise of telling the future or talking to people from the past in order to get confirmation of our emotions. Most people don’t want the winning numbers or the winning horse, they just want to know things are going to be alright. The only problem with psychics is that they rarely tell us anything that we don’t already know. They just use cunning tricks to fuel our emotions and the only person that gets the money is the psychic.
I read once that the human brain has amazing abilities to cope with the worst of situations. It can literally stop the pain of a victim of torture in order to for the person to cope. It can cause a flood of adrenaline in the case of emergency so that a mom can lift a car off her injured child. But what it can’t do is tell us the future.
The future is totally unknown to the human race with the exception of what God has told us. Some who are reading this blog are about to stop because I said God, but please continue. Many who don’t believe in the God of the Bible, make up replacements for Him because we all need a god. We all have this need to know that everything will be alright. That is what the God that I believe in tells me. It will be alright.
God does not tell me that I will never have times of trouble. He never tells me that I will be given all the answers or that pain and suffering, confusion and doubt, will not be part of my life. What He does tell me is that I can trust Him, even in the toughest of times and when I don’t, He still won’t leave me all alone, even if I feel like He has.
The future holds a horror that no one needs to go through. It also holds a joy that no one can comprehend. God has made a way for anyone who wants to have this joy. This joy, although it can’t be experienced in its fullness here on earth, it can be experienced in part.
The horror that I speak of is after we refuse to accept the truth of God’s love over and over again, and death makes an end for us, then we stand before God in judgment and hear Him say, “I told you the future and choices that you could make. You chose not to trust Me. You chose your future without Me.” That is the future called Hell.
We have something far greater than a personal psychic; we have a personal God who wants a personal relationship with us. The future, even the present, is so much more manageable with God in it. He won’t give us lottery numbers or let us talk to dead relatives, but He will let us talk to a living Savior named Jesus Christ. What does your future hold?
Tags: church, faith, fortune teller, future, God, Pastor Tim Fowler, predict, relationship, Savior
Posted in Pastor's Thoughts | 1 Comment »
February 24th, 2010
Every day I face the challenge of knowing that God has told me to do certain things according to His word and according to His will. With the same frequency, it is like the sign on the door I am about to walk though says “NO”. I know that I am not alone so I thought I would take a little time to write about it.
I know God says love my wife like Christ loves the church, and gave Himself for it. But when she acts like she does sometimes when turns around and apologizes and asks for forgiveness, the sign on the door says NO. I closed it to isolate us for as long as I need to make her know I was serious when I got mad. To think that God wants me to walk through it and warmly forgive her and embrace her goes against all that screams “vengeance is mine sayeth Tim!”
I know that God wants us to encourage people to leave our church fellowship in order to serve and help other church fellowships grow. But when the people who leave are really good tithers and teachers and that means our church will have to wonder where we are going to make up what is now lacking, the sign on the door says NO. Our church needs you, our church deserves you, our church has learned to trust you and this will mean trusting God to fill the void. Besides that, other churches need to find their own people.
I know that God wants me to share how he forgave me and allowed me to experience His love unconditionally. I know that when I don’t really want to do what He says, He loves me anyway. I know that He has allowed me to be a part of an awesome church that has seen people grow in their faith and are ready to be used for His glory. I know that He has never let me down and has always met my needs and our churches needs. I know that God wished that I would not use “I” so much.
My wife needs to see Jesus more and me less, so I need to be more like Jesus. The church across town needs to see Jesus more and the people who are joining them are a lot like Jesus and are ready to fill a need. The same God that forgave me and sent our church wonderful people who serve, is still in charge of me and will continue to take care of me, but I must decrease so that He can increase.
I wish I saw less doors that said NO when they go against God’s will. I wish I saw more doors that said NO because they go against Tim’s will. God does not need to give us signs, but sometimes He does. He also gave us His Spirit to know when the sign that says NO when He has said yes, was painted by really selfish men who need to quit worrying about reading the signs and worry more about reading THE WORD.
Tags: celebrate, church, God, Gods, Jesus, NO, Pastor Tim Fowler, Spirit, wife, will, Word, yes
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