My Online Faith Journal

    It has been a while since I last posted.  Admittedly, I am going through a bit of a dry period spiritually speaking.  I really haven't felt the Lord speaking to me much personally lately.  I have been struggling to find my place at a church home in North Carolina and feel no closer to finding a church home than when I moved here.  My quiet times lately have been consistent, but God seems quiet to me lately.  Maybe that is why this passage in Matthew 15:21-28 was something that I noticed.     In this passage, a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus and asks and begs for healing for her daughter.  A Canaanite was a person who lived in the region before the Jewish people lived there.  To her initial requests, it says in verse 23 "Jesus did not answer a word."  It seemed clear to the disciples Jesus didn't want to answer her so they tell Jesus that he should send her away because she is bothering them.  Great compassion on their part.  Then Jesus says something that sounds

    I just started reading a book by authors Jodi Eareckson Tada and Steven Estes called "When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty".  If you don't know who Jodi is she became wheelchair bound in 1967 due to an accident.  She has become a prolific author and speaker and often speaks about suffering.  In the first chapter of her book, she talks about those who her organization helped with bringing wheelchairs and crutches to those who needed them in Africa.  She talked about those who lived on the streets and yet appeared to have a joy that so many in America are missing.      Jodi's story is one that I ran across early on in my christian life because one of the most puzzling and profound questions in my early christian life was the problem of evil.  What I mean is, that there are some godless, evil people in the world who appear to have it all and others who bear up under unbelieveable pain and misery quietly and with a confidence in God.  You see th