When we share about what Jesus does for us, we don't need to do any fancy miracles. When we spread the good news that Jesus is the "main man" in our lives, we ourselves don't need to heal or cure or even preach. Jesus Himself does the healings! Jesus Himself is the main attraction. Not ourselves. Not what we do or say. It's all about Jesus.
"There he found a man named Aeneas, a paralytic who had been bedridden for 8 years. 'Aeneas,' Peter said to him, 'Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and take care of your mat.' Immediately Aeneas got up. All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord." Aeneas wasn't crippled his whole life, but 8 years is a long time to be bedridden! It's amazing how he was "found" by Peter in his condition. It's even more amazing that Peter tells him not just to get up, but to take care of his mat! Was it dirty or smelly? Why wasn't it his bed but a mat? But the coolest thing is that Aeneas just didn't get up. He must have walked around, not just in his hometown of Lydda but even in a neighboring town, Sharon! People saw him, probably heard his story, and turned to Jesus. How cool is that.
Sometimes Jesus may call upon us to heal in His name. Even if we are not Peter, we can do it, because Jesus does the healing, not us! And even if we are not called to heal or cure or do powerful deeds, we can always share how powerful Jesus is in our lives. That kind of sharing doesn't take a miracle! It only takes our focus on Jesus in our lives and how much Jesus means to us. It's like the grandma or grandpa who just loves to take out the photos of their adorable grandchild. It doesn't take much to share that joy and that sense of pride. It's a natural thing to share the joy in our lives! So let's spread the word, not just in our town but in whatever town we happen to be in -- Jesus is the main attraction in our lives now and forever!
Until next time, make it a blessed day,
Pastor Ellen
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My Testimonial:
2005 was the year I fell away from my faith. I could not go to mass, I hardly prayed. And I was drinking alot. Then in the summer of 2005 I went to Lanzerote with my mother on holiday. On the first day we went to a night club and mother said she noticed some really dodgy North Africans, she said they looked like criminals and they were watching me alot. Mother estimated that they would follow us, break into our apartment (where the lock on the door had been tampered with so we couldn’t lock the door) and abduct me. She said they would probably have me sold into the sex trade, I would be bungled off to North Africa and I would never see the light of day again. I was terrified and I wanted to go back home to Dublin in Ireland where I live with my mother. But on the second day my mother got food poisoning from bad meat she had eaten. I will warn you that not only is the Island of Lanzerote a haven for criminal gangs the food there is of the lowest quality. Mother was vomiting up bright green. I was really traumatised. So I started drinking to calm my nerves. I was also at a developed stage of schizophrenia but I hadn't been diagnosed with it at that stage. I was convinced that I was a target, that there were faceless elite people trying to brainwash me to become the whore of Babylon. I felt they were putting thoughts into my head. I believed that there were plants in the holiday complex that we were staying in who were working for the CIA and that they could read my mind each time I made eye-contact with them, or just when I was in their view, that they could read what I was going to think or do next just by their looking at me. I believed that they believed that I was the whore of Babylon and that by their believing this, by anyone believing this that it would come true somehow, that I would become the character in the bible and the prophecy would be fulfilled. And most oddly I thought that the prophecy would only be realised if the CIA had invented it - the CIA, I thought, were the elite crowd who were by nature non-believers but who wanted to believe in the Bible, they just couldn't. I read some of the book of Revelation about the whore of Babylon. And I knew she gorged food and that she rich and that she had a lover. I had an eating disorder, I was not rich and I have never had a lover. But I believed that I would become brainwashed. That in the future I would become rich, that I would acquire a taste for fine food and that I would fall hopelessly in love with a man, even though everything in my being was opposing that at the time. Even when I listened to the radio I believed that the DJ was reading my mind and sending me signals. I truly believed that the whole Island and of the English speaking world, were in a kind of a sleep and that slowly there were waking up - to me! I know that’s really funny but I was sick thinking about it, while mother was lying in bed. So as I said I kept drinking and it took away my fear. There was a window in the bedroom of the apartment. I was going to jump out of it. The fall was 25 feet and I thought I would hit hard ground when I fell. But when I did jump out the window I landed on sandy ground and I crushed my vertebrae. I was subsequently hospitalised in Grand Canary for two months. When I got back to Dublin I was hospitalised in a mental hospital for a further two and a half months. I have been out of hospital and at home now for well over three months. During those 3 months at home the only link I had to God was through prayer. I was afraid to go to mass. Every time I went to mass in the years I was developing schizophrenia I took every sermon as a direct and personal message from God to me. So if the priest in his sermons spoke of weeping and gnashing of teeth I would automatically believe that I was going to go to hell. I was afraid to read the bible too, everything in it I personalised, without meaning to, without wanting to be that important. But the thing is with me is that I follow this motto: Jesus can turn all negative possibilities into positive possibilities. For example, years ago, before I had schizophrenia I had what you might call an inferiority complex. And I had a wild imagination to match it. I would pretend in my mind that I was really, really important. That I had superhuman intelligence. In feeling inferior I longed to feel superior. And I believe that by my fostering such notions this added to the delusion, which I eventually started to believe. But it didn't turn into a delusion of grandeur but rather a nightmare I longed to escape. I no longer wanted to be really, really important. I longed to be ordinary, to be humble. I think Jesus turned my delusions of grandeur into a nightmare that He knew I would long to escape from. And now I treasure humility and blessed ordinariness. I love Our blessed Lady, who was very ordinary and very humble. Jesus turned the negative possibilities in my imagination into a fervent longing in me for what is small. Jesus didn't take on the role of someone really; really important when He came to Earth, instead He took on the role of a servant. And recently, with the help of medication I have returned to mass and I am feeling closer to God than I ever did before.
my e-mail address is
janemullhullard@yahoo.com
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