The Upper Room Devotional

When I was in rehab, Earl began reading The Upper Room daily devotions to me before saying goodnight. When I came home, he continued to read them each night. Our conversations about the messages written from around the world were often short but always focused on our Lord’s faithfulness.

As we settled down to sleep one Sunday night, Kari, our daughter, asked from her bedroom, “Daddy, aren’t you going to read The Upper Room?” We had overlooked the reading, having prayed and turned the light off. We never imagined our teen-age daughter was listening to our quiet time in the Lord and would hold us accountable. Earl rolled over, turned the light on, and read from The Upper Room.

I’m still reading The Upper Room devotional more than twenty years later. I receive the devotions in my inbox each morning. They draw me closer to God and strengthen my Christian walk. They increase my knowledge of Christianity in far places and encourage my faith.

We read, “That you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith” (Romans 1:12 NIV).

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In Christ, 
Berta 

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Thanks. 
Berta

What Are Your Spiritual Gifts?

Our music minister and his wife (Dale and Esther Julian) performed the special music one Sunday morning. Their strength and ability carried me into a time of beautiful worship of our Lord and Savior. After the service, I told Esther how their music ministered to me and she told me she gets nervous. I said, “It was awesome. I couldn’t do it.” Esther replied, “Well I couldn’t do what you do.”

That conversation made me think about God’s gifts and callings in the lives of all His children. Remembering Esther’s nervousness brought this cliché to my mind: “out of my comfort zone.” We all struggle with doing things God’s way. We often look at situations with human eyes and minds and consider what might seem to be the easier way.

Both Dale and Esther attended college to prepare for their ministry. They didn’t just learn how to sing and play musical instruments but how to polish the gift and call God had placed in their spirits. Nursing school didn’t call me to be a nurse. God had given me the gift and call and school was my opportunity to become what God had planned for my life. When I began writing, Earl gave me a computer. It was a tool that I used to hone my skills in that gift and call from God.

 
What is(are) your gift(s) and calling(s)? How are you preparing to fulfill yours?

“Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed…There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines” (1 Cor 12:1, 4-11 NIV). 

In Christian Love,

Berta

For your personal spiritual gift inventory go to http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.8051415/

 

He Loves Me

Before I met Jesus, I met Earl and I wasn’t happy to find out he was a Christian and a chaplain. As our relationship grew, some of my old ways fell away by thoughts of pleasing him. He never pushed religion; he just loved me. When he proposed, I would’ve married him that day. I made a profession of faith and was baptized before we married—because I thought a preacher’s wife should be baptized—but I brought a truckload of baggage into our marriage.

More than four difficult years later, I talked to Jesus about my sinful past. He healed my broken heart and I accepted His forgiveness. My life changed—for a few months. I prayed again and again for deliverance from sins and guilt I’d held on to. Then one day Earl said, “Berta, you’re in ICU. You had a wreck, and you’re paralyzed from your neck down.”

Though unable to do anything for myself, I continued to desire those now unattainable sins. As my body healed and my strength increased, I began to study and even teach God’s word. I learned many things:

• He didn’t cause my injury
• He didn’t rejoice in my injury
• He allowed my injury
• He sent His Son to redeem me
• He had a plan for my life
• He disciplines those He loves
• He loves me!

I pray for God’s strength and leading every day as He uses my physical disability to bring me through to the spiritual life he desires for me.

“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word...It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Psalm 119:67, 71).

In Christian Love,
Berta

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Reflect God

I remember the first person I saw in a wheelchair. I was at the doctor’s office for my kindergarten physical. Who was in the chair? The doctor. (Polio) Then there was Dale, a young man who slobbered and walked funny. He taught me to dance the two-step. (Cerebral Palsy) I didn't know the diseases nor did I know they were disabled. They were my friends.

In seventeen years as a nurse, I saw a multitude of persons with physical disabilities. Some had accepted their disability and functioned well in society, like my childhood friends. Others hadn't. They were angry and depressed.

In 1991, an automobile accident injured my spinal cord paralyzing me from my neck down. Three months into an ICU stay, my neurosurgeon spoke to my husband. “Earl, she'll be bedridden, ventilator-dependent, and a vegetable. You're too young to be saddled with an invalid wife. We can let her die comfortably.”

Earl refused and arranged my transfer to a spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Once stable, off the ventilator, and using a power wheelchair I went to the gym. My neighbors and I shared our stories. We were alike.

Back home no one was like me. Strangers and friends petted me and called me a “poor thing.” Many ignored my injury, as if it would go away, or ignored me, hoping I'd go away. I became angry and bitter.

After years of struggling with the reality that I wasn't going to be healed, and studying God's Word, I learned that He didn't call me to be an invalid. He called me to be Christ-centered and bold in my faith as I shared what He had done for me.

Henri J. M. Nouwen called this type of ministry “The Wounded Healer.” Steve Seamands, Professor of Christian Doctrine at Asbury Seminary, and author of “Wounds That Heal,” told me years ago, “His wounds have healed you. Now he's using your wounds to heal others.”

Peter said it this way: “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another” (1 Peter 4:10).

As we strive to reflect Gods nature, others will see God's love in us.

In Christ Alone,
Berta