Crucifixion was never a private event. It was always raw, and searingly public, because its purpose was to terrify the masses into submission to the authorities. Crosses often lined the main roads into cities, holding the broken writhing bodies of the condemned, or displaying the rotting corpses of the dead. The Romans even scheduled public crucifixions to coincide with religious festivals, insuring the maximum number of people present to witness the horror. Murderers, robbers, traitors, and slaves were crucified, brutally, by the thousands all over the empire and always deliberately in full public view. The horror of the cross was inescapable, and the Romans intended it to be that way.
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A Soldier With A Mission

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#1 · March 26, 2003, 10:03 am

Posted by: bigguyhereagain <bigguyhereagain@...>

<><> A Soldier With A Mission <><>
 
In 1949, my father had just returned home from the war. On every American highway you could see soldiers in uniform hitchhiking home to their families, as was the custom at that time in America.
 
Sadly, the thrill of his reunion with his family was soon overshadowed. My grandmother became very ill and had to be hospitalized. It was her kidneys, and the doctors told my father that she needed a blood transfusion immediately or she would not live through the night.
 
The problem was that grandmother's blood type was AB-, a very rare type even today, but even harder to get then because there were no blood banks or air flights to ship blood.
 
All the family members were tested, but not one member was a match. So the doctors gave the family no hope; my grandmother was dying. My father left the hospital in tears to gather up all the family members, so that everyone would get a chance to tell grandmother goodbye.
 
As my father was driving down the highway, he passed a soldier in uniform hitchhiking home to his family. Deep in grief, my father had no inclination at that moment to do a good deed.
 
Yet it was almost as if something outside himself pulled him to a stop, and he waited as the stranger climbed into the car. My father was too upset to even ask the soldier his name, but the soldier noticed my father's tears right away and inquired about them.
 
Through his tears, my father told this total stranger that his mother was lying in a hospital dying because the doctors had been unable to locate her blood type, AB-, and if they did not locate her blood type before nightfall, she would surely die.
 
It got very quiet in the car. Then this unidentified soldier extended his hand out to my father, palm up. Resting in the palm of his hand were the dog tags from around his neck. The blood type on the tags was AB-. The soldier told my father to turn the car around and get him to the hospital.
 
My grandmother lived until 1996, 47 years later, and to this day no one in our family knows the soldier's name. But my father has often wondered; was he a soldier or an angel in uniform?
 
Sometimes, we never know who God will bring into our lives to carry out a special mission nor do we know whose lives God will have us touch.
 
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<><> Remember The Impression <><>
 
I had a very special teacher in high school many years ago whose husband unexpectedly died suddenly of a heart attack. About a week after his death, she shared some of her insight with a classroom of students. As the late afternoon sunlight came streaming in through the classroom windows and the class was nearly over, she moved a few things aside on the edge of her desk and sat down there.
 
With a gentle look of reflection on her face, she paused and said, "Before class is over, I would like to share with all of you a thought that is unrelated to class, but which I feel is very important.
 
Each of us is put here on earth to learn, share, love, appreciate and give of ourselves ... and none of us knows when this fantastic experience will end. It can be taken away at any moment. Perhaps this is God's way of telling us that we must make the most out of every single day."
 
Her eyes beginning to water, she went on, "So I would like you all to make me a promise ... from now on, on your way to school, or on your way home, find something beautiful to notice. It doesn't have to be something you see - it could be a scent - perhaps of freshly baked bread wafting out of someone's house, or it could be the sound of the breeze slightly rustling the leaves in the trees, or the way the morning light catches one autumn leaf as it falls gently to the ground. Please, look for these things, and cherish them. For, although it may sound trite to some, these things are the "stuff" of life. The little things we are put here on earth to enjoy. The things we often take for granted. We must make it important to notice them, for at any time ... it can all be taken away."
 
The class was completely quiet. We all picked up our books and filed out of the room silently. That afternoon, I noticed more things on my way home from school than I had that whole semester.
 
Every once in a while, I think of that teacher and remember what an impression she made on all of us, and I try to appreciate all of those things that sometimes we all overlook. Take notice of something special you see on your lunch hour today. Go barefoot. Or walk on the beach at sunset. Stop off on the way home tonight to get a double-dip ice cream cone. For as we get older, it is not the things we did that we often regret, but the things we didn't do.
 
Have a Blessed Day
Dave and Barbara
 
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