Let’s tell an inside story today. Behold, our “fireplace:”
I read a something in the Voice of the Martyrs magazine yesterday morning that has lingered with me in a powerful way. Gather around the “fireplace” with me while I tell you about it.
A man in Ethiopia became a sheikh. He had a zeal for Islam and an equally passionate hatred for Christians. This is all he knew, all he’d been taught. He said, “Ever since I was a young man, I wanted to persecute and even kill Christians. When I became a sheikh, it was my greatest priority.” Sound like anyone you know? If you’ve read the story of the apostle Paul in the Bible, you will recognize that he had that same unholy zeal, thinking that his persecution of the newborn Christian church was pleasing to God. His awakening came on the road to Damascus. But back to the sheikh, our modern Paul.
He went from village to village, leading groups of hotheads like himself. They sought out the Christians in those villages and burned their houses and burned their churches. And then this happened:
“One day we went to another village to burn the house of a Christian lady. I dragged the lady from her house. I beat her. I hit her so hard that I broke her arm. She began crying from the pain, but rather than curse me or yell at me, she said, ‘God bless you, my brother.’
“I was shocked. My heart was broken, and I cried for two nights. God had crushed me.”
He broke her arm, and God broke his heart. He was on the road to Damascus, my friends. He began to have dreams of Jesus and soon left Islam to follow Christ. And his former friends came and burned his house. Like Paul, he suffered the loss of all things, and counted them rubbish because he had gained Christ.
The beauty of that woman blessing her persecutor was as the beauty of the crucifixion when Jesus blessed those who nailed Him to the cross. She gave her pain to Christ and He redeemed it with a sheikh who truly became her brother.
I think back to when God crushed me, although not in quite so dramatic a manner. In the end, God must crush us in order to save us. And He will redeem what we have lost. He will take our pain and use it for His kingdom.
And we’ll live happily ever after. That’s how all good stories should end.
God bless you, my brother, my sister.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning.
Lynniebeemuseoday 
❤️
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