Breaking the Bread
Prom Dress
by Dia Stricker
Dia Stricker is a dear friend of a dear friend, Ann Barton. Ann’s been blessing me with Dia’s writings for some time now, and this one really hit home. Dia’s a survivor of two “terminal” cancer diagnoses. The first was breast cancer, from which the Lord delivered her, and the second - 13 years later - was metastasized breast cancer which lodged in her lung, diagnosed in August of 2006, when she was given 3 months to live. She has now been pronounced ‘cancer free’ by the same doctor who gave the ‘terminal’ diagnosis. Dia and her husband, Fred, pastor a multi-ethnic church in Laredo, Texas; she also has homeschooled her grandchildren and about 15 others. For a free subscription to Dia's DiamondChips, email stricker@netscorp.net.
A Bite of the Bread
“...Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, to make her holy, cleansing her in the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:25 - 27
Take it In
We - those of us who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ - are sometimes like the young woman who has a dream of herself at the high school prom. She saw someone on television wearing a certain dress and with a certain hair style, and she thinks to herself, "That's what I want to look like on prom night."
So she orders the dress and buys the hair spray and product for her hair. She buys the shoes, the purse, and the jewelry to match her dress. She knows what she wants to look like and she's paying the financial price to make it possible. But she doesn't diet and exercise so the dress will look as good on her as it did on the model. She doesn't have her hair cut so that it can be combed into the style she admires. And she listens to no one who tries to tell her there's more for her to do. She's paid the financial price, but she's done nothing to prepare herself to match her dream dress and hair style.
Like that short-sighted young woman, the church will pay the price to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to do, how to look. We'll order cds and dvds and books. We will acquire the accessories to match our vision of what we want to be. But we don't want to pay the price to become. We think fashion and fads and appearance can make our dream come true.
Ain't never gonna happen.
We - the Church - are no Cinderella who must depend on a fairy godmother or the bluebirds of happiness to make us queen for a night. We are the children of the Most High God who Himself will clothe us in the best robes - after He has prepared us to wear those robes. We, however, throwing temper tantrums and howling that we want the dress now, resist His work of preparation in us as though it were the wicked stepmother herself orchestrating all our trials.
Our Father is not nearly so interested in how we look as in who we are, and He seems quite willing to invest any effort toward causing us to become who He designed us to be. Instead of laying on the ground moaning and groaning about how hard life is, we are called to rejoice, knowing that He's making us into the very image of Jesus.
Savor the Flavor
Dear Jesus, the price You paid for my redemption includes and demands an extreme makeover - a total transformation. Too often I’d rather make do than be made over. Thank you, precious Savior, for Your crazy, relentless love - a love that will not let me settle for less than what You died to make me - holy. Amen.
Live it Out
Knowing that He is in charge and that He can be trusted, can we not cooperate, rather than resist His loving work in our lives? Can we not go rejoicing rather than whining?
Whining and rejoicing are not compatible. And no amount of accessorizing the flesh life can ever beautify the spirit within.