Written On Our Hearts

Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize Jesus Christ is in you? - unless, of course, you fail the test. I hope you will discover we have not failed. ~ 2 Corinthians 13:5-6 “Okay, Houston ,  we’ve had a problem here ” were the words of command module pilot John Swigert aboard the space shuttle Apollo 13   when an oxygen tank exploded during their mission to the moon on April 13, 1970. The in-flight explosion resulted in abandoning the planned trip to the moon and instead getting home alive. In the minutes, hours and days that followed, the circumstance of relying on a spaceship for life-support that was on life-support itself tested, challenged and demonstrated the ingenuity and perseverance of a team determined not to be defeated by the disaster. If you’ve watched the popular 1995 film you’ve got an idea about how NASA engineers and scientists helped the trio of astronauts beat the odds and make it home safely, al...

From the moment, his cleats crossed over the foul line on April 15, 1947 Jackie Robinson was verbally assaulted and targeted maliciously by fastballs. Racist managers taunted him, his teammates shunned him and opposing players regularly attempted to injure him. Although he was belittled, bruised and I’m sure close to the breaking point countless times throughout his historic baseball career; he not only managed to have a career batting average of .311, win a Rookie of the Year Award, a MVP award and a World Series (stats courtesy of www.baseballreference.com ) but he opened the door for men of all colors and from all corners of the earth to play in the Major Leagues. Jackie accomplished all this because he was courageously meek. He fought racism, bigotry and hatred with a bat and glove; not words or fists. Jackie robbed his critics and opponents of their perceived supremacy over him by stealing bases, not by slandering them in return. The results were not instantaneous and it certai...