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I have never been one who knits or crochets or darns. My mother crocheted beautiful afghans and delightful baby garments. When I think of her, sometimes it's her hands that I see, holding two colorful knitting needles, wrapping, twisting.
We know that God knits. Psalm 139 tells us that He knit us together in the secret place before we were born. He is a knitter and a potter and probably also one who darns, because I know He is a "mender!" This morning I received a word from Robert Heidler (Glory of Zion) that was like water to my thirsty soul. Heidler had heard this from the Lord: " I am re-knitting your emotions. Fragmentation that you have experienced in the last season should not keep you from experiencing my wholeness in your future. The re-knitting of your emotions and re-aligning of your desires will set my motion in you. This will direct your feet from wrong ways and cause you to see the signs for your right path. Do not resist the needle of mending!" I share this with all of you because I feel certain there must be others who have been trudging through a season of fragmentation. To me, it feels like everything was just fragmenting and fragmenting until there was nothing left of the ministries I joyfully soared in. So now there are holes that need to be mended. Empty places that need patching. Out-of-control emotions that need to be re-knit by the steady hands of the Creator. We are clay in the Potter's hand but we are also yarn in the Knitter's hand and I for one am so grateful to know that He can take His needles and re-knit me together, re-aligning me according to HIS desires. Perhaps this is a new way to look at these days of counting the Omer. The process is often painful, but just to know that soon my heart won't have all these holes anymore and I will be useful again to my Father, the pain is worth it. I will not resist Your needle of mending, Abba! You choose the colors of the yarn and you pick the pattern. LINKS to websites you will enjoy: Ascension Ministries Joyful Mountain Oils Joined to haShem Hebrew Nation Radio Linen4Life On That Day Ministries Oxana Eliahu
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It is almost over, this day we know as "Holocaust Remembrance Day." It is always a day that stirs my spirit deeply, but this year something happened that really brought to light how little awareness most of us have regarding this day, or even the horrific events that we are to recall on this day.
I received a call to substitute for the 9th grade English teacher at our local high school. Music and English are the two subjects I am passionate about and I relish the opportunity to interact with students in both those arenas. Right now the 9th graders are studying the book titled Night, written by the famous Jewish author, Eliezer Wiesel. I have known about this celebrated writer, but have not read his books, and so I checked a copy out of the school library and read the entire thing the night before my first teaching day. I couldn't put it down! Mr. Wiesel's own, gut-wrenching account of his experience in the Auschwitz death camp of Nazi Germany causes one to trudge in his young footsteps, seeing horrors that should never be seared upon the conscience and suffering pain and humiliation beyond anything any of us can imagine. I so looked forward to my time with these high school freshmen, in the hopes that I could engrave the words of this book upon their hearts and their memories, making it more than just a "history lesson," but rather a passionate determination to never allow such atrocities to occur again in their lifetimes! I began by letting them know my love for Israel and the Jewish people. I told them of my many journeys to the Land and how I have forged so many close, personal relationships with Israeli families. To my astonishment many students were surprised to learn that there still is a nation of Israel in our day! And when I began speaking about the terrible resolutions being made in the United Nations against Israel and the right to build on her own land, I discovered that almost none of them knew what the United Nations was! I only had two days. Two days in which to light a fire in a few young adolescents who live in a world of cell phones, entertainment and sports. Two days in which to stretch their world-view beyond the bubble of their daily lives, and ask them to put themselves in the shoes of this young Jewish boy who found himself naked in the frozen cold of a German winter, fighting for a scrap of bread and daily fearing that the "Selection" process would put him and his father in the next line for the black smoke of the death ovens. I believe I did reach a few. After class on one of those days two girls came back to my desk and asked me, "What is the difference between Judaism and Christianity?" I told them I could answer the question in one word: "Jesus." That led to many more questions, and suddenly I found myself with the most unique opportunity to share the Word of God in a public school, because their questions needed answers! Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Israel at 10:00this morning the sirens blared across the land and everything and everyone stopped and kept two minutes of silence. They stopped to remember - not just the Holocaust, but a grandmother, an uncle, a mother, a son. It is so excruciatingly personal for them. But my hope is that I caused the book to be deeply personal for these students - and I left them with a great challenge. With my eyes piercing theirs, moving up and down the rows of desks, I implored them, "Finish this book and then make a commitment to yourself and to your generation that THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN ON YOUR WATCH." The response was a stunned silence. But I'm choosing to believe that some will remember. |
AuthorKelly Ferrari Mills 
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September 2023
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