BLACK HAIR, BLACK JEANS, BLACK SHIRT AND BEAUTIFUL
T. Wieland Allen


There aren't many things that are edifying in the oncologist waiting room at a famous cancer hospital that my husband and I frequent every three months. My husband had a rare kind of cancer and we go the Houston treatment center every three months to receive the news that all is well as far as his remaining healthy.
Most of the people in the large waiting room have some visible sign that they are suffering from the devastating disease,. These people have the worst kind of cancer, which is called sarcoma.
Every one of the patients waits for his appointment with the oncologist, praying to hear good news about themselves, and their caregivers also await encouraging news relating to their loved ones. Many of the patients are missing one or more limbs, some on crutches, some in wheelchairs, some being carried by parents. All the patients have that same look of desperation, hoping that they will hear good news, but fearing that they will hear bad news.
Different languages are spoken by the patients and their families since this hospital is known worldwide as the king in the treatment of sarcomas. Even the kind that affected my husband is a rare kind, since only about 200 patients a year are diagnosed with it.
Different styles of dress are always represented also in the room. We usually see a Muslim woman in her customary dress with her hair covered. Sometimes we see women with black robes and black head gears plus facial coverings, with only their beautiful brown eyes peering out to observe others. We've seen men in long robes with rolled up scarves adorning their heads. We've seen Colombians, Greeks, Italians, Germans Palestinians, Japanese, Chinese and American, plus other nationalities in the waiting room.
God creates interesting scenarios for His children. We saw an encouraging one unroll this week.
Walking into the waiting room is an experience in itself because you will always see visible effects of the disease, starting with the missing limbs. Those effects are quickly evident
Upon entering the waiting room, while my husband registered with the nurse at the appointment desk my eyes landed on a beautiful woman who appeared to be about 40 years old. She had black hair and dark brown eyes. She had chosen a pair of black jeans to wear that day. She also was wearing a black T-shirt. I didn't immediately notice her physical condition until the nurse at the desk called the black haired woman who was dressed-in-black to come to have her vitals checked. That's when I noticed that she was missing an arm. She had brilliantly tucked the sleeve of her T-shirt into the arm hole and draped it around the stump of her arm so that it was neatly wrapped. She moved gracefully toward the desk, looking very beautiful in her black clothes which complimented her black hair and white skin.
I was still thinking about her beauty, even in the midst of her tragedy of losing her arm to the devastating disease, when she strolled back into the room, passing in front of us, and I got a look at the front of her black T-shirt. In big colorful jeweled letters it read, BELIEVE.
I immediately thought, Thank you, Heavenly Father, that you chose the clothes for that beautiful lady this morning. I wouldn't have made more of an impression if it had been displayed on a billboard on a highway or emblazoned in the sky on the clouds. BELIEVE. Every patient in the waiting room could see it, knowing that she had the same disease that was causing their pain and fear, and they could realize that they can believe God to help them emerge from the difficult circumstances with grace and dignity like the lady in black.
BELIEVE is a simple word that is used regularly in all different ways, but that day in the office of the oncologist it was a message to everyone sitting in the room. BELIEVE for a good result, BELIEVE that you can overcome the effects of the disease, BELIEVE that you will live, BELIEVE that you will see your children grow up, and young teenagers in wheelchairs, BELIEVE that you will overcome the disease, marry, have children and live a good life.
God's billboards are better than the billboards on the highway. They're personal, sent for a particular situation and displayed by the perfect person.
I believe the message was for me and for my husband. I know the other people in the room received the same assurance that all they have to do is BELIEVE. After all, God went to a lot of trouble that day to impress upon the beautiful lady that she should wear that shirt so that everyone who saw her that day would know that all they have to do is believe and it will be done unto them. Thank you, God, for the simple yet powerful message. What God accomplished in the simple word on that T-shirt would have taken hours for a preacher to accomplish speaking in front of thousands of people
Just BELIEVE, the lady in black proclaimed without opening her mouth. She jolted me from anxiety into faith with that one word, BELIEVE.

BLESSING BLOCKAGES

July 15, 2002

RIPE FRUIT
My sister read to me a passage from a book she had been reading about the Holy Spirit.
In essence the passage from the book asked the readers to assess whether they had ripe fruit of the Holy Spirit operating in their lives.
In summarizing the comments of the writer for my own use, I borrowed some of the comments of the writer and added a few.
In assessing the degrees of the fruit of the Spirit operating in our lives, we must check whether we have love, joy, mercy, faith, goodness, kindness, self-control, peace and patience emanating from us.
Do we have more kindness and faithfulness than the Mormons?
Do we have more peace than the Buddhists?
Do we have more joy than the atheists?
Do we have more love and acceptance of others than unbelievers?
Do we have more self control than the Muslims who pray multiple times a day?

Jesus told His followers that their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees so that they would enter the kingdom of heaven. We know that it is God's righteousness in the Holy Spirit who lives in us. He makes us righteous. However, is the fruit of the righteousness that emanates from us more abundant than the fruit of the followers of other religions or even of the unbelievers? If not, then the fruit of our flesh is what is causing us to block the blessings of God from flooding into our lives. The fruit of the flesh is described in the same passage in the Bible that the fruit of God's Spirit is described The fruit of the flesh is anger, division, strife, jealousy, envy, selfishness, enmity, dissension, licentiousness and also other obvious ones like drunkenness, carousing, etc.

Jesus didn't say that our righteousness should equal the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. He said it should exceed their righteousness.

The writer of that book put Truth in red letter words to me.
The fruit of other religions often exceed the fruit of righteousness of God's children. What is the cost to us? The cost to us is the blessings of God, who is pouring His blessings upon us every second of the day. If we aren't receiving them, we need to check the fruit of God's Spirit, His righteousness within us, and check to see if we are letting it flow from ourselves to others.

The only things that can block the blessings of God from coming into our lives are the fruit of the flesh which actually are the fruit of the devil. The devil doesn't want you to live the abundant life that Jesus promised.

There are spiritually starving people who are fruit gatherers who are eager to gather God's fruit from His children, eager to receive our love, joy, peace and kindness. The excess that we have is what we need to share because it exceeds the production of fruit of other religions.

Matthew. 5: 22; Galatians 5:19-23.