Thursday October 19th, 2017

Jesus took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,”( which means, “Little girl, get up!”)  
And immediately the girl got up and began to walk around.                         Mark 5:41-42
 
           This is a heart-stopping scene from scripture.  It gives us a front-row view of a true miracle.  But the scene doesn’t end there.  Christ’s power, words, and love go on, into our own lives today.  When I want to have quiet time with God, I retreat to the recliner in my library.  I ask God to come, be with me.  Sometimes, half-playfully and half-seriously, I pull out the chair from my desk and say, “Make yourself comfortable, Lord.”  There, I tell God my joys and my sorrows.  I say ‘thank you’ a lot.  Sometimes, tears come.  And sometimes, I sit in silence, allowing him to speak to me in the words that rise up in my heart, with a wisdom that I know is not my own; in a voice that is not my own, but a voice I’ve learned to recognize and trust. 
           Very often, what I hear is some version of “Little girl, get up!”  Even though God is not raising me from a death-bed, he is raising me up to new hope and new life.  God’s transforming words don’t have to come only at times and places of high drama in our lives.  They can come on ordinary days, in ordinary places, meeting ordinary needs … with extraordinary love.

​©Carol Dean Henn, 2017