Topics:<\/b> Commitment; Community; Companionship; Friends; Love; Neighbors; Patience; Priorities; Time<\/p>\n
References:<\/b> Matthew 22:39; John 13:34\u201335; 15:12; Acts 2:42\u201347; Romans 12:10; 1 Corinthians 10:24; Galatians 6:9; 1 Peter 1:22<\/p>\n
While a college student, Heidi Neumark took a year off to serve in a volunteer program sponsored by Rural Mission. She went to Johns Island off the Carolina coast, where she listened to the stories of the sons and daughters of plantation slaves. This is what she learned:<\/p>\n
The most important lesson I learned on Johns Island was from Miss Ellie, who lived miles down a small dirt road in a one-room, wooden home. We\u2019d sit in old rocking chairs on the front porch, drinking tall glasses of sweet tea, while she\u2019d tell me stories. I never could find out Miss Ellie\u2019s precise age, but it was somewhere between ninety and one hundred. Maybe she didn\u2019t know herself. She still chopped her own firewood, stacked in neat little piles behind the house.<\/p>\n
Miss Ellie had a friend named Netta, whom she\u2019d known since they were small girls. To get to Netta\u2019s house, Miss Ellie had to walk for miles through fields of tall grass. This was the sweet grass that Sea Island women make famous baskets out of, but it was also home to numerous poisonous snakes.<\/p>\n
Actually, Netta\u2019s home was not that far from Miss Ellie\u2019s place, but there was a stream that cut across the fields. You had to walk quite a distance to get to the place where it narrowed enough to pass. Poor Miss Ellie, I thought, old and arthritic, having to walk all that way, pushing through the thick summer heat, not to mention avoiding the snakes.<\/p>\n
I hit upon the perfect plan. I arranged with some men to help build a simple plank bridge across the stream near Miss Ellie\u2019s house. I scouted out the ideal place\u2014not too wide, but too deep to cross. Our bridge was built in a day. I was so excited that I could hardly wait to see Miss Ellie\u2019s reaction. I went to her house and practically dragged her off with me. \u201cLook!\u201d I shouted, \u201ca shortcut for you to visit Netta!\u201d<\/p>\n
Miss Ellie did not look grateful. Instead, she shook her head and looked at me with pity. \u201cChild, I don\u2019t need a shortcut,\u201d she said. Then she told about all the friends she kept up with on her way to visit Netta: Mr. Jenkins, with whom she always swapped gossip; Miss Hunter, who so looked forward to the quilt scraps she\u2019d bring by; the raisin wine she\u2019d taste at one place in exchange for her biscuits; and the chance to look in on the \u201cold folks\u201d who were sick.<\/p>\n
\u201cChild, you can\u2019t take shortcuts if you want friends in this world,\u201d she told me. \u201cShortcuts don\u2019t mix with love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Heidi Neumark, Breathing Space<\/i> (Beacon, 2003)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Topics: Commitment; Community; Companionship; Friends; Love; Neighbors; Patience; Priorities; Time References: Matthew 22:39; John 13:34\u201335; 15:12; Acts 2:42\u201347; Romans 12:10; 1 Corinthians 10:24; Galatians 6:9; 1 Peter 1:22 While a college student, Heidi Neumark took a year off to serve in a volunteer program sponsored by Rural Mission. She went to Johns Island off the … Continue reading “NO
\n SHORTCUTS TO LOVE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}