The Cream of the Crop!

©

Written by Danny Bunn,B.A. (Born-Again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ)


Chapter 32
New life

Joe wakes up thinking, "Another week! Use me Lord!" He gets up and Cindy isn't in the room, he goes into the living room and she is sitting on the couch. Joe sees that she is hurting, "What's wrong hon?" as he rushes over to her side. Cindy says that she just started having contractions about 30 minutes ago and they are fairly frequent now. Joe calls Cindy's girl friend who is a midwife. He tells her what is happening and she says that she will be right over. About 30 minutes later, she is at the house. It is time! She prepares the necessary things for the baby to be delivered. Time seems to pass ever so slowly for Cindy, she is hurting big time. Her mind goes to the scripture in Gen 3:16, "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Even though she knew that the pain was brought about because of disobedience to God, she also knew the scripture that says, "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."

Cindy starts praising the one who created her and has shed his love on her abundantly in Christ Jesus. The minutes are passing like hours since the pain is so great but the Lord of Glory is with her and she knows that she is in his hands and that is all she needs to know. Finally the baby comes forth, a boy and he weighed 7 lbs. 7 ounces. Cindy knew the meaning of 7 in the word of God, perfection, completeness. It has been completed, finished and here he is, beautiful and Cindy and Joe and the midwife are praising God together. They saw things in a little bit different light than they did a few hours ago. Now a new human being has been brought into the earth and they have a new responsibility that they didn't have before and they were a little spooked by it. They so wanted to raise their child and any and all future children under the Almighty God's guidance. The baby is quiet now and so are the other three. Silent and thinking of the future and yet no man knows the future nor needs to know it. What each and everyone needs to know is the one who knows the future, the past, and the present. We all need to know him and his human name was Jesus. He cared about everything that went on in the lives around him when he walked this planet and he cares about every life now but he gives us a choice on whether we are going to give our lives to him of seek to run them in ourselves. A God who is all powerful, everywhere present, all- knowing and yet gives us the choice as to what we are going to do with him is truly an unbelievable statement in the natural.

Joe took this week off since he knew that Cindy would have her baby any day now. The Christian coffeehouse, soup kitchen opened this week too. He was wondering how they were doing today without him there. Well, he knew that the Lord was there and he was with them and as Cindy said once, "Everywhere!" Joe nodded and went back to looking at the new life that God has entrusted to their care and thinking of the grave responsibility that lies ahead. Children are a gift of the Lord, blessed is the man that has a quiver full. "Amen and amen" is going on in Joe's mind. Cindy is looking at Joe and then her baby. "Looks a lot like you, Joe!" Joe says, "Poor baby!" Cindy responds back super quickly, "Joe quit that! You are very handsome, would I lie to you?" Joe is thinking, "Lie? No but you could be blinded or deceived or prejudiced towards me." He bends down and kisses Cindy and their new baby. Life will continue on now for all eternity in one of two places for all of us. If we only knew the benefits of walking with the Lord, or talking with him, receiving from him, listening to him, just over all fellowshipping with him, we would never be the same. To think that God would love us so very much and the way that we treat him is mind blowing. Speaking of mind blowing.

Over at the coffeehouse, Tony is serving a coffee and a doughnut to a stranger who came into the coffeehouse. He is a quiet sort of fellow. Tony tries to strike up a conversation with him but it never gets past one word answers. "Do you live around this area?" "No!" "Do you have a job?" "No!" "Are you just passing through town?" "No!" "Do you have a place to stay?" "Yes!" Tony is getting tired of this conversation. He excuses himself and goes over to a few others who were sitting at one of the tables talking the word of God." He lifts up the man at the counter with the two brothers and sister at the table. They pray for the man. As they are praying the man turns to the table that they are at, he sees them with their heads bowed. He hollers at them. They look up and he has a 38 pointed at the guy sitting by the girl. Now she sees who it is. It is her old boyfriend Gary. Lynn speaks out, "Gary, put the gun away, this is just a friend, a brother in the Lord." Gary answers back, "Lynn, nobody is taking you from me!" as he points the gun at the guy. As fast as possible, Tony jumps up and leaps over the table, the gun goes off and Tony hits the ground. The guy runs out the door in partial shock and he runs into Joe. Joe heard the shot, he brings the man down in a fight out front seeking to get the gun away from him, the gun goes off three more times as they are rolling on the ground. Joe manages to get the gun out of his hand and then get him in an arm lock. A couple of other guys in the coffeehouse come out and help Joe tie the man up. Meanwhile inside, they are looking down at Tony. He was shot in the head. Lynn is crying and Greg is thinking, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Greg applied that scripture to Tony in this case. He gave his physical life so that Greg might retain his for a while longer here on planet earth but Greg also knew that our life is a vapour, we are here today and gone tomorrow. Oh how sin messed up this world. The police arrive and a few minutes later the ambulance gets there as the police were asking questions. The newspaper reporters and t.v. crew arrive and get pictures and interviews. Joe is telling what he knew, Greg puts in a little more, then Lynn fills in the missing pieces of the puzzle. The arrest is made and they take him in. Joe is thinking, "Tony was just saved yesterday, one day meant the difference between heaven and hell."

Approximately 30 minutes later the media leaves. The place is quiet now. Joe goes to the phone and calls Cindy. He tells her what happened and he will be home in a little bit. Cindy is crying now. She lets Joe go and she looks at the new little life in her arms. Life is the gift of God, death is the gift of Satan. Death was never meant to be until mankind disobeyed God and did their thing. Now death is a common place thing but it is still abnormal and mankind knows it is. The bible says that death is the last enemy to be destroyed and it surely hasn't been destroyed yet. Cindy was at least comforted in the knowledge that Tony was saved, born again, washed in the blood of the Lamb. Now he is home as Clyde is home. Clyde walked a lot longer with Jesus down here before he went home but he was saved in the exact same way that Tony was, by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ Jesus. She goes into adoration and praise of the one true God and by the look on the new baby's face, it was as if he knew. Maybe he does, just maybe he does.