The Power to Heal an Outsider

November 17, 2020

DAILY READING

Mark 7:24-30

FIELD NOTES

My cousins’ parents were getting a divorce.  During what turned out to be a very nasty divorce, my cousins came to our town to live with my grandmother.  They were from Portland, and we lived in a very rural, farming community in southern Illinois.  To say they were outsiders was an understatement.  They liked weird music.  They had weird clothes.  They had weird haircuts.  At school, they stuck out like sore thumbs.  They struggled to make friends.  They didn’t like our town at all.  And of course, they were deeply saddened by their parents’ divorce.  

And yet, my grandmother loved them with all she had.  And I truly believe without her love, they would have slipped into being lost causes.  Thank God Jesus doesn’t believe in lost causes, and neither do grandmothers.  

QUESTIONS FOR THE FIELD

• Have you ever felt like a lost cause?  What’s your story?

FAMILY FIELD TALK

• In what ways does God love us beyond our imagination?

PRAYER GUIDE

Lord, you don’t believe in lost causes.  Help us not to either.  Help us love like you.  Amen.