ALIVE ON THE OUTSIDE By Sally I. Kennedy

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37

From a distance, it looked like a victim of last year’s hurricane. My friend Sarah, pointed. “Look at that!”, she exclaimed. I followed her finger, and saw the huge tree where half of it had been ripped off. Literally. The jagged place showed just where the wind force lopped off a giant part of the tree.

We walked closer to it and noticed a dark area in the trunk. Upon closer examination, we found, what appeared to be, the heart of the tree all blackened and dead looking. How could the tree be alive if it were dead on the inside?

I thought of Rita. Radiation treatments had claimed her dark, curly hair. On the outside, her body was failing. On the inside, her spirit was more vibrant than ever. While we were visiting, her sunken eyes were closed, breathing shallow. But oh my, the peaceful expression on her face said it all. Talk about shekinah; the glory of the Lord shone from within her. Her spirit was very much alive, even though, on the outside, her body was wracked by disease

Last week I was at the home of a neighbor. Terry looked great on the
outside, acted fine too. She welcomed us, chatted animatedly, graciously offered a snack her husband had laid out on the kitchen table. We were there to pray with Terry, whose diagnosis was stage 4 metastasized cancer. She was thin, and her body clearly showed signs of battling a disease. On the inside, though, her spirit was vigorous, as was clearly evident as we prayed together.

Looks are deceiving, and things are not always what they seem. Some people are alive on the outside, yet dead on the inside, in their spirit. Still others look sick on the outside, yet are very much alive in their soul, on the inside.

At Terry’s home, I found this note taped to the bathroom mirror, which her son kindly let me copy :

Cancer is so limited.
It cannot
Cripple love
Shatter hope
Corrode faith
Destroy peace
Kill friendship
Suppress memories
Silence courage
Invade the soul
Steal eternal life
It cannot
Conquer the Spirit.

The bible tells us we are “more than conquerors through Jesus Christ. (Romans 8:37).

That is very good news.