Life's Forever Pattern

Our Always Open Table

Open Table

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

 Romans 12:2

My wife Patti and I recently took a trip to the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stayed in Asheville, N. C. at a friend’s house; a weekend getaway gifted as a wedding present. We decided to travel for a Valentine’s Day celebration of Love, the most constant and eternal of all our human experiences. We had made this reservation months before we began the process of looking for a new home. Suddenly we were confronted with a difficult decision. We found our new home much quicker than we anticipated and had made an offer. With our closing date in three weeks we discussed postponing the trip. Love prevailed and we headed for the hills!

Warming Toes

Our long weekend in the Appalachians included visits to two historic turn of the 20th century structures, the Biltmore Estate (built early 1890’s) and the Grove Park Inn (built 1913). Our experience was a feast for the senses. The numerous and immense fireplaces in both buildings begged our imaginations of life without central heating and air, an amenity that is a design for modern-day construction. In these two dwellings there was much space to fill with the material stuff of life. All the ornate antiquities were deftly positioned in their special place for their specific purpose and function. Today these valued pieces speak as bit players in a theatrical story of a faraway time much different than now.

“But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”

 Romans 8:25

Eagerly Waiting

By the mid-February calendar, the Blue Ridge is still and amidst winter. It is off season for the immense tourism industry in Asheville. Nature is dormant cold and more grey than green, lacking vibrant colors. Driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway it appeared the marvelous miraculous Appalachian spring was quietly standing by, eagerly awaiting our Creator conductor to wave His baton so nature could bust out in harmonious symphonic bloom. Looking closely, one would notice beginning buds on the tips of the hardwoods casting a slight maroon shading across the grey undulating ridges. It was a blessed respite from the huge transition Patti and I were knee-deep in back in Marietta.

Chaos

Nothing can strain a relationship more than an event that jolts you out of your familiar surroundings and constant routine. For Patti it was leaving the well-known home of her residence for the past thirty years. We are talking here of the nuking of one’s comfort zone! The pattern of our world is where everything has its place and there is a place for everything. This world was completely disassembled in short order. As anyone who is familiar with the process knows, the experience is an emotional Niagara Falls. It is a willful journey that can separate us from God's will but not His love. I cannot hold a candle to the faith my wife Patti possesses. Her reliance on her relationship with her risen Lord is like a tide that lifts all boats. It is a river of Living Water carrying me along with her. Even so the disagreements began escalating along with quibbling: what to keep, what to throw away, where to put this and where to put that.

Reassembling Pattern

Our soul yearns for constancy and consistency. Permanence is comforting. The world offers little that is steady and fixed. The more we become attached to the fragile nature of the material pattern of the world the greater potential of our lives shattering into tiny pieces. Our salvation is found in the eternal. It can be found in the not yet but almost blooming hardwoods. The miss-located book still packed away in lord knows what box. Black stain from the ashes of the cross on brand new white sheet bed linens. At the pinnacle of Patti’s and my discomfort and bickering we decided together not to conform to the pattern of the world and fix our eyes on the reason for the season.

Completion

We moved a dining room table and wine rack with surfaces comprised of individual stone tiles which ended up in various boxes. The misappropriated boxes needed to be sought out. During a moment of need we decided to center ourselves in the Good News of the Cross. We completely reassembled and reset the tiles in the tabletop. Our petty disagreements vanished, and peace replaced chaos. The individual tile squares found their exact right position and place. Our new abode became a home more abiding in the Light of the World, a hopeful haven nestled in His will for us! The dining room is one now conforming to the message of the open table. It reminds this couple of a pattern that does not conform to the world we live in.

Love Pattern!

Father, may we constantly be reminded to fix our eyes on your Son and His model for our lives in this world. Amen

Bradford Bosworth

March 2019

Joy & Water

Susan and John Fleming & Chuck Whiteside

Haiti 2018 Reflections

John 16:33

Tebow's trials and sorrows.

It has been less than three days since returning from Haiti to the comforts of a familiar bed and a consistently hot shower. A week in a locale that defies most descriptors and where the people speak an unfamiliar language was truly another world to this man. As I learned on the first go-around last year, the return here is akin to scuba diving decompression or an atmospheric reentry by an astronaut. Although there were no time zones crossed, it seems I can feel jet lag. Maybe it is my age?

The first time this scripture from John’s Gospel spoke to me was in 2009, December 5th to be exact. I had been watching the SEC Football Championship and noticed John 16:33 on Tim Tebow’s eye black. I helped establish a Google record that evening. At the time, the scripture reference was the most trafficked Google search for one time ever. Tebow was strongly ridiculed for his open display of faith as well as crying on camera. His Florida team lost the game 33-13. Indeed, this night Tebow was having trials and sorrows (NLT). Maybe it is the when and how I first tasted of this Christ lesson, but it is one of the first I ever memorized.

"Our Boys"

On my first trip to Haiti, my tendency was to view our Haitian guides and translators in a different light, thinking they were better off than the rest of the population there. They could speak our language, were well educated and I just viewed them through a different lens, so to speak. This year our directors, Lori and Charles invited each to give our morning devotion each day. Subsequently they all shared with us their tribulations (NKJV). My lens changed, and I could see this group who the team refers to as “our boys” no different that the rest of their brethren in Haiti, and no different than suffering (HCSB) missionaries that travel to and from in this disparate land.

Joy

On our last and Sabbath day, we went to Church and worshipped together. We rested and played like boys and girls together and the trials and tribulations, the suffering and sorrows washed away. “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). If just for the moment, we were all able to overcome the world.

Agape from our boys.

Yahweh, may we take heart in your Son’s teachings and find peace as if a life preserver in choppy waters. Amen

P.S. – Very early in Patti’s and my relationship, maybe second or third date she gave me an agape card. Inside it had the scripture John 16:33. There are no coincidences and the honeymoon is not over!

Amen Brother’s and Sisters

Bradford Bosworth 

October 2018

Glimpses of the Unseen

Seventh and finale in a series.

Patti & Brad Bosworth

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

2018 Sixes/St Andrew Haiti Missionaries

We Americans are impatience experts, anxiously anticipating impending failure that we let the present slip away and with-it God’s divine blessings for us go un recognized. This cannot be said of our Haitian brothers and sisters whom we attend to. They come early in the morning, line up, sit quietly, wait patiently for a moment of our time to build upon relationships begun years before. In addition, they receive a touch of physical comfort from educative advice, managed medication and vision enhancement. Their patience, their lives, their very presence defines perseverance of hope uncompromised by their circumstance.


Yes, their harsh environment and living conditions play havoc with their outer person, but if you join them on Sunday for worship you will find a vibrant Body of Christ rich in an abundance of serenity. They live admirably noble lives. These Haitians’ focus is on the presence of God in their life which no circumstance can shadow. What visitors see in Haiti, is a literal wasteland with refuse strewn along every street, buildings still crumbling away from an earthquake many years before. It is a material rebuilding that never becomes finished. But these people we see are whole and complete in their unbridled love of Jesus and the faith that accompanies that affection. In other words, they have not fixed their eyes on the seen but dwell instead on the eternal Love of the Father, or that which is unseen.

The unseen in Haiti this week has included the broken English of one of our local translators as he read from the Gospels and delivered to us a heartfelt devotion before we started the day. It has been a young deaf school girl who showed us how to sign- I- love -you- last year, running to greet us with hugs and sounds of joy. Our team was being renewed day by day like when we heard voices in exuberant song from school children echoing in corridors or floating through barren fields. These glimpses of His eternal grace are what keeps us coming back year after year.

Papa, as we raise our arms with hands opened wide, lift us up into your eternal glory just for today. Amen

Patti and Brad Bosworth 

October 2018

Our Open Hands

Sixth in a series

David Galloway

Muscle Memory 

The Singing Students

Deuteronomy 15:11 NIV 

It seems like everyone here in Port au Prince is poor and maybe so, compared to our standard of living back home. Some of the only exceptions might be the few who live in the hills. Based on even the best homes in the city or the vehicles that move over these rough and rocky roads, nobody in this town is wealthy, except in their hope and faith. This is my second mission trip to Haiti and both times we have crossed paths with at least two or three other mission teams. In some translations of our Deuteronomy verse, the term “open purse” appears. It is apropos on this island. Many have opened their purses for the people of Haiti. Christian Mission is big business in Haiti.

In the days of Deuteronomy the Israelites were in the early stages of grasping the full meaning of the law brought down from the mountain. They did not have the benefit of the Good News. Love had not yet come to town. The closed fist was more the order for the day rather than the open hand. The road to salvation was as uneven, bumpy and congested as intersections in the heart of Port au Prince. Thanks to the Prince of Peace and his teaching, we know today what love is and what it looks like. There are vans full of missionaries stuck in that traffic on the streets od Haiti. Love has come to town.

Benson at his school

So many scenes here joggle the senses, defy description. These reality adjustments fluctuate from horror to ecstasy. Saturday riding through market lined villages we saw a days dead cow laid and splayed across a table. The head was discolored so that we cannot find a color to describe it. At the other end of the spectrum were the voices of young adults coming from an upstairs classroom at the school our Benson teaches at singing in English “What a wonderful name it is.”

The difference between an open purse and an open hand is Love. The opposite of an open hand is the closed fist. Through the action of grabbing and clutching close, of the taking, keeping and fighting the hand is first to close into a fist. It is through the muscle memory of our human condition. The habit of the hand through the centuries is to close. My Orthopedic Nurse wife Patti tells me muscles in action are contracting. Muscles in relaxation are extending. It is through our open hands we extend the Love of Christ to our world. 

Father may we bring relaxing rest found in your Son to a contracted world. Amen 

Amen Brothers and Sisters

Bradford Bosworth

September, 2018

Grateful for Grace

Fifth in a series.

Tuscany Girls Bible Study (Kelly, Cookie, Marguerite, Sharon, Margaret, Gaye and Patti)

Acts 13:47 & Ephesians 2:8

Beauty Shop

When we stop and consider the verse from Acts, we realize that Christianity at that time in the world was at its mustard seed beginnings, confined to a very minuscule area of the globe when contrasted to present times. Today it is the faith that keeps the world on its axis. Certainly, Christianity’s influence played a critical role in the founding of our nation we call America. Yet today Christianity here and around the world is hanging by threads. For today’s disciples it is not really any different than the original 12 were experiencing during the time of Acts. I believe the Gentiles in today’s context is- the world- of course, the light is Jesus and our salvation is He who is Love. Haiti is only a three-hour flight from Atlanta and we did not even change time zones. There are times on the ground here however, when one feels as if he is at the end of the earth. 

Haiti Deaf Academy

If you were to revisit 1 Corinthians 13 in the King James Version, you would see the word charity used multiple times in the context of love. If one was to explore the roots of that word they would find a connection to gratitude or gratefulness. Today we visited Haiti Deaf Academy and we heard few spoken words but there was much conversation going on with these children. The sign we saw most often today was two fingers touching the chin and the hand then extending toward us. The were saying thank you! They did not even have to make this gesture for the entire team was already being washed in His Grace. As has been the case the past five days the mission team was being saved over and over by His Grace!

Let the little children

My contribution to the team this week has been preparing eyeglasses in our optical clinic. I have had dozens of occasions to hand a finished packaged pair of glasses to the patient. It would always, 100%, every time, be immediately followed with a humble twinkle in the eye soft-spoken, “Merci.” Merci is the French word for thank you. The is no doubt in my mind God showers Grace upon us, His mercy, a gift that says, “Thankyou good and faithful servant.”

Father, may we always be of a disciple mindset contributing to the expansion of your Kingdom to the ends of the Earth. Amen

Bradford Bosworth 

September, 2018