"Here am I. Use me!"

Many years ago “60 Minutes” did a special program on Sister Emmanuel. Well beyond retirement age she fell on her knees and asked God to send her to the most desperate spot on earth. He did. At age 79 this French nun began to serve God in the “City of Garbage.”  That is the name of a suburb in Cairo, Egypt, where live the people who collect Cairo’s garbage. They not only collect the garbage, they live in the garbage, eat the garbage and salvage all their earthly belongings from the garbage. Because of Sister Emmanuel there are schools there now. And at her urging the government is providing better housing. Many lives have been immeasurably changed. Diane Sawyer, at the time a CBS correspondent, asked her if she thought about death. Sister Emmanuel showed her a painting on her wall of angels joined hand in hand dancing in the Celestial Kingdom. “One of these days,” she said, “they will offer me a hand and I will dance into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Emmanuel means “God is with us.”  Who can doubt that He was with those wretched people in the person of this humble nun. It is the glory of the Christian Faith that God does His greatest works through humble, obedient, committed servants. I want my life to count for something more than the mere acquisition of material goodies, don’t you? I think God has put within all of us that desire to count, to make a difference, to bless others. It is our desire at Cactus Christian Fellowship to challenge people to truly commit their lives to the Kingdom—a Kingdom that expresses itself in many ways, but a Kingdom that truly makes a difference because of a great and loving King who eagerly awaits from each of us the statement: “Here am I. Use me!”

 

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