Methodist Wellness Work: Fill & Download for Free

This happened decades ago in the early 1980’s. I was in the process of getting a divorce. I was 26. I was living with my grandmother because I had nothing. I was in my room one night and I saw a bright light. Too bright to look at. I heard “Go to seminary.” This was ludicrous. I was a divorcing Catholic woman. I said, “I can't. “ I heard “no one will stand in your way. Go to seminary.” I said, “I have no money.” I heard “ All will be provided. Go to seminary. “ I said, “I can't do this alone.” I then saw an image of me crying, I saw black pants and shoes, and I heard, “Woman, why are you weeping?” And again, “ Go to seminary. “ When that ended, I was so scared that I ran downstairs and sat all night with my back to the door.Long story short. I told my grandmother. She took me to her Methodist minister, who probably thought I was high or daft, but he said, “ if this is true, it will happen. “ I applied through the Methodist church for denominational permission to go to seminary. All I had was my story. I was voted on and passed. My VERY Catholic mother who wouldn't speak to me, decided if I was going to divorce, I needed a good job, so I needed education. She gave me money to go to graduate school. I applied to an evening seminary and got in - I would be one of only a few women there. I moved out of state to be near the seminary. I had no job and no credit history, I got an efficiency apartment because the building supervisor was a former Catholic seminarian. He wished me well and watched over me. While I was a secretary before, I landed a job as a college librarian - I had a MLS but no experience. I was hired because the director and I grew up in the same town in a different state. My clunker of a car - no heat, no radio, on its last leg - never broke down my entire first year. Finally, I was working at a Methodist conference, I was yelled at by an attendee. I ran outside and started to cry. A man walked up to me and said, “Woman, why are you weeping?” He was a Methodist minister. I ended up marrying him. We were a true love match. I completed my seminary degree graduating third in my class with a 3.97. I called it my insurance policy. When my husband had a brain aneurysm, I stepped in and ran a 200+ family church until he could return to the pulpit. I became a licensed minister and his assistant. We served together for almost 30-years until he passed in 2011.This may sound made up… a fairy tale, but it is not. I don't know if I had a purpose or my husband did. Either way, God was DEFINITELY working some major miracles to get an unemployed secretary, divorcing Catholic woman into and through seminary, landed her a dream job and a loving minister husband. This story isn't over yet. I am retired now with an excellent pension, a widow, and I am back in seminary. This time to get ordained. This time, I had credentials to get voted and passed, I have money to pay my way, and while alone, I have memories of my husband to accompany me. By Labor Day 2020, forty years later, I will complete my process. I don't know why God did all this, maybe someday I'll have the opportunity to find out, but every day I am thankful to God for my miracle of a life.

If you head to the North East of England, you’ll find a place called Monkwearmouth. It’s the site of a religious institution dedicated to spreading - indeed, publishing - the gospel.It was originally set up in 674 AD. There was a brief pause because of an outbreak of Vikings, but the work has continued full-time since that interruption.Today, I can walk from my front door, in under five minutes, to Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and Full Gospel churches, all fairly well attended.The BBC broadcasts hymns on TV on Sundays (Songs of Praise - it’s been running for 59 years) and a church service on radio every day. Our monarch is crowned by a Christian archbishop. There are many schools run by the major churches. Bishops sit in the House of Lords.My response to U.S. ‘missionaries,’ therefore, is that of the French knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

Star Wars is Methodist-Buddhist in its morality, because Lucas conceives of himself as Methodist-Buddhist. I don’t know how the Buddhist part plays into this, but the Methodist part says that “redemption” and “desert” [EDIT: yes, I mean desert, not deserve; see comments] are incompatible concepts.Nobody deserves redemption in the Christian view of things. That’s the whole point of redemption. It is precious, on the Christian view, because it cannot be deserved. It is like advanced alien technology, precious because you cannot make it yourself.When Luke says, “There’s still good in him,” he doesn’t mean that Vader deserves to be redeemed because there is still good in him. He means only that it is possible for Vader to be redeemed. Whether or not he should be isn’t even a question for Luke.And that is, of course, why it works. Vader is redeemed not by saving Luke but by Luke’s unwavering faith that his father ought to be redeemed. Luke redeems Vader, and Vader saves Luke because he is redeemed. It’s all very Christian in its spiritual logic.As for me? Well, I’m Christian too. So no, I don’t think Vader deserved to be redeemed, and yes, I think he ought to have been redeemed anyway, and no, I don’t think anything he could ever do would “make up for” the evil he did, and no, I don’t think that means nobody should redeem him.