Welcome to another week. Happy Memorial Day!
As of press time, I haven’t attended Memorial Day services. I will report on the Rocky Glen Memorial service and the Jamestown Memorial Day parade next week.
Fallowfield United Methodist Woman will offer a program and serve homemade pie at Wesbury on Tuesday, May 27. This is an annual birthday party offered by Fallowfield United Methodist Women for many years. It’s a special tradition.
I don’t usually stray from Atlantic community events, but I feel compelled to address a situation that has haunted me all week.
You may have heard of Meriam Ibrahim. She is a Sudanese Christian sentenced to death for her faith in Christ. We call brave people like Meriam martyrs and shake our heads when we talk about people dying in Jesus’ name.
I tend to think of martyrs living in the past or the future, not the present. Early Christians were martyrs. William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English, was martyred. Christians living in the end times will be martyred if they don’t receive the mark of the Beast.
I’m not ignorant of the reality of martyrdom in the present; I simply hoped these brave people died quick deaths. Meriam’s situation is the worst death sentence I’ve ever heard of, with the exception of Christ’s torture and execution.
She is pregnant. The jailers are waiting for her to give birth before flogging her 100 times and hanging her. I am so sick about this that I can hardly think straight.
I would not burden you, my friend, if I thought it would make no difference. But you can make a difference for Meriam.
I ask you this as a follower of Christ who has never been persecuted, but who feels the suffering of others in such a deep way that it has incapacitated me on many occasions. I’ve been told it makes me more sensitive and encouraging to those who suffer. When I can make supper for a sick friend or write them a cheerful card I feel like I’m using my sensitivity in a helpful way.
But I can’t do these things for Meriam. I have already done a few things that I pray will help her. Would you please come alongside Meriam and do what you can to help her?
Here is what I suggest.
Pray for Meriam and ask every Christian you know to pray for her.
Fast and pray again.
Sign the petition at HYPERLINK "http://www.beheard.com" www.beheardproject.com, affiliated with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).
Frankly this is of little comfort to me. I want her out of jail RIGHT NOW. I want to order a special ops unit to blast open the walls. I want God to cause an earthquake to break her chains and open her cell doors as he did for Paul and Silas (Acts 16:24-26). I want Jesus to blind her guards so she can get out, similar to what he did to the Arameans as Elisha watched (2 Kings 6). I want God to send an angel to spirit her away as he did for Peter in Acts 12:6-10.
Again, please pray for Meriam. Thank you.
All God’s blessings.