Incarnation

From a recent Upper Room email message, almost seems like a story Todd the Blogger might tell:



YEARS AGO at a retreat one of the women told us a story that changed my spiritual life. I have so often told and written about this story.

She had rescued an abandoned, frightened young dog who had not only been abused, but also half drowned. He desperately needed cleansing and medication for his wounds, but not until she began to lower him into the warm tub did she realize how terrified he was of water. His abusers had tried to kill him that way.

He screamed and fought, his whole body a solid mass of fear. Very quickly realizing that there was only one way to reach him through his panic, she stripped to her underwear and got into the water with him along with all the fleas, dirt, and blood from them both. She held him, stroking him gently, quietly talking to him until he began slowly to relax. Then the deep cleansing could begin.

I know of no better story of the Incarnation and the way God deals with our fear, our wounds, our hardened defenses.

- Flora Slosson Wuellner