Erwin Bourne I have watched the “throwing on the potter’s wheel.” The prophet, Isaiah, used this allegory to illustrate our life: “O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter, we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 64:8 NIV). Keep this metaphor in mind as you read this article. The Apostle Paul, a courageous missionary, left this marvelous epitome with us who would follow his example: “But this precious treasure—this light and power that now shines within us—is held in a perishable container, that is, in our weak bodies. Everyone can see that the glorious power within must be from God and is not our own” (II Cor. 4:7 Living Bible). And verse nine continues: “We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going.” In the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in 1984, recovering from a leg amputation, I had a rather interesting visit with a physician on the third floor. He had just come from a room two rooms down the hall from mine. He asked me if he might bring up a difficult question. “A strong, young man down the hall has just had a motorcycle accident. Now he is lying in the hospital paralyzed from the neck down. Chances are that he’ll never walk again. “What do I tell this young man? His future is crashed! He has no answers to his life’s predicament. All he does is blame God. What do I tell him?” Many of you who are reading the WWW today have the same questions. “SomebodyCares4u deals with Life’s toughest questions. We may not have all the answers, but we know the One who does.” Lying in my hospital bed, I stared up into the face of the sober doctor. “Do you want to know why I’m not fighting my life’s predicament?” I paused, and then quoted a scripture verse: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (II Cor. 4:7 NIV). My sister, older than I, has never been admitted to a hospital in her lifetime. Now at age sixty-six, I have gone through thirteen major surgeries. Before a triple bypass open-heart surgery, I had all preparations made to return to Colombia, South America. My advisory doctor told me plainly, “You can go to Colombia as planned, but you probably won’t come back.” I resigned to this change of plans, and was admitted into the hospital in July, 1995. Beside all these, I suffered a stroke that put me in the hospital some days. My left arm was rendered useless However, I refused to accept this condition, forcing my arm to move till I could finally reach the trapeze bar over my bed. Today it is normal. In the high Andes of Peru I was severely smitten with typhoid fever. In an extremely weakened condition, I reached South Texas where I lay unconscious for eleven days in a Harlingen Hospital. Like a child I had to learn to walk all over again. Also I have been smitten with Malaria. David Livingston, Missionary to dark Africa, suffered thirty-seven attacks of Malaria Paul continues, “…To show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (NIV). Note the following: I went to Colombia the first time—1982—with a leg full of gangrene. It was necessary to wash my foot and change my socks every three hours. Also I had an open ulcer on the ball of my right foot (from playing ping-pong in stocking feet). My son remarked, “Dad you have a big hole in your sock.” I pulled off the sock and said, “…And I also have a big hole in the ball of my foot.” That hole grew to about the size of a ping-pong ball! This resulted from my diabetes. “We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going” (Living Bible). Right now, sitting at my computer in Leticia, Colombia…. Ah, I’d rather not talk about it, He’s got you and me, brother, in His hand: He’s got the whole world in His hands!” I’m not complaining at all. Paul wrote to the Phillipians, chapter one, verse twelve NIV: “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”  Erwin Bourne Outreach_amazon@yahoo.com <HOME <ARCHIVES