The Yellow Shirt

This is a forwarded email I received from a friend. Whether the story is true or not, I don't know. But the message it holds is one worth sharing.

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The yellow shirt had long sleeves, four extra-large pockets trimmed in black thread and snaps up the front. It was faded from years of wear, but still in decent shape. I found it in 1963 when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging through bags of clothes Mom intended to give away. 'You're not taking that old thing, are you?!? Mom said when she saw me packing the yellow shirt. 'I wore that when I was pregnant with your brother in 1954!'



It's just the thing to wear over my clothes during art class, Mom. Thanks!' I slipped it into my suitcase before she could object. The yellow shirt became a part of my college wardrobe. I loved it. After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved into my new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned.



The next year, I married.. When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big-belly days. I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were in Colorado and they were in Illinois . But that shirt helped. I smiled, remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant, 15 years earlier.



That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper and sent it to Mom. When Mom wrote to thank me for her 'real' gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely. She never mentioned it again.



The next year, my husband, daughter and I stopped at Mom and Dad's to pick up some furniture. Days later, when we uncrated the kitchen table, I noticed something yellow taped to its bottom. The shirt!



And so the pattern was set...



On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under Mom and Dad's mattress. I don't know how long it took for her to find it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base of our living-room floor lamp. The yellow shirt was just what I needed now while refinishing furniture. The walnut stains added character.



In 1975 my husband and I divorced. With my three children, I prepared to move back to Illinois . As I packed, a deep depression overtook me. I wondered if I could make it on my own. I wondered if I would find a job. I paged through the Bible, looking for comfort. In Ephesians, I read, 'So use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy whenever he attacks, and when it is all over, you will be standing up.' (Ephesians 6:11-13)



I tried to picture myself wearing God's armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt. Slowly, it dawned on me. Wasn't my mother's love a piece of God's armor? My courage was renewed.



Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother. The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer.



Meanwhile, I found a good job at a radio station. A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet. Something new had been added. Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words 'I BELONG TO PAT.'



Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe and seven more letters. Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, 'I BELONG TO PAT'S MOTHER.' But I didn't stop there. I zig-zagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend mail the shirt in a fancy box to Mom from Arlington, VA We enclosed an official looking letter from 'The Institute for the Destitute,' announcing that she was the recipient of an award for good deeds. I would have given anything to see Mom's face when she opened the box. But, of course, she never mentioned it.



Two years later, in 1978, I remarried. The day of our wedding, Harold and I put our car in a friend's garage to avoid practical jokers. After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head. It felt lumpy. I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the yellow shirt. Inside a pocket was a note: 'Read John 14:27 -29. I love you both, Mother..'



That night I paged through the Bible in a hotel room and found the verses: 'I am leaving you with a gift: peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn't fragile like the peace the world gives. So don't be troubled or afraid. Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, for now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do, you will believe in me.'


The shirt was Mother's final gift. She had known for three months that she had terminal Lou Gehrig's disease. Mother died the following year at age 57.



I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave. But I'm glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years. Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art. And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets.

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So many times we drown in despair, in worrying about the 'what ifs' and the shoulda, coulda, woulda. What we fail to realize is that God's presence in our lives is apparent in every thought, action & interaction. We know that the bible is armor against the enemy... but we must also acknowledge that love... loving one another, loving ourselves, and loving our Lord is our armor. These relationships, built on love, put a stronghold on the enemy's attempts to break us down and shatter our faith.

Take the little things in life and embrace them. Know that God uses the people in your life to minister to you as well, even if just in an action.

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Colossians 2:6-7

Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord our Healer

My daughter has had 6 surgeries on her right ear in 4 years. Within the past year alone, she’s had 3 of them… in Aug, Nov & May. She’s been through a lot physically and yet she hasn’t lost faith. She continues to believe that God will heal her of her ear problems and she will live a joyous, healthy life. During these times, I’ve asked friends and family to pray for her, played a healing CD for her, and asked my church to pray for her as well. Her last surgery was a success!! For the first time ever, Veronica has normal hearing!! Thank you Jesus!!!

… 5 months later we encounter a problem… she has a bad infection in her left ear… in her “good” ear. So far she’s been every week to the doctors, 3 weeks in a row, ear drops and a change of antibiotics. We pray that this doesn’t turn into the trouble we had with her right ear. Although she is brave and full of faith and reassurance, it is very difficult to grasp the fact that she has fallen ill again. And so we continue to pray. And so this article is written.

We know our God to be merciful and compassionate. We’ve read countless stories of His healings and miracles. We know that God is Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord our Healer. So the big question that has been asked is, knowing that He heals, why are some still plagued with illness?

The first thing we have to acknowledge is that God can and does heal. “for I am the LORD, who heals you” (Exodus 15:26). God’s will is to heal our physical body. He doesn’t want us to suffer with sickness and disease. One thing He asks of us is faith… faith in Him; Jehovah-Rapha. We might try to understand why but we must always remember that His ways are higher than ours. And in understanding this, we accept that God has full authority over all sickness and can choose to heal whenever and whomever He chooses. We must also understand that sometimes God allows us to have sickness so that will we look to Him for His strength and power. The sickness can teach us a valuable lesson about our faith.

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

Let’s read that again… "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Do you hear how divine that is?! Our Lord is His strongest in our weakest moments. He does not leave us to wallow in our pain. He does not leave us to cower in our affliction. Instead, the Lord says that His grace is sufficient and far more than we can ever hope or imagine. He will free us of our ailments if we fully surrender ourselves to Him.

"It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees." (Psalm 119:71)

"We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us - they help us learn to endure." (Romans 5:3)

Why are some still plagued with illness? I know for my daughter it is because God uses these medical problems to strengthen her. It has drawn us closer not only to one another but also to God. We have experienced and learned so much in this time and one thing is for certain… we will only receive God’s mercy if we surrender to Him. We pray a little longer. Pray a little louder. Pray more often. We continuously thank God for all He’s given us and for being with us at all times, regardless of circumstance. We thank Him for bringing us through this storm, directing us to safety; steering my precious daughter to a healthier life.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
How beautiful these words are. How dear we hold them.

Wet Pants

Come with me to a third grade classroom..... There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, 'Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat.'

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, 'Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!'

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk.

The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie.

She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You've done enough, you klutz!'

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, 'You did that on purpose, didn't you?'
Susie whispers back, 'I wet my pants once too.'

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good..

Remember.....Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.

Each and everyone one of us is going through tough times right now, but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can. Keep the faith.


Prayer is one of the best gifts we receive. There is no cost but a lot of rewards. Let's continue to pray for one another.


Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and those that I care deeply for, who are reading this right now. Show them a new revelation of Your love and power. Holy Spirit, I ask You to minister to their spirit at this very moment. Where there is pain, give them Your peace and mercy. Where there is self-doubt, release a renewed confidence through Your grace. Where there is need, I ask you to fulfill their needs. Bless their homes, families, finances, their goings and their comings. Amen.