Tag Archives: Help

Message In A Minute: Lift Others Up

I discovered a phenomenon the other day.

It started with a picture a friend shared online, then I followed it up with some research.

It seems at rock concerts, people confined to wheelchairs are candidates for an amazing experience. And it appears that the more wild and crazy the music, the more often this type of event takes place. I would love to see it in person.

During the concert somebody gets the idea that a person in a wheelchair should be able to see the stage as well as everyone else. I don’t know if it’s the person in the wheelchair, a friend. or a stranger with the idea. But, the wheelchair is lifted up, and the device with its occupant are suddenly riding on top of a sea of helpful hands.

Some are simply hoisted up to see better, others travel over the crowd, and some make it all the way to the stage. And each picture I’ve seen reveals a huge smile or look of contentment on every face. The videos I’ve watched are inspiring.

It can’t be easy to get this kind of thing started, and the people holding the others up are working hard. But with so many helping, it looks effortless to lift others up.

We may not appreciate the music at many of these concerts, but we can learn from the compassion and teamwork displayed by these joy filled participants. These people who are doing the lifting may never attend a church, but somehow they are tapping in to what ministry is all about. They are demonstrating that humanity can be a beautiful, organic, healing, effective, and inspiring creation when self-centeredness is cast aside.

Who can you lift up?

Who can you encourage?

Who can you provide with a better perspective?

You have unique abilities to lift others up in ways that last longer than a few songs at a rock concert.

You can make contact with a lonely person.
You can sincerely compliment another.
You can provide encouragement.
You can give money or resources.
You can volunteer your time.
You can pray for those in need.

We have the ability to do emotionally and spiritually what I’ve been explaining happens physically at these concerts.

We can lift others up, if we are willing to get out of our comfort zone, and get into our concert zone.

-Tom Wise

HOPE MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash

Tragedy Off The Coast Of Massachusetts

December 17, 1927 was a tragic day in American history.  An S-4 submarine was conducting routine drills off the coast of Massachusetts.  The submarine was attempting to surface when it was struck by a U.S. Coast Guard destroyer.  The destroyer punched about a 30 inch hole in the submarine which caused the vessel to begin to sink in 110 feet of water.

Most of the crew secured themselves behind watertight doors.  A handful of men made their way to the torpedo room to hunker down.  From there they did their best to communicate with anyone that would be able to help them.

While crews worked diligently on the surface to free the sailors from their underwater prison, divers were sent into the water to see what options they may have.  While underwater, one of the divers heard tapping that was determined to be Morse code.  The sailors inside the torpedo room kept repeating the same question, “Is… there… any…hope…?” Continue reading →

AFFILIATE PARTNERSHIPS

We have begun to establish affiliate partnerships with various companies.  We want you to be aware that if you click on any links on our site, whether on the homepage or individual posts, and purchase something, we may receive an affiliate commission for your purchase.

Not all the links we provide are affiliate links.  We are always recommending resources that we believe will be helpful to others.  Our goal is to point people to products and services that will help them walk closer to Christ and live a better life whether we get paid or not.

What We Do Matters

We believe that what we do makes a difference in the Christian community.  We have had pastors use our devotional series as teaching tools, we have had small groups and Sunday school classes use our material as discussion guides, and we have many individuals that draw inspiration and are challenged to walk closer to God because of the free resources we make available through our site.

We make these resources available because we believe in the gospel message.  We believe that  the truth of Scripture has the power to change lives.  We have dedicated our lives to preaching the gospel and now we have the opportunity to make that message available to a wider audience and reach even more people via the internet.

Unseen Costs

What we do here comes with a price tag.  We pay an annual fee to maintain rights to use our domain name, we pay a monthly fee to host our site on the internet, we have costs associated with designing our site, and costs for the tools we need to run our site smoothly.

We also have costs associated with software that is necessary to create our e-books, tools that allow us to format and edit our posts offline, and fees for cloud storage.

We also have investments in computers, smartphones, and tablets that allow us to be mobile and work on our projects no matter where we are.  In addition to that, we have many hours of labor invested in the resources we have created and made available on this site.

How You Can Help

You can help us by doing what you already do.  By shopping.  By developing an affiliate partnership with individuals and businesses, we are basically hosting an online retail store.  This is no different than shopping at a retail store in your neighborhood.  Every local retail store is a middle man for products and services,  whereby they make a profit from what they sell.  Our affiliate partnerships work the same way.  Our website becomes our virtual retail space.

Click here, for a better explanation of an affiliate program.

These affiliate programs help us offset the cost of running this site and helps to guarantee we can continue to write and provide content well into the future.

Thank You

We are blessed to have so many people involved in what we do here at Finding Wonder and we are blessed to be able to do what we do.  It truly is an amazing time in history to be able to reach so many people with the gospel message.  Thank you for being a part of our journey and thank you for partnering with us.  Without you, none of this would be possible.

Larry Westfall & Tom Wise