I have been to two real concerts in my life.
I'm 51, so that's saying something.
My husband took me to see Whitney in Paris
{don't get too excited, that's where we lived at the time}
in November of 1993.
It was the Bodyguard tour.
She was at her best.
As I was walking this morning, I was thinking about her.
Praying for her daughter.
Turning this tragedy over and over in my mind.
Wondering if I had an opinion about it all.
On the one hand, there's no excuse for the excesses in her life.
On the other hand, what a gift.
And what do I really know about what it took to "be" her.
And I thought about a passage in the Gospel of John where religious people
drug a {probably} half naked prostitute before Jesus.
For judgement.
To make a point.
For punishment.
Then the parallel dawned on me - how utterly and totally humiliating.
To die alone and naked
and to be dragged before the world
to be judged.
And I thought of Jesus' heart towards the prostitute -
a heart to love her, to see her as a person and not an object.
Or an object lesson.
His gift to her that day was one of grace.
And, with that, he also asks her to walk away from her way of life.
But it was his lesson for the crowd that struck my heart today.
To the crowd watching this,
and to the religious leaders that drug her there,
Jesus simply says,
"Let any of you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her."
And that's my lesson for today.
Let me not throw any stones.
In my mind.
With my mouth.
In my heart.
I found myself wishing that Jesus would silence today's crowd.
The hungry crowd that's watching and waiting.
That we would all examine ourselves,
stop pointing fingers and criticizing someone elses life...
and just walk away from the
show.
I'll cherish her music and the fact that I got to see her in concert.
The big notes,
the beautiful performances.
But what's got my heart this morning,
is the scene from Bodyguard
where she's sitting alone, quietly outside on a snowy day
singing
Jesus Loves Me.
Linking up with the Bigger Picture Blogs
for the Writer's Workshop