FINGERPRINTS! 6/11/09

FINGERPRINTS!
We have skin on our bodies that we wear like a body bag. Depending where this skin is placed it is smooth, soft, pliable and yet tough. Some areas have hair follicles that create protection and need to be kept groomed and or trimmed. On the finger tips there are grooves/ridges that enable us to pick things up. One of the interesting things about our finger tips is that it can leave a print. Years past the FBI required fingerprinting on drivers license and important documents. There are no two fingerprints alike! Each individual has their own set of fingerprints! When these are on file a fingerprint could be detected and checked against those on record and a criminal could be easily identified. In more recent years only those arrested would have fingerprints taken and they became part of the criminals record to be looked at for continual identification. Since DNA testing has become available, some have felt that fingerprinting is no longer necessary. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if fingerprinting became fashionable again due to 9/11 and future threats to America.

There is a couple who we use to attend church with for about six months of each year. The other six months they live in Mexico where he was born and the two of them served with a small congregation in San Carlos. She carries a bible that on the back cover has a rough set of fingerprints that are made evident with white paint. At first glance you would think they were perhaps one of her grandchildren. She shared this story with me and I was encouraged by her faith and her love and concern for others.

Rose Marie had loaned her bible to a friend who had taken it home. Some robbers broke into her friends home and completely destroyed the inside by tearing up the furniture and breaking everything they could break. They found some white paint in a closet and literally dumped it throughout the house. Then they went outside and dug up the yard, breaking and stealing any copper tubing that was used for water and/or sewer lines to the house. The police were called and said it was done by vandals who were looking for copper to sell. Rose Marie and others went to help clean up her friends house and in amongst the mess was her bible. When she saw the hand print she knew it was the print of one of the vandals. Even though the paint was water base and she could have washed it off, her first thought was to leave it there to remind her to pray for the owner of these prints.. What a story!

The book of Job is filled with wonderful verses that helps us to understand the plight of man. Job 5:7 says; "For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward." I am sure that the young man that belonged to those fingerprints did not know that God already knew him. I am also sure that this young man did not know that David speaks to God in Psalms 139:13-14 saying; "You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made". It is right for us to pray as found in James 4:8; "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind". It is okay to ask God as found in Isaiah 41:13; to let this young man know that God can be his God and who will hold his right hand and will say to him "Do not fear, I will help you" . One day, because Rose Marie has prayed earnestly for this young man it will be as 1 John 5:4 says; "Whatever is born of God overcomes the world".

1 John 4:7 has made it clear that because God loves, everyone who loves is born of God! Perhaps God’s plan for this young man is something special, why else would his fingerprints be left for Rose Marie to find and to love him through prayer. Let us all find opportunities that lead us to champion the lost in such a divine way. By Jane Ann Crenshaw 5/25/08