Peter and Judas

Connectedness is “the Rooster Crow” moment. This is when a person in crisis awakens and sees hope. The kindness a person experiences creates a climate that fosters resiliency, recovery, and referral promoting opportunities to find hope, help and healing. God gave me the concepts of the 3 Charlies and the 3 Romeos out of the account of Peter and Judas.

As many of you know, our beloved United States and our churches are facing a mental health crisis. Suicide is killing both believers and unbelievers. It has been troubling with verifiable evidence over the past two decades. For the first time in a generation, there is a significant decline in life expectancy. This decline is not the result of war, crime, famine or disease, but despair. People are dying younger due primarily to suicide, drugs, alcohol and abuse. Those who are despondent and in despair are like the Dry Bones in the Book of Ezekiel. We are surrounded with so many people who have become hopeless without life.

A biblical example of a long-term healing from emotional trauma would be Anna. Anna was a prophetess in the New Testament. If you recall, there were 400 years of silence from Malachi to Matthew. It wasn’t until Mary and Joseph showed up at the Temple (Luke 2:22-35) to make a purification offering (Leviticus 12:6-8) for their first born before God (Ex 13:2, 12-15). First, Simeon (righteous and devout) cradles the Lord Jesus and praises God. Anna enters and prophesies the redemption of Jerusalem (Luke 2:36-38)

The Apostle John shared a great example in scripture regarding brokenness through the account of the Samaritan Woman (John 4:4-30) – the ‘Woman at the Well.’ In the Biblical days, Jews hated Samaritans, and women were culturally demeaned. To place a Jewish man with the combination of the two – a Samaritan and a woman, would have been despicable to many Jews. It was the noon hour (hottest part of the day), when the woman at the well came to draw out water. Her brokenness must have led her to avoid meeting the other women knowing most had drawn from the well in the morning or evening. She must have been a woman of shame.