Happy St. Patty's Day- Thank a missionary!!!

Happy st. Patrick's Day! In America, today tends to be a celebration of Ireland (sigh...), and for many, an excuse to break Lent and party it up. Well, I'm wearing green... What does today mean to me? What does it mean to you?

I saw part of this episode of 19 Kids and Counting over Spring break where Michelle Duggar was reading to her kids about St. Patrick. She said "I figured there must be a reason he was called 'saint'." I didn't watch the all the rest of the show, but I liked what she'd said.

I knew that St. Patrick wasn't Irish and that he'd brought the Gospel into the paganism of Ireland, but I decided to do a little more research and what I found was pretty cool, so I thought I'd share.

Patrick was a British kid, son of a Christian minister, who was kidnapped when the Irish celts raided his village after the fall of the Roman Empire, and brought to Ireland as a slave. Apparently he was put to work as a shepherd, but he was lonely and sad, which was to be expected if you ask me. Anyway, Patrick turned to faith to help him survive the lonliness and humiliation of slavery and became rather devout. He began dreaming of bringing the Irish people out of their sun-worship and into the Light. After 10 years of slavery in Ireland, Patrick had a vision from God telling him that it was time to go home. So he ran away and headed for the coast. He made it back to Britain and became a priest, and not too long after that recieved another vision. Now it was time to go back to Ireland, the land of his slavery.

So Patrick obeyed. He went headed to Ireland, where the Christians were few, and the few were quiet. And he taught them about the Lord.

Nobody can really peg anything down that he actually did after that. There's a lot of legend about banishing snakes and other miracles. There's a legend that the way he taught the idea of the Trinity to them was with the shamrock. 3 in 1. I thought that one was prety awesome.

Patrick was apparently never actually canonized in the Catholic church either, so while you can't know alot about him, I think St. Patrick's Day would be a good day for us to appreciate and thank God for the legacy of love that His children have carried all over the world over thousands of years. God's People just keep on going, and by no strength of our own. I'm sure Patrick had to do a lot of wrestling with going back to the place where he had been a slave after he had been reunited with his family in his homeland. But he obeyed God. And because of that, Ireland became a Christian stronghold in the Dark Ages, when the rest of Europe was falling apart.

God's Kingdom. How many have died for it since Christ? How many have died to their own desires to further it? How many are giving themselves up at this very moment, just so that someone else can know Jesus? What can I do for them? What can I do?

So if you've read this far, go thank the person who taught you about the Lord. And then do likewise. :)