Delivered:  April 28, 2013;   Scripture:  Revelation 21:1-6

The writer O. Henry once penned a story about two young women, best friends, who went to Greenwich Village and established a little studio in a shared apartment, hoping to pursue their dreams of becoming famous artists.

However, in the cold and damp autumn, one of the women fell quite ill with pneumonia.

It was an illness that had been plaguing their community as many people shuffled to and fro in the terrible winter and lived in drafty apartments without the pleasures of heat… but it seemed such a young woman should be fine.

Except she wasn’t.

She grew more ill by the day.  And she grew more weak.

It was the doctor who finally revealed to her worried friend and roommate that the young woman had simply given up.

As the young woman laid on her bed, she would look out at an ivy branch–a beautiful site she had many times meditated on when it was vibrant with…