What I leave Behind

Job.30:18 “By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.”

*No poetry Sunday, I have too much to say

What I'll leave Behind

Being hit this week with the diagnosis of cancer has left me in an emotional state that is totally foreign to me. I’m a person of light, love, and hope and this week I was tossed out onto the battleground of a disease that has plucked many members of my family (whether blood or friends) away and out of my life.

It started with subtle signs about a year ago in 2015, the year my aunt succumbed to some kind of cancer and my non-blood uncle to lung cancer. The signs were there but I brushed them away trying to hide from them so they didn’t see me and begin to form on me. I do know they went the cut me open, spread the disease, and radiate me, only for the diseases to stay dormant a year or two and resurface, wiping them out entirely. This is the way it was for members of MY family.

I’m thinking that this is the unexpected earthquakes or avalanches, tornados or hurricanes that come in and rattle the very routine existence you live. Day after day we routinely wake, have coffee, shower, go to work, sit on facebook and many do it day after day thinking possibly this is all God has planned for my life.

I was asked what I’m feeling right now and honestly, I don’t feel. What is on my mind is what I might have to leave behind, then with this morning's sermon I was smacked with the reality that this is just God shaking up the routine I call life.

Have you ever lived through a tornado, hurricane or earthquake? Did you lose anything? Well for some, they lose EVERYTHING while some lose a little, and some nothing at all. Sometimes lives are lost and the ones left behind have to sit in wonder of what just happened and try to grapple with the reality that their lives were shaken completely off the axis of routine living. 

You may think that your life is going to end because you can’t live without routine but let me tell you, God does not like people to become stagnant and stuck in a routine for months or years on end and this is the reason we have shake-ups in life that come completely out of nowhere.

My routine life is going to be shaken up big time. I will no longer wake, sit at the computer, write and surf the web, nope it will be slammed with test after test, surgery and possibly radiation for days on end, week after week, then I’ll either be defined as a survivor or a victim. I choose survivor, but MY plan might not be God’s plan. My husband’s routine of waking and sitting on the web, playing his games, surfing YouTube will be massively shaken but I’ll see him trying to cling to what he thinks is HIS routine not realizing that God is in control of ALL OF OUR routines! Hubby will try to remain in control when basically we’ve never been IN control in the first place.

While I think about what I might leave behind, my husband, son and my family I also have to think of what lies ahead for me and that is the journey to our amazing Father. Yes, no matter what I am put through I will still see God as amazing. He doesn’t want me to focus on what I’m leaving behind, He wants to chisel away all routine brick and mortar and place my eyes on the spiritual route that my life has been and will continue to be in the hereafter. 

Day after day I wake and want to just wallow in a bucket of tears, and that’s okay because right beside me is my Amazing God saying, I can carry this load for you, I’m here for you. Isn’t that amazing? When we think we can’t take anymore, can’t cry one more tear, we have God, the Comforter ready to carry the weight of the load. We might think he’s forgotten us but no, it is during that time He is remembering all the beauty He created in you and looks and says, “I did good! She’s beautiful!” That my friends, is my solace, knowing God sees the beauty in me that he created and I gave to the world.

As much as you want to cling to that routine fantasy life, and hide from the reality that has shaken your world via tragedy or illness, keep in mind that it is NOT your life, it is God’s life. Just because you bought and own that new electric self-driving car it is not yours, it is in the hand of something more powerful and electrifying than you.

When a tragedy strikes and your comfort of a routine is gone, don’t fight to get the mundane actions of a day back, take this time to seize the opportunity to CHANGE your routine, because rest assured if you don’t, God will!

1 Cor. 15:51 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,”

Caught Unaware; Where Is God?

 Luke 21:34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

We are four full months into the New Year and already we have mounted up disaster after disaster. Just this week a swath of storms and tornadoes crawled across the US leaving death and destruction in its path.

The stretch of storms rolled over Nebraska making its way east touching down and crippling cities and states catching many unaware as warning sirens were knocked out by high winds allowing the storm quiet entry and in the terror of its wake, many dead.

The weather is downright strange! We have been under high wind warnings for weeks, possibly months now since the evidence still sits in my front yard of a tree toppled by high winds.

The 20^th of April we had high winds and blizzard like conditions leaving us under a blanket of snow as my springtime perennials were making their show. We warmed up nicely and Saturday the 26^th we hit daytime high of 80 degrees although the winds were still gusty as we made a trip to Lincoln.

Yesterday the 29^th, I rose to the heater coming on as temps with windchills were dipping well below 30 degrees. As I sat writing it was 39 degrees and the windchill of 25 mph sustained winds made it feel like 24 degrees! And this is Spring? Winter just won’t let go!

The weekend storms are still rolling across the country threatening the east coast with flooding and torrential rains. They battered many states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee and were now threatening Georgia and the Carolina’s. So far the death total from these storms is at 30 with many still missing.

So where is God in all this death and destruction? I know He’s out there so where is He? Many people struggle with that question in an aftermath of such devastating brutality to their communities. They’re surrounded with why me questions and sometimes they find comfort in understanding God’s purpose but others just don’t get it. They are in shock and have every right.

Trevor Freeze wrote: “In response to an outbreak of tornadoes over the past few days, the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team is deploying to some of the hardest hit areas, with teams responding in Arkansas, Mississippi and Kansas.”

Aha! That’s where God is. He’s in the hearts and souls of men and women responding to these disasters. Neighbor’s who never spoke to each other before are now aiding in the search and rescue. Teams of Christian’s are banning together to aid the down trodden. Churches across the country are sending help (and you wonder where your tithes go each week you give?)

Without your tithing the church would never be able to send assistance so really, if you attend church regularly, tithe each week, you in essence are a part of the assistance sent to help if you can’t go yourself.

Yes, churches across the country send around tithing baskets asking you to contribute. This isn’t money to build bigger and better churches or to build statues this money is SUPPOSED to be used for the people.

Lev. 27:32 And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the LORD.

Yes, it is our DUTY to give to the Lord so that the Lord in turn uses the money to aid and assist in times of disaster. In times of distress, the Lord is seeing to it that you are comforted, you are aided and in turn YOU are doing the Lord’s service.

Where is God in these times? He’s right there among you. Do you see Atheist groups sending help? Do you witness hate groups backing communities up? In reality, not even our government is the first responders, church organizations are! The government goes through red-tape before assisting to send money. Churches send actual human beings to be there when a mother cries, a father dies, or a child is missing.

The Church – all of God’s people, react with ACTION, not words. If your church is not one that acts in a disaster, then maybe seeking out a new church is in store because we the people of the church KNOW there is money to give out to the people in need and the Churches across the nation are there. People of the Church respond!

So when you hear that a mother finds her lifeless child among the rubble of a tornado stricken home, know that there is someone of God’s right behind her doling out comfort. We see it, but many won’t acknowledge it as the hand of God. Usually it’s the ones that don’t believe in God or His Almighty strength and power!

God IS alive!

2 Sam. 22:7 In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears.

Poetry Sunday ~ Cataclysm

Matt. 8: 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Cataclysm

***

Windswept willows work the breeze,
timbered towers sway the trees
singsong stallions stay the field
fiery foxes, to man, gives yield.

Hallowed hounds track the scent
another day for him is spent;
wicked wind howls through the air
fleeting falcons weave with care.

Gathering geese have all give rise;
brisk beat winds bare the skies.
Cumulus clouds clap with thunder
Every eye looks on in wonder

All will weaken lest they wallow
something strange is sure to follow.
Awakened conscious now can see
a shattered world we can not flee.

Silent sickness sweeps with sound
gnashing teeth torment the ground.
Swords will swing as men have fallen
heaven’s open, He’s come a callin’!


Is. 1:4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.