#6 Ready to Die? Then You're Ready To Live

During the Lent season, the focus is the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.  Easter is the glorious celebration of Jesus rising and conquering death. 

Luke 14:34-36 says, 34 And He said to them (Peter, James, John in Gethsemane), “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch.” 35 And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. 36 And He was saying, “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.”

Jesus’ humanity is so evident in verse 36 when He asks God the Father, that if it’s possible, to remove this cup from Him; the cup of God’s wrath.  Jesus knew that He would be in this place, at this time in history, but He still asked for the cup to be removed. He would not do anything that was not in God’s will. He had accepted the mission that had been laid out for Him. Jesus accepted to allow the wrath of God to be poured out on Him for the sins of humanity. He was obedient all the way to death.

Jesus knows how we feel when we are facing death. We do not have to face the wrath of God for our sins because Jesus took care of that for us when we accepted Him as our Savior, but we still have to face death; whether it’s the death of someone we love dearly or even facing death ourselves. Facing death is scary even when we know that we are God’s child and our eternal future is secure.

In the last 6 ½ years, I have looked at death, mine, my husband’s, my mother’s, and my brother-in-law’s.  Though I’ve not been a missionary like the apostle Paul was, who faced so much hardship for the cause of the cross, my faith was still being tested during my own cancer illness and subsequent trials. I will probably not ever know why my life had gone down a road I didn’t choose. I wonder what God purposed for me.  So far, He has not made everything clear but a few things are clear. The clarity of these things have been the cause for the joy I have in my heart.  It’s so hard for anyone to wrap their mind around joy through tragedy, but God makes it possible.

Since my illness, I have thought about death.  It’s almost unavoidable.  It seems that everywhere I turn, there is death.  It’s in the news, it’s in my church, it’s in my family.  Some people die from acts of violence and some from an illness. Some people die young and others at a ripe old age.  No matter who we are, how we live, where we live, we are all going to die, unless we are alive when Jesus comes for His church.  So, are we ready to die?

I thought I was going to die on the operating table.  I was ready.  Then, I thought I was going to die from a pulmonary embolism.  I asked God to let me take care of my husband, who was slowly losing his battle with early-onset dementia.  Regardless, I was ready.  I thought I was going to die from all the effects of chemotherapy.  I really didn’t think my body could take any more treatments, so I prayed and told God that I was ready. 

But instead of me dying, God allowed my body to recover, for a reason. I watched my husband slowly leave me.  I prayed for a miracle.  I know others prayed for a miracle too. But when his behavior became so unmanageable, the doctor said it was time for the hospital and then a nursing home.  On his last day on this earth, I had gone to my Bible study that morning before I went to the hospital to see Edry.  I did not think he would die that day and that was because our class teacher read the following scripture that caused me to believe that there was going to be a miracle of some kind.  Edry would have life breathed back into him by God.

Ezekiel 37:4-6, Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” Thus says the Lord God to these bones, ‘Behold, I Lord will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the Lord.”

When I got to the hospital with my family, Edry looked worse than the day before.  My brother-in-law prayed for him.  I played his favorite CD.  I held his hand.  A couple of hours later, everyone went home and I stayed with him. I read the Bible to him, sang to him, and cried for him.  I was making arrangements with the nurse to spend the following days and nights with him.  I had to go home and pack a bag for myself.  I was worried he wasn’t going to make it through the night, but the hospice nurse said that he should still be ok.  I wanted him to hold on a little longer. I didn’t want him to die alone. I wanted to be by his side.

I started driving down the expressway to go home and pack. The caller ID on my cell phone showed the hospital was calling. Edry died twenty minutes after I had left him.  I turned around and went back to the hospital.  My daughter and brother met me there.  Edry was ready to die after I had left. He held on as long as he could.  The nurse said that he most likely didn’t want me to see him go; that he was trying to spare me the pain of watching him die. That sounded like something Edry would do, always thinking of what was best for me. But I know that it was God that did what was best for me.  God breathed life back into Edry, just like the morning Scripture, just not in this life.

One week later, I moved into my parents’ home to care for my mom with my youngest sister, who was losing her battle with ovarian cancer.  I don’t think she was ready to die.  She tried very hard to hold on but the pain was becoming unmanageable. Hospice can be a very emotional and stressful time. There is the dealing with lots of medicines, managing nourishment, and personal care, just like what I did for Edry.  Then I saw Mom’s face that day and she was ready. I held my mom’s hand while we waited.  My dad, my youngest sister and her daughter gathered around Mom as she was slowly slipping away from us and moving on with Jesus.

A year later, I sat in my sister’s bedroom while we attended to her dying husband.  Like Mom, he was not ready to die.  He was strong.  He fought it with all he had, but there came a point that he could not fight it any longer.  I helped my sister, during the week, to take care of him while he was in hospice.  Then one day while I was home sleeping, I got the phone call in the early morning before dawn.  He was now resting with the Lord.

There was a sense of peace that came over these three family members. Their hearts said, “I’m ready.”  They were always ready, but this readiness at the very end was different.  I have said that I’m ready to be with Jesus but when I was dealing with cancer, I struggled with really being ready to die.  Did I do everything God had wanted me to do? Were there things I had to finish on this earth? Would God be able to say, “Come, good and faithful servant?” I’m sure I could get a lot of differing opinions on these questions, but these are questions I wonder about as I’m walking this journey with death being so fresh in my experience.

Then, I think of Jesus.  He was ready to die.  There was no question about that. He told His disciples early on that He would die. Matthew 26:2 says, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion.” He went to the cross willingly for all humanity. The crucifixion of Jesus is a sad event but He did not remain dead. He rose from the grave and sits with His heavenly Father.

My family members are with Jesus now.  They have faithfully served the Lord, spread the Gospel, and have been a living example of a transformed life for Christ. What great joy there is in knowing that their story is not over.  Just as Christ rose and is eternally in heaven with the Father, my family is with Christ, enjoying the fruit of their labor for Jesus. The Master has said, “Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” Matthew 25:21.  How great thou art!

I am ready.  Are you ready? Heavenly Lord, always keep us ready for when you call us to come into Your joy. Let us not be afraid to die but allow us to rest in Your promise, that from this life, we will enter into Your presence, if we have accepted You as Savior, as Lord.

John 3:36 “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”  Today is the day of salvation. Come to Jesus.  He takes away the shame and the pain and replaces it with joy and hope. He takes a broken life and transforms it into a useful vessel for His glory. There is nothing to lose, but everything to gain.

My Redeemer Lives is the perfect song for today.

#5 Dad, My Hero, But Jesus Is My Super Hero

For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

When I think of super heroes of my day, I think of Superman, Batman, and Spiderman. They always saved the day. If someone was in danger, they came to the rescue.  It reminds me of the times I was in danger, and God came to the rescue.  He is the greatest Super Hero of all time, from the beginning of time until the end.  God works through people to be our heroes, our protectors in the flesh, in the human skin.

My dad was my protector.  In kindergarten, I was bullied by a classmate.  She would pinch me until I bled. My slightly,over-sized shoes would slip off my feet and one day at recess, one slipped totally off my foot and she took it and threw it across the playground. Crying, I ran across to get my shoe.  My dad came to school, and with his limited English, he talked to the teacher. He showed her my arms and I had to point to the offender, that mean girl who hated me.  That was all it took for the bullying to stop.  My dad, my hero.

Another time, my sister and I came home from school for lunch. I think we were in first and second grades.  As we were going up the stairs to our apartment on the second floor, two older boys, sons of an acquaintance of my father’s, started pulling us by our coats, trying to drag us down the stairs.  As we tried to fight them off, our screaming brought out my dad and off they ran away.  As an adult, I can only imagine what their evil intentions were. We never saw them again.  Once more, my dad, my hero.

But there were things in life that my dad could not rescue me from.  He couldn’t rescue me from his own brother’s ugly remarks.  He said that I was ugly, skinny, and that no man would ever marry me.  I was too afraid to tell my dad, thinking that he wouldn’t believe me or that no one would really care; or for fear of my pain being minimized, maybe saying something like, “So? Grow up. Stop being so overly sensitive. What’s the big deal?” I think keeping silent was better than knowing no one would care.

My dad couldn’t rescue me from the physical and emotional abuse I endured from my first husband.  I endured six years of silent suffering because I was afraid of those same imaginary remarks; that no one would believe me or that now that I’m married, I have to make the marriage work, no matter what.

After I divorced him, with 3 little ones at 24 years old, my dad couldn’t rescue me from the poor choices I made in relationships; some that made me desperately sad; some that made me lower my self-worth; some that made me feel hopeless.

I was dating a man for almost a year with no real commitment in sight. Though, I had three children and I was in my later twenties, my parents were upset that I was with a non-believer.  My mom was angry but my dad gave me a word of advice.  He said, “Ask him if he is going to marry you.  And if he is not, ask him why not.  If he won’t marry you, then let him go because he will do nothing good for you.”  Wow!  What a concept!  Marriage.  I had sworn off of marriage.  I did not want to be miserable again so I convinced myself that I was happy the way things were, but deep down inside, my father’s words made me realize that I was not happy at all.

So, I took his advice and I ended the relationship.  He did not want a commitment with me and my kids.  He wanted a relationship where he can come and go as he pleased, with no strings attached. It took a couple of months, but he finally stopped calling me and I was all alone again.  I felt miserable.  No man loved me. God was nowhere to be found in my life, so I thought.  My dad wanted what was best for me but here I was alone. My dad was trying to protect me from being stuck in another bad marriage.  God used my dad to speak truth back into my life.  My dad, my hero again.

With the brokenness that I carried in my heart, I felt no one could rescue me from my pain.  But Jesus did.  There was a seed planted a long time ago in my heart and it had not died in the rocky ground.  The Bible says in Matthew 13:20-21 “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.” (NASB)  Yes, I was happy to know that Jesus saved and forgave me but, after 10 years, I never grew into living this wonderful truth.

Maybe that seed that was planted in me was from reading the children’s Bible in the laundry mat when I was young; maybe the seed was from the Holy Spirit experience I had at 17 at a prayer meeting at my parent’s church when they became saved. By the way I lived, that seed or the Word of God that I had heard, should have died, but it didn’t.  I believe God has had a plan for my life all along, regardless of the emotional shambles I lived in.

My landlord was my brother’s father-in-law and he was selling his 2-flat.  That meant I would have to move again for the third time in two years with my three little kids.  My mom and dad lived in their own apartment two blocks away.  My dad bought the building on his very low-paying salary from his factory job. It was my parents’ first home and now I didn’t have to bear the fear of moving again.  Again, my dad, my hero.

Mom and Dad on their 50th wedding anniversary, January 2007

Within about a year, I became friends with a Christian woman at work.  I shared my heartache with her.  She prayed for me.  We became like sisters.  At lunch, she talked about Jesus in a way that I had never heard before.  I felt something stirring in my heart and I couldn’t explain it.  All I know is that I wanted to have lunch with her every day just to hear her share the Lord.  God has always been on my mind. I felt the guilt when I lived in sin, but the guilty feeling didn’t change how I lived; I needed more.  I needed to know, for sure, that God really loved me.

I went to her wedding in April, 1989 and walking her down the aisle was her brother.  She never told me she had a brother and he was handsome, but with my poor luck in life, he was probably married.  Well, he wasn’t.  It was not luck but God’s favor that we met and a year later, Edry and I got married on May 19, 1990. My dad, my hero, walked me down the aisle.  It was the simple wedding I had always dreamed of.  Edry and I had 22 years together when he passed away. 

My dad has been my earthly protector, my hero, but God has orchestrated all my steps and He has protected me all my life, even from that kindergarten bully. I survived a very destructive marriage; that was God’s protection.  When a woman talks about being abused by her husband or boyfriend, there is so much damage that has been done. There is self-hate, self-doubt, suspicion of others, poor self-worth, poor self-image, and heartbreak. There are suicidal thoughts or attempts.  There are thoughts of running away and leaving everyone behind. Along may come self-medicating with alcohol or drugs.  Much of this was me.

God gave me a chance to start anew.  Psalm 31:7-8 says, “I will rejoice and be glad in Your lovingkindness, because You have seen my affliction; You have known the troubles of my soul, And You have not given me over into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a large place.” I am more than overjoyed of God’s love.  He has seen all my pain from failed relationships.  He, Himself, put my feet in a large place, not a tiny room where my spirit would feel confined and trapped, but an open area where I can be free to be myself.

God gave me what I needed, a Godly man who would help me along on my spiritual journey.  I didn’t deserve Edry but God showed His grace on me. He was a gift from God.  But most importantly, God’s gift is salvation, God’s most ultimate gift of self-sacrifice for me.  God forgave me and has been shaping me into the woman He wants me to be. I had Edry’s wedding band inscribed on the inside with our wedding date and the words “God’s Gift”. I wear it on my right thumb to remind me of God’s goodness, His faithfulness when I was faithless, of all His wonderful gifts and blessings in my life.

Edry is gone now and I miss my partner.  My mom is also gone and my kids are all grown up and life is not the same.  My dad still lives in his house with my youngest sister and her daughter with baby lives in my old apartment. But God has not left me or forsaken me.  He continues to protect me.  He protects my heart as a widow.  Psalm 146:9 says, “The Lord protects the strangers, He supports the fatherless and the widow, but He thwarts the way of the wicked.”                                                                                                                                                                                      

God cares what happens to us. He says that He opposes and defeats the plans of our enemies if they try to come against us.  When I am afraid of the world, I can pray, we all can pray Psalm 7:1, “O Lord my God, in You I have taken refuge; Save me from all those who pursue me, and deliver me.”

We can run to God and He protects us. 

My God, my Hero forever. 

the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid

#4 Discovering Peace Through Cancer

Though my parents took us to church every Sunday, I think I must have been about 9 years old when I discovered God and the Bible in a laundry mat.

We started going to the laundry mat across the street from the apartment we lived in.  There was a children’s Bible chained to a table.  I started reading it.  I loved the pictures.  They were bright and large. Every time we went to the laundry mat, I would go straight to the Bible and find where I left off.  The Bible stories came to life for me.  But, eventually, we got a new washing machine, the one with the rollers and the huge tub and the trips to the laundry mat ended.  I never got to finish reading all the great stories.  I wished my mom would have gotten me that Bible.

Over the course of my life, I have discovered new facts and marvelous details about God through reading the Bible; facts like God parted the Red Sea, Jesus healed the sick, Jesus rose from the dead. I learned God cares about my hurts and He loves me. I discovered the peace of God; a peace that I could not understand because it was supernatural. It was a peace given to me by God during a most difficult trial in my life.  If it wasn’t that I was going through this trial, I would never have experienced that God could give peace that would settle a person’s fears, even when facing death.

Someone once said that my life was like that of Job's, but it wasn’t.  I have suffered but not like Job, whose friends were blaming him for all his trials.  I have caring friends that have supported me and shown me God’s love during my suffering.

After my husband Edry was diagnosed in June 2008 with early onset dementia at 51, I started to panic.  I was near the end of my master’s program in education.  This couldn’t be happening.  What were we going to do?  What was I going to do?  Should I finish school?  Should I quit? Who was going to help me?  “God tell me!!”  I couldn’t pray.  I was frozen.  I was numb.  I was in a panic. 

Well, my plan was to hurry up and finish school and graduate before Edry got mentally worse.  I only needed 3 classes and I had already started one of them in August for the fall semester.  It was difficult with teaching and taking one night class.  I made sure I took the class one night a week so I wouldn’t be out from the house more than that.  Sometimes Edry would stay with his daughter, sometimes with his brother and family.

But my plan fell through. I was 1 ½ months short of finishing the class when I was diagnosed with a rare colorectal cancer at age 50, in October 2008, 5 months after Edry’s diagnosis.  The doctors told me the horrible news after my family had already gone home from the hospital.  I lay in a hospital bed, crying all by myself.  That is when I panicked even more. I had more questions for God.  What am I going to do? Am I going to die?  Who will take care of Edry? Will I not see my grandsons grow up? God, I don’t want to die! I felt as if I was going to have a heart attack.

The surgery was brutal.  The radiation treatments were worse.  The chemotherapy almost killed me. When I developed a pulmonary embolism in my lung, my prayer to God, while in the ER, was “Lord, let me live long enough to take care of my husband and to bury him.”  I survived the blood clot but the chemotherapy treatments pushed me to the edge. My quality of life was dismal.  I was sick for five months longer. 

The pain and the progression of the weakening of my body were too much for me to bear.

*I lost all my hair except a few eyelashes and some of my eyebrows.

*I lost 21 % of my body weight, which was already dangerous at 10%. 

*I started getting regular shots to boost my immune system, which caused bone pain, even in my skull. 

*I could not be around too many people, especially if they were sick.

*I developed anemia from the weight loss.

*I developed brain fog which caused me to forget.

*I developed neuropathy.

* I had nerve damage.

*I developed problems sleeping.

*I was vomiting every day, sometimes twice a day. 

*My colon was burnt from the radiation and daily diarrhea.

*I developed ringing in my ears.

*I had hot flashes most of the day. 

I honestly didn’t think I would make it through.  I always felt my doctors fussed over me and this was why. It was during this time that I surrendered my panic to the Lord and discovered God’s peace.  I cried out to God to show me what to do.  His reply was in Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”   I stopped worrying about how Edry was doing at work and coming home late because he was lost.  I stopped worrying about our income.  I had to stop worrying about living or dying. I had to stop worrying because I could do nothing but be still and exalt God above my situation. God would have someone to take care of my husband if I were to die.  God knew that Edry’s care was extremely important to me and I believed that God would have the right person to help him.  

So, for six months, in a bed, I was still.  I prayed, I sang songs to Jesus, I read the Word.  I was too weak to do anything else.  Sometimes, I was too weak to cry. During my 3 week breaks from treatment, God would give me a little strength and I would go to Sunday Bible study and service once a month.  I didn’t tell my doctor I was going to church because he would tell me to stay home.  Then I discovered that I had God’s peace; I was ready for whatever would happen.  God removed my panic.  God healed me; my heart and later, my body.

Sometimes I look back, now that it has been almost seven years since this trial and journey started, and I know it was God that got me through it all.  And it has been God who has walked with me during the darkest days while I was doing my cancer treatments. I have found God to be faithful at giving me peace. God brought many people from my church to feed us.  People helped with our finances.  My coworkers donated 40 sick days right when I had no more days.  People called, brought me gifts to lift my spirits, but most importantly, people prayed for me.  People prayed for us.

It’s so difficult to have peace when everything in your life is marked by chaos.  Who can find peace?  We can.  How?  It’s surrendering your fears and asking for peace in prayer.  People who don’t know of God’s miraculous power will have a hard time with this.  How can a God, who says that He is good, cause suffering on His children?  A coworker asked me that very question when I was diagnosed.  My response was, “I am no different from anyone else.  Just because I love God, does not exempt me from suffering.  It’s about having faith and trusting that God has only good for me and that I will see the good through all of this.”

In May, it will be six years since my chemo treatments ended.  I am cancer-free.  But I have paid the price for all those chemicals running through my body.  I, like many other people who have suffered the effects of cancer, live with physical struggles every day.  Some things have stayed.

*The neuropathy stayed; painful if my hands or feet are injured. 

*The ringing in my ears stayed.

*Nerve damage stayed.

*Chronic fatigue stayed.

*Poor sleeping stayed.

*Chronic diarrhea stayed, which is now managed with strong medication.

*Digestive disorder stayed; it’s hard to know what to eat anymore. 

*Poor balance stayed, which makes me stumble.

*Memory problems; hard to memorize Bible verses anymore or commit other things to memory.

*My teeth, nails, and hair have weakness that has stayed. 

But Jesus took all of these problems and more, on the cross, for me.  Isaiah 53:5 says, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” (NASB) 

Romans 8:28 says, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (NIV)

Not only did Jesus die on the cross for my sins, but also for my infirmities, of the physical kind and the spiritual kind too.  My well-being is possible because Jesus carried it and His beatings have healed me.  I have found peace and joy in God, despite cancer, despite widowhood. Since I love God, He works things out for my good. I did graduate in May 2010 and Edry, my parents, and youngest sister were there. Praise God!

I symbolically stand at the cross and say, “Thank you Lord for the healing of my body and peace for my soul.”

#3 Spring Cleaning of the Heart

As a girl, I remember Spring Break used to be called Clean Up Week.  The schools would get a midyear cleaning.  We would go back to school the following week and everything would look brand new.  The floors were shiny.  Walls would be painted.

What I believed as a kid was that we were off from school to go home and clean. My mom had us clean alright. I remember the sweeping and mopping of the floors.  My two sisters and I would clean the bathroom, dust, wash dishes and so much more.  I remember one year, my dad was painting the kitchen during clean up week. It was Sunday before we were done and then it was back to school.  It was not fun for me.  But it had to get done.  With five kids, ages so close to each other, I’m surprised my mom survived all our messes.

After I married Edry, his idea for Spring Break was to get the family in the van and go to Disney World.  Forget the mess at home made by my three kids and his two kids that came over every other weekend.  It was time to have fun; and that we did.  In fact, we took that road trip three years in a row.  Edry loved warm weather.  He loved having fun.  He did not mind skipping the drudgery of housework.  It would get done when it was absolutely necessary, which meant all day on a Saturday, with everyone doing their part.  Living life and family time was more important to him.  I understood that but I hated dirty dishes and piled up laundry.

When Edry’s illness progressed and he could no longer hold down a job, our house in the city was sold and I had to clean it out to move to my daughter and her husband’s basement of their suburban home.

June of 2012, I cleaned out my classroom and packed up my personal things and teacher materials because I would be teaching a new grade in the fall.  I stored it in a Public Storage.  I cleaned out Edry’s closet of things he no longer wore, so I sent that to the Public Storage. 

In July 2012, one week after Edry passed away, I had to clean out what would have been my new classroom and bring all my things home.  I took a family leave of absence to help my youngest sister take care of my mom who had just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  I had to clean out the Public Storage and bring all of Edry’s belongings and my accumulated teacher materials back home.  It looked like I would not go back to work for awhile and I would not be able to afford the storage.

I had the awful task of going through Edry’s things again and decide what I would keep and what I would donate.  More cleaning. I cried for days looking at the empty closet.  I quickly filled it with my clothes so I would not look at the empty, dark space staring at me, making me feel worse because I had emptied it out. 

I moved some of my things to my mom and dad’s house and lived there while my mom was in hospice.  She died five weeks later.   So I had to clean up my things and move back home to an empty basement, crowded with belongings I had to declutter. I have been cleaning over and over for five years. 

When I think about the Lord, He wants us to come to Him with a clean heart; one that has repented, one that is sincere.  He wants us to say, “Lord, here I am with my baggage.  I’ve been cleaning up my life but it just doesn’t get clean.  I’ve been purging and decluttering my life but I still feel like a mess.”  The mess could be that we have not ever really given our lives over to Jesus Christ, who could make us clean and new through the salvation of the cross.  The mess could be that we hold on to bitterness because the way life has treated us.  It could be insecurities, low self-esteem, or addictions. 

Though I tried to clean and purge my home, which was necessary, I was neglecting my heart.  I was hurt.   No husband.  No mother.  Just like that.  But what the Lord wanted was my heart so He could clean out my pain and replace it with joy.  I was stubborn.  I wanted to wallow in sorrow.  It was my right to wallow, I thought, but it got old really fast and I couldn’t look at my sorry self in the mirror.  So, I asked God to repair my broken heart, my broken life.  It’s not been easy.  I’ve had many setbacks but God is there to clean me up, to restore me again and again.  I don’t resist His love for me anymore.  

The Lord wants you and me to be connected to Him like a branch off of a vine.  When we are connected, we can bear fruit or show that we are growing in Christ. When we grow in Christ, no matter what is going on in our lives, we are able to let go of the hurt that keeps us from being the person God wants us to be.  John 15:1-4 says, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.  You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.  Abide in Me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” (NASB)

Suffering doesn't mean it's over.

I am clean.  We are clean.  We don’t have to keep trying to clean up our lives.  The word of God has been spoken to us and if we have received it in our hearts, God takes us as we are, mess and all. We must abide in Him; stay with Him.  Stick it out with Him and not walk away. This is what we all have to do no matter what our circumstances are so that we can move forward during difficult times.  We have to let God repair our hearts so we can love Him and love others.  We want to be able to look in the mirror and say, “I am loved by the Almighty God and He cares what happens to me.”

We cannot clean ourselves up.  People say “When I get my life in order, then I’ll go to church, then I’ll serve others, then I’ll accept Jesus as my Savior, then I’ll. . . (fill in the blank).  No, no, my dear friend, Jesus wants you like you are.  Isn’t that wonderful?  We don’t have to fix ourselves up.

Almost a year later, I moved in with my other sister.  I was helping her take care of her husband who was in hospice.  He was diagnosed with brain cancer right after my mom died.  We’ve cried many tears, but I wouldn’t have been able to be a support to her if I did not let God clean up my heart.  God had pruned me or cut away those parts of me that would not help anyone, so I can bear fruit; fruit that helped my sister during the most awful moment of her life.  Pruning hurts but being connected to the Almighty God is the only way we can get through life. 

Again, I cleaned up my things and went back home after my brother in-law’s passing, with a sense of purpose; a connection to Christ like the branch on the vine.

I write about my own experiences with suffering and finding joy and purpose in Christ. When we stay connected to Christ, we can find joy through the pain. 

#2 Memories, Pictures, Laughter, and Comfort

I have always loved Barbra Streisand’s song, “The Way We Were”.  It is such a sentimental song about memories, smiles and the way things used to be. I remember, early on in our marriage, Edry and I went into one of those recording booths at Six Flags, sometime in the 1990s, to record a song.  I can’t remember the song he recorded.  I think it was an Elvis Presley song, because he knew them all. But, I recorded “The Way We Were”.  I lost that tape somewhere.  I wish I still had it.

The words are more sentimental now that he has passed away.  There’s a line in the song “Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind” that takes me back to when I was going through pictures for his funeral service.  The pictures had to be perfect pictures.  They had to reflect the man that I knew was perfect for me and my kids.  The pictures had to show happy times with smiles.

Those smiles were left behind, like the song says. After he became ill, it was so hard to smile.  The smile I put on my face took so much effort.  There were fake smiles, half a smile, “I’m going to cry” smiles, “please don’t feel sorry for me” smiles and the dreaded “don’t ask me how I’m doing” smiles. All these smiles took every ounce of effort and courage to put on; these were pretentious smiles.  I needed to have my “smiles”  so that I could survive the pain of questions and the struggle of life day after day.

I could only be myself in the privacy of my own bathroom.  That is where the smile would come off and I could cry my heart out.  You see, I had to put on a smile for Edry, as well.  I could not let him see me cry over the fact that he was slowly dying from early-onset dementia.   I could not cry with him over what was happening to his mind.  Much of that journey I cried alone.  I am glad that this verse in the Scriptures gives me comfort. 

Psalm 56:8 says "You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?” (NASB)

I am grateful that God puts every tear in His bottle.  I hope the bottle is big because I’m still not done crying.  But that’s ok.  God is the God of all comfort. When I read my Bible, God gives me comfort for the moment and for the days to come. 

In fact, I have a responsibility to tell others this message because it says in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (NASB)

So if you find yourself in need of comfort, don’t worry about the tears.  God has your tears in His bottle.  If you feel any kind of affliction pressing down on you, the Lord is the God of all comfort and He can comfort you like no one else can. He is the Father of mercy and compassion. 

My husband died, but that doesn’t mean that God abandoned me. Rather, God continues to comfort me daily.  Sometimes I cry looking at our pictures and sometimes I smile. But when I smile, I can now actually wear an “I am blessed” smile.

“So it’s the laughter we will remember,

whenever we remember the way we were” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGG_6AkhTII

#1 Wandering and Tears

My first blog post. A little scary for me.  I’m going to let others in on my heart and my thoughts about suffering and God’s joy.

What’s with the title? Well, so many tears I’ve cried and at one point, I wondered, “Does God get tired of my crying?  Is there somewhere in the Bible where God tells me to get over it?” My tears are not wasted. 

Psalm 56:8 says "You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?” (NASB)

How far can wandering take a person? What happens during a time of wandering?  Wandering can take us to the deepest pit in our lives.  It can take us farther than the pit’s scum. Wandering can cause such great sorrow. Wandering can take us so far away from any resemblance of a normal life. A normal life meaning having a job, going to school, married with kids and even having a dog.  When we wander away from a stable life we can find ourselves doing drugs, in prostitution, committing crimes, abandoning our kids or family. The list can go on. 

But wandering doesn’t have to be that drastic. It can be as uneventful as watching too much television, having a drink after work with coworkers every Friday, or working too much. We can find ourselves wandering in life in these situations as well.

Maybe wandering can come about when we are trying to find who we are in life, why we even exist. We find there is no satisfaction in anything we try, like getting a higher education or volunteering to help the poor. 

My wanderings have led me astray, far away from God. As I have walked around in this life, I have searched for something or someone to fill the void that I have felt most of my life until my wonderful husband became ill and passed away. It was when I myself became ill that me, this Christian woman, really looked to Jesus as the One who could fill the void that no man could, not my husband, not my children, not my parents, siblings, or friends. No one. 

But it’s interesting that the Scripture says that God takes all our wanderings into account. He has been paying attention to all the back roads we have taken. Nothing has escaped Him. Why would God even pay attention or care, especially since we have wandered so far off? We are already a huge mess and nothing can fix us, so why should God care? Because we are created in His image and we matter to Him. In Matthew 10:30-31, Jesus says, “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear, you are more valuable than many sparrows.” (NASB)

Since God cares that much, He has a bottle to keep our tears. He also has a record of our tears in His book. These are the tears that have come from pain when we have wandered so far from God; or wandered just a little.  These are tears that come from illness, from death, from worrying over a wayward child, from being unemployed too long, from feeling alone, from wondering if the crying will ever stop. God does not forget the tears we cry. They are precious to Him. They matter to Him because we matter to Him. 

I just found out last year that God puts my tears in His bottle. I don’t know why I never saw this Scripture before.                                                                                                               

Those who I have shared my story with have encouraged me to write so others can be encouraged by the faithfulness God has shown me.  At the beginning of my recent journey, I did not feel God was faithful to me, mostly because I equated faithfulness with everything going right; no serious troubles, no real turmoil. But when the bottom fell out of my life, I did not see God as being faithful.

I have had multiple journeys in my life: young girl, first marriage, single mother, remarriage and stepmother, and now widow. As I tell my story, I know I will take you to my different journeys. Through all of these, God has always walked with me even though I didn’t realize it.

If you wonder if God could ever restore a broken life, I’m here to tell you that He can. God is healing me every day.  I am sharing my heart, my thoughts, and what God has done for me.  I pray that maybe there is something I’ve written that can help you and make sense for you. My goal is to direct you to God.  He is the only one that can change how you feel, just say yes and He will.