Dilemma or Delight?

This week we came to the end of Beth Moore's book, "Beloving God" and although this idea wasn't directly mentioned in it, this question emerged in my mind.

Before I state the question, here's the the background. I have suffered with headaches even as a small child. From studies I've read about headaches, those early headaches probably were due to food allergies. As the years progressed, the headaches continued, following no pattern, but no doubt at times due to hormonal upsets, lack of a proper rest, neck injuries (I slipped on an icy sidewalk one winter and gave myself a whiplash), etc. (Believe it or not, no hangovers.)

Now, my question is this: I know and believe that it is scriptural to praise/thank God in all things (not "for") but in  all things, and I would take that to include times when my head and neck would just as soon have been removed to my heavenly home (along with the rest of me).

I don't think I have been bitter against God because my head hurt but only until I have come out on the other side of my headache, do I remember that I didn't manage to praise Him, anyway. Hence my question--why can't I remember to praise Him at such times? I'm certainly not able to do much else worthwhile when a migraine hits.

The Lord very graciously answered my question  the next day as I read a weekly e-mail newsletter from a missionary in Kenya. She had come down with a case of flu complicated by a sinus infection. Then her husband caught the bug and as they were commiserating over their dilemma, God brought to their memory a scripture passage they had read before the flu hit: 2 Chronicles, chapter 20.

The middle of verse 6 says "in Your hand is there not power and might." At the end of verse 12 says "our eyes are upon You" and the end of verse 17 we read,"Don't be dismayed, for the Lord is with you."

The whole key to being able to praise God in all things, is to keep our focus on Him, not the dismal circumstances/dilemma of the moment, be they dealing with a flu bug, sinus infection, or a migraine. And, of course, our satanic enemy is delighted when all we can see is the dilemma we find ourselves in. rather than keeping our eyes on God, Who is ever with us, and Who wins the "battle" every time.

The story in 2 Chronicles is about one of those impossible battles where humanly speaking, the Israelites didn't have a chance. But God's powerful action on Israel's behalf is just as real and active today for us.

I can't promise myself from this point on that I'll be able to do more than moan when a headache hits, but I really do think at some point, I'll remember this scripture and direct my eyes toward the Great Physician instead of focusing on my pain and discomfort. That means the dilemma can become a delight. Sounds good to me!

April Showers Paid Off

I don't remember seeing any of my flowers blooming as early as they have this spring. Mind you, I'm not complaining. The minute I spy a bloom, I usually clip it and bring it inside. I'm not very generous with passersby in that respect. Plus the fact that one never knows when a vagrant snowstorm might hit.

Actually, the first surprise was the early arrival of the daffodils along with a different colored crocus than I had ever seen before. Don't think I planted it--in fact, I always anticipate what colorful surprises emerge in my flower gardens--and the Creator never fails to delight me.

My next surprise was lilacs in my backyard by the middle of May. Usually, it's June when they appear, if at all. I planted tulips with abandon at some point a year or so ago. The yield was not abundant this year but colorful. The red ones didn't get recorded for posterity but the white one is included with the lilacs. 

Yesterday Dean asked me if I'd noticed the iris blooming. I had not, but they were doing a beautiful job it in spite of my inattention. On top of that, when I went to the mailbox today, I noticed the spirea bush blooming. Just a note of nostalgia on that one. We used to have a large spirea bush at the farmhouse in Missouri where I grew u[. I can remember breaking off the slender limbs ( probably not the right term) and making them into a "bride's" tiara. 

Now it's time to be thinking of planting vegetables (actually, I'm tardy for some seeds--what else is new?) During my weekly trip to the grocery store today the first thing I noticed upon entering the store was  a lovely, green display of tomato plants. I chose one already bearing a baby tomato about the size of a cherry. There are four blossoms also residing on the plant, so those tomatoes will only cost me $.50/fruit. What a deal!  However, I'll pamper those expensive little tomatoes inside until at least the middle of June. Despite our warm weather, I don't trust Mother Nature's track record in NE Nevada.

Birthday Celebration: Making Memories

Hard to believe that our “baby boy” is embarking on his fourth decade of life as of April 19. We were not able to travel to Indy this year for his birthday, so flew him to Salt Lake City and picked him up there so he could drive us to Colorado Springs to see Aunt Ruthie, Dean’s sister.

This was the first extended road trip in “The Cadillac” and the front seat passengers found the ride quite cushy. The back seat passengers, namely Linus and me, found it to be a bit crowded due to initially poor packing but also cushy. I did get my exercise during the trip as climbing out of the back seat of a two-door vehicle requires somewhat of a contortionist’s act.

On the way to Colorado Springs, we stopped in Leadville to see friends we last visited in Pima, AZ. Talk about a change in altitude! It was great to see the Brummers again and get acquainted with Eliza.

We had a wonderful time with Ruthie and Terry in Colorado Springs plus Jeff flew in for Brian’s birthday so we had a mini-reunion. Thanks to Ruthie we got to visit Magic Town at the Michael Garman Museum. What a marvel. Also got to drive around Garden of the Gods which was gorgeous despite the storm that was threatening.

Brian chose Boston Crème Cake instead of his traditional angel food cake as his birthday cake of choice. Jeff artistically placed the candles to read 39 which, unfortunately is not readable. 

Below we have Brian and Ruthie playing guitar duets. Makes me think of the jam session back in Bairoil, WY days with Dad Diehl on guitar, Belinda, on piano, Ruthie on trumpet or guitar and Gwyn on coffee can (her drum). Good memories.


Terry had a great scrapbook  of pictures of two  of her dogs. Brian decided to "sing" the scrapbook using her picture captions for lyrics and making up his own music along the way. He said he had sung a Dr Seuss book for friends in Indy so this wasn't too much of a stretch for his creativity. Shades of Gwyn! She used to make up her own lyrics when she forgot the words to a song she was singing.



All these wonderful memories make me think of the chapter we're reading called "Beliving God was Faithful in Your Past. When I think of how far back in time God has been faithful in my life, it's really awesome. (Of course, I have to take into account my advanced age)

The first chapter of Joshua tells of how God heaped up the waters of the Jordan River at flood stage so the children of Israel could cross. He commanded that 12 men be chosen to each pick up a large stone from the middle of the riverbed and carry it on beyond the bank to serve as a memorial for what God had done. Then whenever the descendants of the People asked, “Why is that pile of stones there?” an answer could be given of how God faithfully made a way for His people.

I think that would be a good practice to do—except my memorial won’t be a pile of stones—maybe more like a Letter to My Boys.

Salad Bowl Philosophy Part 2

Victorious Christian living. A great concept and I believe in it—but I don’t understand it very well so it’s residing in my “spiritual salad bowl.” In my last post I mentioned Beth Moore’s book, “Believing God.” I started reading her book and realized it contained such good “meaty” concepts that I needed to share it with Dean. So as we have time to sit down together in the morning—which hasn’t been easy recently since we have been such gad-abouts—I read him a chapter.  

In Chapter 1, Beth asks the question:  “Is your belief system working?” This could be a very uncomfortable process if I’m being honest. I have to ask myself, am I succeeding in this Christian life or am I just getting by? Do I see any evidence of God’s power in my life? 

She writes, “Faith is the only thing that will close the gap between our theology and our reality,” and further explains that faith or belief isn’t just something we have but something we do. She uses her Greek instructor’s explanation of the word, “believe” (see Ephesians 1:9) as a present active participle verb. If the explanation stopped there, I would be clueless, but her teacher went on to explain, “Think of using the word, ‘continually’ preceding your verb.” In other words, the scripture means “continually believing God.”

Now this is the awesome point I’m heading for. In Ephesians 1:18-20, Paul is praying for the Ephesians (and us) that we might know “his [God’s] incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his [God’s] mighty strength which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead.”

And guess what! The word, believe, in this spot is a present active participle verb. That kind of power is beyond anything I can try to describe and God wants me to continually believe He can do what He says He can do and be Who He says He is. That type of  present participle faith/belief can certainly clear away my disconnect between being a victorious Christian and just getting by. That concept is no longer in the salad bowl. Now all I have to d--is do it. 

Salad Bowl Philosophy

First of all, I must credit a friend for naming this concept although the idea may well be a familiar one to most of us.

Generally, speaking, the ingredients in a salad are considered to be very nutritious whether it be a vegetable salad or a fruit salad (I won’t be discussing the elements of jello salada at this point). However, as we eat each bite of one of these nutritious salads, we do not particularly consider each leaf of lettuce or spinach or each chunk of tomato or cucumber.

So it is with many of our beliefs. In the cases that come to mind are such concepts as Heaven about which our pastor preached last week. I won’t belabor any points since his excellent sermon can be heard on our www/calvaryelko.org website. Suffice it to say that it brought many comments from mature Christian friends who said that they had never heard heaven explained that way before. It was one such conversation that my friend said  heaven was one of those beliefs she just tossed in the salad bowl. In other words, she believed it because the Bible taught it, but she didn’t understand it.

Randy Alcorn has written a fictional trilogy about some men and their experiences with heaven: Deception, Dominion, and Deadline (not in that order). Very interesting views of what we will be doing in heave, and for those who might gag at the thought of eternally playing harps, he (and Pastor Sam) bring up other options.

Back to the salad bowl idea.  I have been reading a Beth Moore book entitled “Believing God.” This blog is getting too long to go where I’m heading, so I guess the next blog will be a continuation. For right now the thought I’m focusing on is that the more we study God’s Word, the more we can take a belief out of our “salad bowl” and understand truths which were previously just accepted.

I would love to dialog with any readers about what I've written.

An Anniversary—of Sorts

This is the blog post I intended to write last week but ran out of motivation. Four years ago on March 1, I suffered my first broken bone. I was making last minute preparations for hosting a Bible Study at my house and decided my tablecloth needed to be shaken. I headed for the back door, stepped out on the concrete step..the next thing I knew, I was sitting on icy concrete with a most excruciating pain in my ankle. Almost as bad as the pain was the memory of the internal crack I had heard as I fell.

I painfully inched my way backwards through the door. Fortunately, it had not shut.( I just now thought of that and shudder to think of how I might have frozen out on my own back doorstep until Dean finally realized I was missing. That would have been hypothermia piled upon shock!)

Dean finally heard my feeble yelps from the laundry room and I convinced him to call the ambulance as it hurt too much to hobble to the car. Once the EMTs arrived and got my leg stabilized, the pain stopped. Of course, I have a feeling that the prayers of my Bible Study group had a bearing on that.

The leg was x-rayed and casted at the ER and I saw the orthopedic surgeon at the end of the week.  After looking at the x-ray, her verdict was a spiral fracture. That meant surgery with a plate and screws holding the bone in place and no weight bearing on that ankle for six weeks. I can definitely state that anesthesia is a great thing and having it wear off is not so wonderful. That was one nasty pain. No doubt my friends who have had knee replacements would call me a wimp, but each to his own pain level!

I was not yet retired so I learned how to use a variety of  wheeled aids to get around: office chair, walker, and wheel chair. Heading for the restroom at the office was an interesting procedure. I would “scoot” my desk chair to the office door, retrieve my walker, hop to the wheelchair, climb in, fold up the walker on my lap and wheel myself down the hall. Then unfold the walker, get out of the chair, etc. 

Since I am the main cook in the household, we got to eat lots of fast food until my balance was good enough to move around the kitchen easily.  It’s surprising how difficult it is to move pans off burners, open oven doors and put in baking dishes, all while balancing on one leg.  It can actually be a challenge to chop an onion on a cutting board.

At the end of six weeks, the long screw was removed from the fracture so I could begin putting weight on that ankle. I opted to have it done with a local anesthetic. Not a good idea, particularly since an emergency occurred at the doctor’s office where the procedure was being done and the Lydocaine wore off before she could finish. The second shot wasn’t pleasant  and getting sewn up was DEFINTELY the worst part. I wish I could find that long screw—it was really impressive—I would say two inches in length, but of course, things like that grow in your memory--sort of like the fish that got away..  

 

The remaining hardware I carried around in my ankle are pictured here and were removed a year later. The doctor suggested I might want to make a wind chime out of the plate and screws but I haven’t yet managed to get that written  on Dean’s honey-do list.

I hope not to repeat any bone-breaking activities, but the healing of an “old bone” like mine is a very real testimony of the healing power God has built into our bodies. A friend and I were discussing how we take the normal function of our body parts so for granted—until we break an ankle or wrist, or need a knee or shoulder replaced.

One thing about it: if you like to shop, breaking a leg will help curb that desire quickly.L  

One Hundred Years

I have been reading a novel about a young 21^st century woman and her great-grandmother who sailed on the Titanic—and survived. She had known her great-grandmother as an elementary school ager before the lady died in her 80’s.

That made me think of my grandmother and how the year 1913 doesn’t seem all that far removed to me.  However,I would certainly think life strange if I were suddenly  transported by time travel back to that era. Maybe 1913 doesn’t seem foreign to me because the majority of my adult life was spent in the 20^th century. Plus, many beloved family figures that I knew well were either children or young adults at that time.

Anyway,back to my grandmother—she would have been 19 in 1913, nearly ready to embark on her 2^nd decade of life. Here is an invitation she kept from two years earlier to a Halloween Party. The illustration looks like it was done with colored pencil and the party was to run from 7 to 10 PM. Teenagers and their parties have changed in the last 100 years.  

In six years Grandmother would be married and prior to that, she  taught in a country schoolhouse. She could well have begun her teaching career in 1913; there’s no one left now to attest to the year she started. Back in those days a degree wasn’t necessary to teach. A teacher could teach during the regular school year and go to summer school at a Teacher’s College somewhere nearby.

During that decade she would have seen “the world war” begin the next year in 1914. Even the United States was embroiled in World War I ending in 1918. The war to end all the wars--too bad that statement didn't hold true. 

I’m far from being 19 in this year 2013, but it is interesting to think about what has happened in the years between 1913 and 2013. I have to say, I still think it’s strange to write the year’s date with 20 at the beginning. And I've been doing that for how long now?