The Broken Parts of Our Lives.

 

Painting by Belle Unruh

The Broken Parts of Our Lives.

When I look back on the events in my life that broke my heart, I can see how grief has changed me. The pain in other people’s lives made me want to listen to and help them. My own pain taught me lessons, like how a parent feels when a child rebels and enters into a self-destructive life, and how one feels when someone they love has died. I understand the pain of divorce and mental illness. My heart goes out to those who are suffering and has led me to donate to charities.

Having gone through poverty and a few months of homelessness, I look with pity on people who wander the streets and go through garbage cans. I have a deep desire to give to the poor. Without my own suffering, I probably would have gone on as I did when I was young, happy and carefree, not giving a thought to those who are hurting.

I have seen images of broken pottery being compared to our lives and the caption is usually something like this: “God shines best through our broken spaces.” I decided to paint this image. When I sent a photo of my painting to a friend, he wrote a letter back and told me his story of a broken urn. I want to share this with everyone.

“Around 20 years ago, my wife’s brother was helping us carry items into the house from the cargo bay of our SUV. We had been shopping at a Target Store and had purchased a very large painted ceramic urn that we wanted to use as a decorative indoor accent. We had a hand truck (dolly), but her brother, being a macho man, insisted that he could bear hug the urn and carry it in by himself. We reluctantly agreed to let him do it.  He was 10 feet from where we wanted the urn positioned when he lost his grip and it fell to the floor and shattered.  At first, we thought the urn was a total loss, but it was so expensive that my wife wanted to see if she could salvage it.   Fortunately, most of the pieces were large, enabling her to "work the jigsaw puzzle" and glue them back together. When she finished, we were amazed at the result.

The urn wound up having more character and looking more interesting and beautiful than it was before it was broken. It was "perfectly imperfect." The glue bulged from the cracks a little and turned a tan color, making it appear that the urn was draped in rope.  We have had the urn proudly displayed in our family room ever since with an artificial palm tree inside it. It is a conversation starter. Visitors notice it immediately and remark how lovely it is. They don't believe it when we tell them how it "came together" by accident.”

I believe God allows pain in our lives to make us into better people. Unfortunately, we don’t learn much from a wonderful day at Disneyland. I know death, pain and suffering are a result of sin and come from Satan and everyone shares in that pain. We were given no choice to be born into a fallen world, but God gives us each a chance to follow him. If we do, instead of anger and bitterness at our lot, learning of God’s love for us and the world will melt our hearts and we can learn good from evil.  God’s rescue plan is vast, he has many ways of reaching out to us, and not all of them involve pain. In fact, it was the birth of my first daughter that made me turn my face towards God. I wanted to be a good mother and knew I couldn’t do it without him.

There is a wonderful chapter in the Book of Psalms. It shows in detail how God draws people to himself. I hope you will take the time to read it. Each example of people in terrible trouble ends in praise to God. I’ve shortened the chapter:

Psalm 107

Some wandered in desert wastes,
finding no way to a city to dwell in;
hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way
till they reached a city to dwell in.

Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
prisoners in affliction and in irons,
for they had rebelled against the words of God,
and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;
they fell down, with none to help.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and burst their bonds apart.

Some were fools through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;
they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from their destruction.

Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the great waters;
they saw the deeds of the LORD,
his wondrous works in the deep.
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their evil plight;
they reeled and staggered like drunken men
and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.

Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!

God Surrounds Us.

Photo by: Antonysamy Xavier

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Antonysamy_Xavier&action=edit&redlink=1

I haven't published for awhile. My mother had a few minor heart attacks and was in the hospital overnight. They gave us some medicine and she is fine now. I'm so glad she is still here at 92 years old.

In the third chapter of Joshua, the people of Israel are prepared to go into the promised land and take it. The Jordan River flows between them and Jericho. God tells Joshua to have the priests take the Ark of the Covenant to the river. They were to go ahead of the people with the ark and stop in the middle. Then the people could pass over. The river stopped flowing the moment the priest’s feet hit the water.

I thought about how God promises to go before us.  “It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”  Deuteronomy 31:8

My granddaughter just finished taking a college course on office work. She has been doing very well and is now in her practicum at the college itself. She loves the people there along with her desk space which has a lovely view out the windows. She would like to get a job there but there are no openings right now. She is concerned about getting a job.

One reason I love God is that he says, “Don’t worry about anything.” I’m not worried for her because I know God has gone before her and she will get a job. A job is a need, and he promises to supply all our needs. Many times he doesn’t do this swiftly. Many times he does. However long he takes, we can ask him to make us patient and to learn how to trust him in the waiting.

In Isaiah chapter 58, God tells us that if we are good to our neighbors and help the poor he will be our rearguard. The rearguard is a detachment of soldiers protecting the army as it marches ahead into battle. Yes, that is God.

Isaiah 58:8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

God also promises to be beside us.

“For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”   Isaiah 41:18 

Finally, God promises to surround us.

Psalm 3:3   But you, O LORD, are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.

Treasury of David: Bible Hub.

“Here David avows his confidence in God. "Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me." The word in the original signifies more than a shield; it means a buckler round about, a protection which shall surround a man entirely, a shield above, beneath, around, without and within. Oh, what a shield is God for his people! He wards off the fiery darts of Satan from beneath, and the storms of trials from above, while, at the same instant, he speaks peace to the tempest within the breast.”

It is good to meditate on these words. We can picture Jesus in front of us, beside us, behind us and then realize he is all around us. When I think hard about the fact the God of the universe, a being that powerful and amazing, walks with me through life, I stand in awe of him.

Distracted From God.

Photo from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:German_Federal_Archives

I’m having trouble spending as much time as I would like to in seeking God each day. I’m still doing that, but not as much as before. I’ll explain.

My mother was diagnosed with colon cancer around a year ago. We went through a lot together before the diagnosis. She broke her hip, seemed to have dementia, was in a nursing home and then came home to me. I’m so glad she is home.

When she returned, the doctors and I thought that lack of enough Vitamin B12 was the reason for her weakness and dementia. I’ve been giving her shots and she is slowly healing. She couldn’t read or watch TV at first; but that all changed with the shots. She does have short-term memory damage, but I hope it improves. A person can live 10 years with colon cancer and that is what I am hoping for.

For the last months Mom has not wanted to read as much. I think she forgets what she has read so I am ordering magazines. She enjoys those. She does like TV a lot, especially British shows. Most of those are written beautifully and the stories are compelling.

So, we started with Father Brown and Midsummer Murders. I’ve seen those before, so I would read and pray as she watched, or do that after she went to bed. But things started to change for me with Downton Abbey.

I love that show. I’ve seen it years ago so I thought I would not watch. But I’d forgotten a lot of it and couldn’t take my eyes away from it for weeks. Then this week we started Paranoia, a British police mini-series. Well, it is fascinating and the writing and acting are amazing. They certainly know what they are doing in England. My husband watches tons of American cop shows and they are boring so I am not tempted to spend hours watching them.

Last night, after watching a 5-hour marathon of Paranoia, I knew I had to do something! But when Mom got up to go to bed, she said, “Didn’t I used to play a computer game?” I told her she used to play Flipwords. She said, “I’d like to do that again.”  Well, thank God. She can play that for hours and love it. She told me she had had enough of that show. The story is complex and I think she doesn’t know what is going on.

I’m still going to watch the last four episodes. I’m no saint. I’m thinking that after this I can play Yahtzee with her and then she can play computer games. We will see how everything works out. All I know is I want my evenings with God back. I did take time with him after Mom went to bed, but I’m very tired by then.

I remember a woman in a church I went to. She said she had a dream from God. She saw Jesus and asked him why his people were not what they should be. He said one word, “Television.” Then she woke up. She believed or felt that Jesus meant we spend so much time watching TV that we have no time for him.

I can see it. Most people come home from work, make dinner, watch TV and go to bed. Nothing wrong about that, unless the TV shows are full of sex and violence. But we could watch nature shows all evening and it still takes us away from Jesus. The only way to be like Him is to be with Him. The only place for strength to live and power to work is beside him. He alone can make us better people. One thing he cannot do is seek himself for us. That is our job. That alone is, “working out our salvation.”

I need to update this post to say I do have worship with God every morning. But I need more of him. Like Daniel, who prayed morning, noon and evening.

Why We Love Action Movies.

Photo by Marcus Quigmire   

https://www.flickr.com/people/41896843@N00

Many years ago, my husband and I went to see a political thriller at the movie theater. When it was over, the ushers had pen and paper in hand and asked those who were leaving whether they liked the show. I’d never had that happen to me before. I said, “Oh, I hated it!” She asked why and I replied, “Everyone good in the movie died! It was horrible.”

I do remember the closing scenes and being stunned the bad guys won the day by killing everyone who was on the side of right. My reaction was pretty emotional, after all, it was just a movie.

I’ve seen movies where some good people die, but everyone? No.

I was listening to a sermon on a podcast last night and the preacher said, “Why do we go to violent/action movies? It is because we love violence.” Well, I disagree. I think we like these movies because we know the good guys will win in the end. Superman and Batman are not going to die and they will make the world better and safer. The people in Avatar saved their planet. Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible will stop the bad guys in their tracks. We will all win against the murderous aliens.

I think we love these movies because we love to see justice done. We read the papers and see the crime, cruelty and hard-heartedness of people and most of us feel sad. Most of us can’t believe what is going on and what people will do to each other. But for two hours we can see some justice done and it feels good.

I don’t think preachers should say what people’s motives are. They truly don’t know. They sometimes put the worst connotations on why people do what they do.

Why do people take drugs? I think it is that they find life hard or very sad and take drugs to feel good, even though the feeling doesn’t last. I think the deepest desires we have are to be loved and understood and when that doesn’t happen, we will try anything to make ourselves feel better.

Jesus is the answer to those longings, although it took me a life-time to learn that. The Bible says to pour out our hearts to God. This is what I do now when I am discouraged or depressed. I just have to talk with him about the situation and he brings thoughts in my mind that encourage me.

Today I was feeling sad so I talked with God about what was upsetting me. The song, “You Lift Me Up,” came into my mind. Words like, “You lift me up so I can stand on mountains. You lift me up to walk on stormy seas…” I pictured Jesus walking beside me through a stormy sea. Then I remembered what he said to his disciples when they were afraid their boat would sink in a storm and they would die. Jesus said to them, “Why were you afraid? Where is your faith?”  

Oh my, how these thoughts from God comforted and strengthened me! The sadness lifted and I felt like painting, while before I talked with God I wanted to go to bed and put the covers over my head. This is what our God does for us. He is a, “Wonderful Counselor,” as the Bible says.

Faith to Forgive.

Sycamore Tree in Israel.

One of my problems in reading the Bible is that I take many things Jesus said as being literal. The disciples had this problem too. When Jesus said to sell your cloak and buy a sword, it sounded like advice to have a sword in case people persecuted you. But this flies in the face of the other things Jesus said about turning the cheek and loving your enemies.

Most commentators of the Bible say Jesus was not being literal. And I believe they are right since when Peter cut off the ear of one of the men who came to arrest Jesus, Jesus healed the man and told Peter not to use the sword.

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary:

 “At the time the apostles understood Christ to mean real weapons, but he spoke only of the weapons of the spiritual warfare. The sword of the Spirit is the sword with which the disciples of Christ must furnish themselves.” 

 Whenever I would read what Jesus said about moving a mountain into the sea if we had enough faith, I would wonder what he really meant. Then I read someone say the mountain represented difficulties in our lives. They said in the Old Testament, mountains represented difficulties, and that made sense.

Today, I was reading Luke 17 and Jesus spoke about the Sycamore or Mulberry tree. He said, “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea and it would obey you.’”

He said this in answer to his disciples who had asked him, “Increase our faith.” And they asked him to do this after he had spoken about forgiveness, the kind of forgiveness they thought impossible for them.

“Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins against you, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn to you, you shall forgive him.”

So, uprooting a sycamore tree is impossible for anyone to do; therefore, if you think it is impossible for you to forgive over and over, you are wrong. Faith in God will make it possible for you.

This is what I read in some commentaries this morning:

Pulpit Commentary

“The Lord signifies that a very slight real faith, which he compares to the mustard seed, that smallest of grains, would be of power sufficient to accomplish what seemed to them impossible. In other words, he says, “If you have any real faith at all, you will be able to win the victory over yourselves necessary for a perpetual loving judgement of others.”

Barne’s Notes on the Bible

“This sycamore is a remarkable tree. It not only bears several crops of figs during the year but these figs grow on short stems along the trunk and large branches, and not at the end of twigs, as in other fruit-bearing trees. The figs are small and of a greenish-yellow color.

It is easily propagated, merely by planting a stout branch in the ground and watering it until it has struck its roots into the soil. This it does with great rapidity and to a vast depth. It was with reference to this latter fact that our Lord selected it to illustrate the power of faith.”

Thinking of all this reminds me of the fires of hell preachers talk about. I believe the fire is symbolic of something else. What would be the point of God burning people who are lost? Punishement? Punishment is supposed to be restorative. Actual, physical burning? I don’t think so. Being burned is very painful, and I think when the wicked realize they are lost, it is like a burning in their soul. A terrible pain in their heart at seeing what they have given up because they loved darkness rather than light.

Jonathan: A Man of Faith.

When the Israelites wanted a king, God chose Saul. A people called the Philistines were constantly oppressing Israel. One day Israel and the Philistines gathered to wage war. But Israel had no weapons yet. Only the king and his son had swords. His son’s name was Jonathan.

I find Jonathan to be a wonderful example of faith, humility and courage.  This first story about Jonathan shows his faith in the power of God.

1 Samuel 14 (abridged)

One day Jonathan son of Saul said to his young armor-bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.” But he did not tell his father.

Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.”

 “Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.”

(Jonathan asked God for a sign.)

Jonathan said, “Come on, then; we will cross over toward them and let them see us.  If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are and not go up to them.  But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.”

So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. “Look!” said the Philistines. “The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.”  The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, “Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson.”

So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Climb up after me; the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.”

Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him.  In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre. 

Israel Routs the Philistines

Then panic struck the whole army—those in the camp and field, and those in the outposts and raiding parties—and the ground shook. It was a panic sent by God.

When all the Israelites who had hidden in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines were on the run, they joined the battle in hot pursuit. So on that day the Lord saved Israel and the battle moved on beyond Beth Aven."

Jonathan had probably remembered how God had fought for and saved Israel using Gideon and 300 men against the many thousands of Midianites.

 Jonathan knew God could do anything and acted accordingly. His faith is a beautiful example to all of us.

Update on My Family.

My granddaughters left to right: Hope, Faith and Cherish.

In my previous post, "The Meltdown of a Christian", I wrote about some trials my family is going through. I want to thank you for your prayers and tell you what is going on now.

My sister-in-law, Heather, is trusting in the Lord about her cancer. She knows he could heal her or allow her to die and has accepted that. She loves God and is close to him. She is living her life in faith, and for that we all rejoice.

My niece, who hurt herself at work, has received Worker's Compensation, and is slowly healing. She won't be able to work for at least three weeks, but hopefully she will be able to use her arm again.

My granddaughter, Hope, recovered from her dislocated kneecap. She didn't have much pain at all after the incident, for which I was extremely thankful. She stayed at my apartment all week and we had a lovely time together. She is a lot of fun. She has to strengthen her muscles or her knee will just come out again. She asked if they could operate, but they told her they only do that after multiple dislocations. She is pretty scared of doing it again. I told her to keep it wrapped or wear her knee brace all the time. That is hard news for a 21-year-old to hear. I'm sure she will start exercising when they tell her to start.

My grandson could not quit drugs cold-turkey, so he is going back to the Methadone Clinic. He was on that for two years and could work and function. This is better than the alternative, so we accept this and pray he will one day be off all drugs.

My husband saw his neurologist and will have back surgery and be off work for 6 months. But he is covered by insurance at work and will receive the same paycheck and we live in Canada so everything is paid for. I'm so thankful for all that. The surgery is not dangerous.

I wrote that one of my daughters needed money. Well, my mother, who has a bit of money, gave her $1,500. My daughter was so happy she was crying and then my mom started crying. My daughter doesn't like to take help from her, but like my mom said, "What am I going to do with my money? Take a trip? I can barely walk from my bedroom to the living room."

So, as usual, God has been with us all and helped us all through our problems and sorrows. He is an amazing God and powerful one who can come into our hearts and minds and give us peace and comfort.

"...I am always with you;

you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever."

Psalm 73:23-26