Our Past Follows Us.

 

My husband loves the dozens (actually, a lot more than that I think) of Christmas movies that are found on Netflix and Amazon Prime. He has always liked action movies too, but lately he has focused on these Christmas movies. I find most of them sappy and badly written, but some of them are really good.

Last night, when we were watching one, my husband said, “I like these kinds of movies because they show happy families. I grew up in an unhappy family so it’s nice to see.” I’m so glad he told me that, because as tough as my husband is, and anyone could tell you he is a tough guy, I wondered why he liked these movies.

I know someone who loves crime shows. But she only likes the ones where the criminal is caught. She wants to see that person go to jail or executed. I think she gravitates to these shows because in her childhood, her life was threatened by a family member in the middle of the night. She would wake up with a sharp knife at her throat.

I like to read books or watch movies about real people who have overcome great difficulty: abuse, neglect, an illness. I think I am always searching for answers how to overcome my past.

Years ago, I used to have a recurring dream. My father and I were in a bus; he was driving and I was in the passenger seat. I looked over at him and he was laughing maniacally while speeding along the highway. Then I would wake up.

After years of therapy and talking with God I began healing. One night I had the same dream, except this time I was driving and he was in the passenger seat. I was feeling peace.

I have healed quite a bit, but I’m not cured of my mental illness. I still have problems with how I see myself. I still have automatic thoughts that plague me. But I am better, by the grace of God who helps me every day.

I have to ask him for that help. I can’t sit back day by day leaving God out of my life. I need him. If I don’t give myself to him each day, I start waking up wishing I was dead. I start getting depressed and hopeless. He keeps me from all that by prayer so that even if these thoughts pop up, I know he will help me. I just say, “God, I don’t want to think that. Give me something good to think.” And he does.

May God help all of us who have psychological problems. They can be devastating, but may God give us strength to walk through them.

 

These Dark Days.

 

Photo by Peter Griffin

(I give permission for anyone to copy any of my posts.)

In these dark days, we need encouragement, hope and peace. God will give that to us in many ways. One way is asking him for them, another is listening to uplifting music. Somehow music feeds our soul. Like everything else on earth it can feed our souls for good or evil. The last few years, I have found music lifts my heart up to the heavens. The earth seems to fade away.

 Below I have printed the lyrics to a song that comforts me. This artist sings some of the most beautiful words I have heard in music. I hope you look him up and give his music a try.

 Always Good.

 Written and sung by Andrew Peterson

 Do You remember how Mary was grieving?

How You wept and she fell at Your feet?
If it's true that You know what I'm feeling
Could it be that You're weeping with me?

Arise, O Lord, and save me
There's nowhere else to go

You're always good, always good
Somehow this sorrow is shaping my heart
Like it should
And You're always good, always good

It's so hard to know what You're doing
So why won't You tell it all plain?
But You said You'd come back on the third day
And Peter missed it again and again

So maybe the answer surrounds us
And we don't have eyes to see

You're always good, always good
This heartache is moving me closer than joy ever could
And You're always good

My God, my God, be near me
There's nowhere else to go
And Lord, if You can hear me
Please help Your child to know

That You're always good, always good
As we try to believe what is not meant
To be understood
Will You help us to trust Your intentions for us are still good?
'Cause You laid down Your life and You suffered like I never could

And You're always good, always good
You're always good, always good

 

 We Christians should never forget what happened to the followers of Jesus right after he went to heaven. There was death, imprisonment and persecution. Many Jews were thrown out of their church, excommunicated. This meant no one could trade with them or talk with them. They lost everything for Jesus. That is why the believers needed to share among themselves. The need was very great.

 Remember what happened when Rome turned against Christianity. They tortured and killed thousands. Remember the suffering of the Holocaust. Not only Jews, but Christians, gays, mentally disabled and those who resisted Hitler were wiped out. Remember the suffering of the war itself. I had an uncle who died who left a wife and two daughters behind.

 It seems to me that we, North Americans, are surprised by suffering. We don’t seem to think we should have to suffer anything. Even the wearing of a simple mask in order to not spread an illness to others. No, we think that is too much to ask. It is a sacrifice we aren’t willing to make.

 Many believe there is no virus. It is all untrue! So that means every news service in all the world is lying about all the people who are suffering and dying. There is some vast (worldwide) conspiracy against – who? Them personally, I guess.

 To me, these are the scary people of the world. These are the ones who will persecute others to the death – like the ones who go surround government officials with weapons and send death threats. If they can, they will overthrow the democracy of the United States and keep Trump in power.

 We are in our own era now, with our own wars against a virus, against ignorance and against pure evil. We don’t need to fear though, because God will walk through this time with us. He may let us suffer as he has done for millions in the past. We may lose our lives to violence by the hand of evil people.

 But as the song says, Jesus did too. And his death was much worse than any that can happen to a human, because he had the sins of the world on his heart and his Father turned away from him. The Father did this so Jesus could experience the second death: knowing we will be separated from God forever because of our sinful lives. At the judgement, God will show us our sinful lives and why he can’t take us to heaven. Then we will die and be dead forever. Jesus went through that to take our place if we want him to. He endured it so we don’t have to, and he endured it for every person.

 

 

 

A Crisis of Faith

 Tony5875

Crisis of Faith

What is a crisis of faith?

Answer: The term crisis of faith usually refers to the point at which a person feels that he or she can no longer serve God or follow Christ. A person going through a crisis of faith is tempted to turn away from all he or she had believed in.   gotquestions.org

 I listened to a podcast today: “Made For This with Jennie Allen.” post #18.  She interviewed a woman who had gone to Africa as a missionary and events occurred that caused her to lose her faith in God.

 Immediately after I heard this story, I listened to Timothy Keller give a sermon, called “Meeting the Real Jesus,” about John the Baptist and Jesus. He read the story of when John was in prison and he sent some of his friends to ask Jesus this question: “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?”

 Even though God had showed John by a miracle that Jesus was the Messiah, he now questioned his belief. He had been thrown into prison and knew he could die. Jesus was doing nothing to fight against the Romans or get him out of jail. He even refused when people wanted to make him King of Israel. What kind of Messiah was he?

 Jesus told John’s disciples to go back to John and tell him what they had seen him do that day. He had healed the sick, “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them.  Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”   Matthew 11:5,6

 Jesus was referring to Isaiah 61:1, where it explains the work of the Messiah. And he finished by telling John those are blessed who are not offended by Jesus. John was having a crisis of faith, and that crisis has its root in being offended by God.

 The woman missionary was offended by what God let happen to her. She had thought God would act differently than he did. She started thinking there was no God at all. He wasn’t the kind of God she thought she knew.

 That happened to one of my sisters when she lost her health, her job and had to sell her home and eventually live in a van. Then her dog ran off in the desert and never returned. She was very angry at God. He had given her a horrible life, she felt. She told me, “The only thing he hasn’t taken is my van.”

 We had long talks about this when she came and lived with my husband and I. I also had been through terrible times, but I had studied many books on the subject of God and suffering and why he allows it. Gradually, she came to see that she wanted to go back to God and she did. The day she left our home she said, “I’ve told God he can take my van too if he wants to.” This gave me great joy.

 My crisis of faith came when I was 42. I saw someone I love go through terrible suffering and that was very painful. But it was actually the thought of all the millions who had suffered just like her that made me turn from God. I could not understand and I was offended.

 After a few years of study, I did seem to understand and also, I missed God. At that time in my life it was impossible for me to believe God loved me, but it was a fact that there was nowhere else to go. He was the one with words of eternal life. He was the one who had a book that was awe-inspiring. He was the one who kept saying, “Help the poor and needy. Feed the hungry and love your enemy.”

 I’m now glad I had this crisis of faith because incredibly, my faith is stronger now than ever. I always knew my faith was tiny, but when my grandson died, I saw what God had done to me. I had peace and rested in his arms. When my husband had a stroke, I was filled with peace once again. Learning to trust God in the face of suffering is a fantastic thing, in spite of the confusion and mental pain.

 Many Christians have a crisis of faith during their walk with God. Many of us have the wrong idea of who God is, especially those who are raised in a religious home. We grow up believing what our parents believe, we grow up in a certain church which has its beliefs. And they are all so sure that what they believe is true.

 Sometimes, God will step into our lives to show us what is true or untrue about himself. He wants us to know him as he is. And sometimes he needs to take away all the things we rely on because we haven’t learned to rely on him. He does this because he loves us. Something I finally believe for myself in my old age.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

God is Waiting on Us.

 

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“And yet will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious to you, and because of this he will be exalted. He longs to have mercy on you, for the Lord is a God of judgement. Blessed are all they who wait for him.”   Isaiah 30:18

In the book, “Waiting on God,” Andrew Murry points out that not only are we to wait patiently on God, but that God waits patiently on us.

Murray writes, “Look up and see the great God upon his throne. He is love…and has an inexpressible desire to communicate his goodness to all his creatures… He waits with all the longings of a father’s heart. And each time you come to wait upon him, or seek to maintain in daily life the habit of waiting, you may look up and see him ready to meet with you.”

There is a picture in the Bible of God waiting for us. It is in the story of the prodigal son, who left his father and home to go into the world to find happiness. The son finds fun, but no lasting happiness and decides to go home and ask to be a servant in his father’s house.

But the father is watching the road. He is waiting and hoping for his son to return. And when he sees him coming down the road, the father jumps up and runs; he runs until he is with his son and he hugs him and welcomes him with open arms.

This is a picture of God waiting for us. And even if we are Christians and have given our lives to God, he waits each day for us to come spend time with him – telling him about our thoughts and feelings. Asking him for wisdom, and reading in the Bible those things he would like us to do. He waits, and sometimes he waits all day for us to come give him some attention and we ignore him. He wants to share our lives with him. We need to share our lives with him.

If I had shared my deepest pain with him on a certain day, I wouldn’t have taken sleeping pills and passed out. He would have taken my pain and helped me through the problem of my aching heart. He would have shown me that he is bigger than any pain this world can give.

C.S. Lewis told a friend that after 30 years of praying, he had finally forgiven someone who had betrayed him. I think perhaps he meant he finally had the feeling of anger and hate gone towards that person. I think if we say, “I forgive this person,” then we have forgiven. Our feelings confuse us and lead us astray. But still, it took 30 years for his feelings to catch up with his wanting to forgive. So, this may be a kind of waiting on God. Waiting means staying with God and not giving up, like being tired of waiting in line at a store and finally giving up and leaving. No, we must stay in Jesus, because he is our only hope in this life.

Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”   John 15:4-6

Murry writes, “The giver is more than the gift; God is more than the blessings he gives. And our being kept waiting on him could be the only way for our learning to find our life and joy are in him himself. Oh, if only God’s children knew what a glorious God they have, and what a privilege it is to be linked in fellowship with him, then they would rejoice in Him!”

(I changed a few words when I was quoting Murry. He speaks in old English, so I cut a few words or changed them a bit. The book is well worth buying.)

 

 

Visions and Dreams from God.

 

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Members of my family have had visions and dreams from God over the last two years. I am going to share all this with you because I now feel God wants me to do that.

My sister, who lives in the United States, heard God tell her that something big and terrible was going to happen soon. He told her to buy camping and survival gear.

She didn’t have much money, but every month she bought those items from Amazon. She had finished buying everything by last January. Because of her, my husband and I also bought camping stuff. We just finished buying our last item.

My sister got impatient waiting for God to tell her to leave her home and go. The Lord told her, “There is more for me to do. Your family is ready and in place.” She is content now to wait.

Meanwhile, I had a dream Jesus was returning, he was on his way here. There was a large sphere coming through the stars. I could see smoke, fire and lightening in the sphere.

My husband has had dreams of our family fleeing to the mountains. In one of the dreams there was a mob chasing us and as they almost reached us a wall of fire separated them from us and we ran. He has had three or four of these dreams this year.

We don’t know what is coming. But we believe God’s warnings and have prepared. I hope you will pray about this and ask God if it is true and what to do. May God bless you all.

 

Waiting on God and an Update on My Husband’s Stroke.

 

Andrew Murray

I allow anyone to copy and publish what I write on by blog, "Who is God?"

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Those who wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the land.”   Psalm 37:7,9

Thank you for your prayers for my husband. He is slowly recuperating from his stroke. This morning he said he noticed his brain isn’t as foggy as it used to be. He is walking and doing hand and arm exercises. His blood pressure is normal and his head doesn’t hurt as much when on the computer or watching TV.

It has been hard for him to wait patiently for healing. It is hard for all of us to wait on good things to come. Feeling impatient is just the way human beings are.

I recently bought a book called, “Waiting on God,” by Andrew Murray. I bought it because I was finding it hard waiting for Jesus to return. I long for the sin and pain of this world to be over and to see him face to face. The book has been a great help to me and I highly recommend it. I thought I would share part of it with you.

From Waiting on God: “Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire.”    James 1:4

“Such words of the Holy Spirit show us what an important element in the Christian life and character patience is. And nowhere is there a better place for cultivating or displaying it than in waiting on God. There we discover how impatient we are, and what our impatience means.

We confess at times that we are impatient with men, and circumstances that hinder us, or with ourselves and our slow progress in the Christian life. If we truly set ourselves to wait upon God, we shall find that it is with Him we are impatient, because he does not at once, or as soon as we could wish, do our bidding. It is in waiting upon God that our eyes are opened to believe in his wise and sovereign will, and to see that the sooner and more completely we yield absolutely to it, the more surely his blessing can come to us.

“It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.” Romans 9:16

We have as little power to increase or strengthen our spiritual life, as we had to originate it. We ‘were born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God.’ Even so, our willing and running, our desire and effort, avail nothing; all is ‘of God that shows mercy.’

All the exercises of the spiritual life, our reading and praying, our willing and doing, have their very great value. But they can go no farther than this, that they point the way and prepare us in humility to look to and to depend alone upon God Himself, and in patience to wait his good time and mercy.

The waiting is to teach us our absolute dependence upon God’s mighty working, and to make us in perfect patience place ourselves at his disposal. They that wait on the Lord shall inherit the land; the promised land and its blessing. The heirs must wait; they can afford to wait…”

“Give God his glory by resting in him, by trusting him fully, by waiting patiently for him. This patience honors him greatly; it leaves him as God on the throne, to do his work; it yields self wholly into his hands. It lets God be God.

From the book, “Waiting on God,” -  Day 11: Waiting on God: Patiently

 

Aftereffects of A Stroke: A Sense of Great Loss.

 (All of my posts are free to be copied and used in any way.)

My husband said to me last night, “I’ve lost myself.” I said, “No, you’ve lost some of yourself, but not all. You are just the same as you always were, you just have to do things and think things slower. Your character and who you are as a person is the same.”

“Really?” he said. I don’t feel the same.” I asked him in what way. He said, “When I went to the hospital today for my cancer treatment, (he has carcinoid tumors) I felt different around the nurses who know me. I couldn’t talk as much and joke with them as I always have in the past.”

I told him I was sorry he felt that way. I told him I believed he would get stronger physically and mentally. The doctors just said it would take a long time. I hope that helped him a bit. I told him I was glad he was sharing about his feelings, something he rarely did before.

His head has been hurting more, but I think it is because of the cancer treatment and the time it took to get him ready to go there. I also think he was embarrassed to be seen in a wheelchair being pushed by my granddaughter.

My husband has always thought of himself as a strong man, which indeed is how all the family sees him. He was not only physically strong; he was strong mentally. He stuck with me through my mental breakdowns. He tried to lift my spirits and never seemed discouraged by my disabilities. He many times said the wrong thing in trying to make me feel better, because he isn’t a psychologist, but I understood that.

Now he sees himself as weak. He worries if I leave the door unlocked, he can’t protect me. He worries I might fall and get hurt (I have a balance problem. One time I fell into the Christmas tree. Lol). He didn’t used to worry so much, but I guess he sees how fragile life is and how quickly things can go wrong.

I’ve always known that. In fact, I’m surprised and thrilled when things go right. I tend to look at the dark side of life because of my childhood abuse. My husband was abused too, in a different way, but he took that experience and told himself he would be strong and then he would be okay. He told himself that if someone didn’t like him, “It’s their loss and my gain.” Lol.

He was really surprised about having a stroke. I wasn’t because we are both old, 69 and 70. I’m surprised I don’t have diabetes, high blood pressure and a bad heart! But my husband was incredibly optimistic about everything. Overly optimistic, I thought.

He woke up this morning and seemed more cheerful. I told him we need to do some mind games, so we started a puzzle. He didn’t last long until his head started hurting and he wanted to stop. I am going to phone his Occupational Therapist on Monday and ask how hard I should push him. They used to push hard at the hospital, so I have to understand this part of his recovery.

The low-salt diet is going very well. It turned out at first it was going too well. His blood pressure started to drop down to the 90s. Apparently, 120 is ideal. So, I started letting him have a bit more salt in his diet and it is now between 100 to 123. I found a recipe for tomato sauce that is low-salt and he loved the taste. I didn’t like it at first, but after sitting a night in the fridge, it was pretty good.

No more fast-food. Pretty well all of it has tons of salt. One meal is more than enough salt for a day. I found out the salad I usually ordered had more salt than a hamburger! I usually hate cooking and we used to order in a lot, but I have found, with God’s assistance, I don’t mind the cooking and it is going very well.

This is just an update of my husband’s stroke. I thought it might help those who live with and take care of someone who has had a stroke. Thanks again for your concern and prayers. God is here with us helping, comforting and strengthening us. May God be beside all of you doing the same.