Temporary Living- Forever Hope.

 Warring not against flesh and blood. The snares of the Devil are a very real thing that most people would rather not discuss, at least not in any serious sort of way. Let's regulate the Devil to fantasy and horror, and keep him out of our real lives because to believe in him as a reality would be taking things much too far. The horror movies and such have done a great job at portraying the Devil as a demon with monster status while at the same time making him into some likeable, very personable fellow that you'd want protecting your back. A misunderstood sort of guy who really does have a heart after all and only does what he does because he has been maligned and given a bad break- he has in fact been given a bad reputation, undeservedly, or say he'll lead you to believe. Yes, the Devil will take on any persona at all whatsoever so long as he can deceive and, yes, he deceives in ways beyond our imagining.

When we realize that the Devil would just as soon offer us wonderful things as well as destruction in all parts of our lives, we comprehend that he is powerful in his own right and able to deceive so completely we need the power of God to defend us, to keep us, to protect us. 

The good in our lives, as well as the bad- if we love God truly will work out for our good in ways beyond our comprehension. And not for our personal good alone, but for those in our lives. Tragedies happen all the time, every single day, awful tragedies. They befall those who are outright evil, and those who are God fearing in every way possible. There is no respect of persons when it comes to so many aspects of our lives- we all suffer.

We are all simply human beings given life to give God glory. When we realize  that we live to give God glory throughout our lives in all the good and all the bad, we understand a sliver of love. All that is hopeless is of the Devil, all that is hope is of God. In the tragedies of our lives, and there are going to be many, so many, in each of them, in the worst of them, hope is our only strength.

How could anyone who claims to love another human being with their whole heart not comprehend the hope you need to have should they perish, that you will one day be reunited with that love? That hope is only found in our Lord and Savior, the God of all hope, the God we give glory. 

Your life may be filled with only heartache, deep heartache, but you know, as we all should know- this life is temporary.  The older you get the faster you spin around in the funnel of life - time running out the closer to the bottom- faster and faster time goes and the inevitable end of life is upon you. We are allowed hope, but only if we choose hope beyond the temporariness we know. 

Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 

Loving God, we must love God and loving Him means believing in Him and the Hope He has given to mankind.  The Hope is there for the asking, it's a future- it's faith.  It's unseen but known as a reality. Our Lord and Savior has promised us this Hope, Jesus Christ our Lord! How cannot we not love when we are given Hope, such a precious gift. All glory, all thanksgiving, all honor to our God, now and forever! Amen!!!!!!!

I Have Questions.

 I have questions.

You have taken my answers with you.

I have questions.

Silent tears hold no clues.

I have questions.

They won't stay silent.

I have so very many questions.

You tried so hard to give me all the answers.

I have questions.

You wanted me to listen.

I have questions.

You wanted me to remember.

I have questions.

You were supposed to be here to answer.

I have questions.

Screaming anguish filled cries, I have questions.

No answers.

Breathless, I have questions. 

No more answers, not from you, my Answer Giver.

Silent agony, silent emptiness, silent answers, no answers.

I have questions, Jerry, so many, many questions.

Your absence is so much louder when I want…when I need, answers, your answers. 

Answers. Who do you usually turn to when you want answers? Most likely it would depend upon the question, right? That's logical. You wouldn't go to a child and ask a question only an adult could answer.  

Today we have our cellphones, tablets, laptops, Siri, Echo and so on to give us all kinds of answers to any question we might have. These impersonal answers -for the most part- even when it's a video of a person giving you information, or a live chat and that person is right there in real time talking with you- it still lacks something that an in person back and forth discussion entails. I'm not knocking those who believe that way to get answers is just as good, I will admit that kind of interaction is a lot better than no interaction and if you have no other recourse it is amazing. Right now I'm in a place in my life where I've been deprived of my main source of in person contact, deprived of my Answer Giver, and I have so many, many questions! Siri can't tell me what to do with the little gadget in the garage I have no clue about. Google might be able to give me a hint if I put in the right key words. I could even get a friend or two on face time and they might have the answer, but… I don't have MY Answer Giver any longer, He's gone. 

I have a thought, and from that thought springs a larger idea, and from the idea I'm bombarded with questions and then I'm slapped in the face hard enough to mentally jerk me back a few steps, He's not hear to ask! With Him I didn't have to worry if my thoughts, ideas and subsequent questions were a bit out there, He knew me from head to toe, from my craziest thought to my sanest moment and all those weebly wobbly moments in between. When my question  seemed to be ludicrous He would let me know without any wasted time sparing feelings, then He'd indulge my ideas, thoughts and questions patiently enough. Often my lack of knowledge was a source of amusement for us both. My Answer Giver had so much knowledge, so incredibly much.

You may know someone who is smart, you may be that person who is smart. I've run into a few truly smart people who reached a level of brilliance that had them believing in all sincerity that ALL people should be as smart as they are. I've probably mentioned this already, but I don't care, I need to mention it again. My Answer Giver was often amazed at my lack of knowledge because He didn't recognize His own uniqueness in his intelligence. 

Perhaps some of you reading this who know Him may scoff at what I'm saying. Some may laugh and say that He was full of Himself and not smart at all. Others may think I'm downright putting Him on a pedestal because I love Him and I'm using super thick rose colored glasses to look at Him with. I don't care, I know, what I know.  I knew one other person like Him and she didn't understand her own brilliance either and couldn't comprehend the lack of brilliance in others. She was quite shocked when I pointed out to her that most people are NOT like her, she was in the minority. My Answer Giver was in the minority too, often much to my chagrin. 

*******

We are to ask all the questions we can while our loved ones live. 

Would I have asked more questions of Jerry had I known the day of this death?

Yes, a thousand times, yes. 

At least, I think I would if I could have come to a place of belief in that knowledge. The truth is, we don't usually know the day of a person's death. I say usually because some people die very slowly and do have time to answer questions. My mother died very slowly. We knew she had terminal cancer and Alzheimer's both and that her time of mental clarity was growing shorter, and physically she would leave us in just a matter of a year, year and a half from diagnose.  Did I ask my mom questions? I did. My younger sister, Elizabeth asked her a lot of questions about her life, a lot. We asked questions of a woman who meant so much to us as our mother. A loving mother, one we could not have ask for better. She raised us with love- unconditional love. She raised us as best she knew how. She gave us so much, taught us so much, loved us so much. I had questions, but….  Yes, I have to add a 'but'… because those questions were not the questions of a wife to a husband about their entire life, and a future alone. Jerry tried to prepare me by giving me a list of his tools and such and prices to ask for them should I need to sell them. He told me not to grieve more than three days and most certainly not more than a month- ahhhh, grieving is a lifelong process in this case more than any other I've had to face.  Jerry tried to prepare me a bit, without conceding to any reality of a nearing death. We still talked of the future together that we thought we'd have. We talked of next spring…and getting a load of fresh compost for our garden… next spring, there will be no fresh load of compost, no garden. I still don't know if I'll even be living here. 

Talk to your loved ones now without believing it's morbid to do so. Talk about that gadget in the garage and hey, even write the answer down somewhere because people forget- I've forgotten so much He tried to teach me, so much.

I have questions.

Ecc_9:10  Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Redeemable In the Eyes of God.

 Faith is Hope. Heb 11:1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 

Faith is the substance- this means faith is made up of, composed of--  things, but not just any old things. Faith is made up of things we hope for. Faith and hope, you cannot have one without the other it's an impossibility. It's through this hope comprised faith we hold fast to it as evidence for things we haven't experienced yet. 

When we talk about losing our faith, what exactly have we lost? We've lost our hope in the things we haven't yet seen, we no longer have faith as the evidence of that hope. 

We no longer hope. 

Hope is a precious gift, so incredibly precious. To have hope inspires so much in our lives. If I ask you if you have faith in someone, I'm basically asking you if you have hope in that person to be the person you believe them to be. How many people have had faith in others only to have that faith misplaced? People disappoint each other on a constant basis. How hard it is to give up hope in someone you love. You continue to hold on to having faith in them beyond the disappointments and setbacks. Even when all seems lost you a still have faith in someone- in the potential of someone. One of the most incredibly hard things to do is give up all faith in another person. It's hard to give up that faith and it's hard to be the one who has been given up on. 

Have you ever been given up on? Has anyone ever washed their hands of you? The knowledge that a person no longer has any hope for you can be devastating. I have firsthand knowledge of this situation. I've been in the shoes of being one who others have given up on, the one who others have lost all hope in. I've had people turn their backs on me as they've considered me a lost cause, irredeemable beyond any hope. If you're someone who knows me and you're reading this (truly, I don’t know if anyone reads these things I write and that's not the point), if you know me and you just read what I wrote you may or may not know of the circumstances involved in others losing all hope in me. The circumstances are irrelevant beyond a need to satisfy a curiosity, which I'm not going to satisfy. Suffice it to say it's an awful thing to be given up on, to be deemed unworthy, to be thrust out of a person's life so completely and permanently all based on their loss of all hope in you as a person worthy of their continuing to know. To know you've been a part of something that made you hopeless in another's eyes is, for me at least, heartbreaking. We don't want to believe we can be lost beyond any hope- we just don't. 

People will tell you that God will never give up on you, but the truth of the matter is, when we choose to give up on Him, He has no choice but to ultimately give up on us. 

Faith gives us hope. We can hold on to our hope even when things seem to be their very darkest, in fact, it's imperative that we do hold on to our hope especially in the darkest nights of our lives. 

People can give up on each other. We can be the ones giving up on others, or they on us for whatever reasons (usually they are reasons of worth.) People can give up on each other, but no one is irredeemable in the eyes of our LORD. We may be irredeemable in the eyes of one another, but that just goes to show us that our God is so much greater than any other, God first, then our fellow man.  And when another deems us unworthy and does not extend their forgiveness towards us seventy-times seven time (perfectly countless), then that is something they have to live with, and it's my prayer they are forgiven for not forgiving. They aren't God, none of us are. We are so unable to love with a perfect love, it gets so clouded with our self pursuits. 

Faith is hope. Hope in all the promises our God will never fail to fulfil. Our God gives us hope that we can CLING to tightly. Let the naysayers tell us our hope is silly, and without foundation, I know my hope in God has the greatest foundation in existence. 

May God bless us all with His everlasting love, may we choose to accept that love! May our hope remain firm in Him, and may we NEVER give up and lose hope in GOD, He will not lose hope in us first… never. When we give up on Him, He still hopes-- but only to a certain point. 

Mat 23:37  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 

Mat 23:38  Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 

Jesus said those words-  your house is left unto you desolate. As a corporate body the Israelites, inhabitants, rulers of Jerusalem, rejected all that Jesus offered and He told them… Behold your house is left unto you desolate.  He wanted them to know Him, to know love, but they refused. 

There are many accounts where the people of God were given opportunities to repent and return to Him, but they often neglected those opportunities and were destroyed.

We destroy ourselves when we have no hope, no faith in our Lord and Savior to save us. It's a salvation that is beyond us, a salvation only He can give to us. His love is everlasting and eternal, but there are right now and until Christ returns-  wheat and tares living together. If we doubt there can even be tares that will be cast in to the fire and burned to nothingness like ash blown to the wind, then we doubt God's word, God's truth. We must pray to be among the wheat gathered to Him, and not the tares to be burned. WE CHOOSE. He doesn't FORCE. We choose faith the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. WE CHOOSE.

Choosing to hope, to believe is an amazing gift of God, faith. May our faith ever grow stronger and stronger even when we may be put into situations that scream at us to give up on God and all hope. Satan will stop at nothing to get us away from God, to make us give up all hope, to believe that our belief in God is a hopeless belief. We can't forget that this is a battle we are in, a fierce battle. We can't believe that life's rug won't be pulled out from under our feet over and over again, it will be. Sometimes that rug is yanked so hard we do backwards somersaults and end up with cracked skulls, all in an attempt by Satan to get us to denounce God. Satan will stop at NOTHING.  God has already given us EVERYTHING, we just need to believe- to have faith, to continue to hope to the end!

All by the grace and mercy, the love, the everlasting kindness of our God, of our LORD and SAVIOR, and through the great COMFORTER now and forever and ever. Thank you for NEVER giving up all hope on me LORD, all praise and thanksgiving to YOU. Thank you for my not being beyond hope, beyond redemption in YOUR eyes, the ONLY EYES the MATTER, for YOU come first GOD, you are MY GOD! And while I'd love nothing more to be considered redeemable in the eyes of mankind as well, I know my HOPE has to be in YOU first! I love you, God! I love you. Thank you, Jesus.   Amen!!!!!!!

Undercurrent Death- The Air I Breathe, Jesus!

 We walk through this world with an undercurrent of despair. I said, undercurrent and I mean undercurrent. This isn't something that is on the surface but rather it lies deep beneath the surface of every single life. Like seaweed tickling your toes as you wade out into the ocean, you can feel it sometimes barely, but other times you jerk your feet away as the slippery tangled vines seemingly alive through the undercurrent try to slither up over the tops of your feet and even dare to flick at your ankles. 

This despair that lives for the most part beneath the surface of our lives is the knowledge of death. This inevitability of death is a fearsome spectre which lives within us. We live day in and day out with this vile aspect to our lives and for the most part- we are accepting of its existence. We find it quite easy to live with actually, just so long as it isn't interfering too much with our lives.

As I grew up my first touch with death had to have been my paternal grandfather. I was 19 days shy of 7 years old and I still remember that day vividly. I can picture the house, the living room, the kitchen and all of us in a state of confusion because something terrible had happened. We were taken aside and told by my mother that Grandma called Dad in the middle of the night and said she couldn't wake Grandpa up, so Dad went out there to be with her. Later we were told Grandpa had died. At almost 7, I was old enough to comprehend death to a certain degree but I hadn't recalled any other people I knew in my entire short life who had died. I knew this man I called Grandpa. I knew him and loved him. He was only ever kind to me with a wonderful soft, gentle smile and a ready laugh. I didn't see him on a daily basis, maybe more of a every couple of months situation- they did live quite a distance from us. As a child it seemed like that distance was a couple hours long, but in reality it was only a half an hour, but still, far enough away that it wasn't a trip we'd make all the time. Death.

Death no longer lived beneath the surface for me at almost 7 years old, it had popped up and curled it's seaweed all around me capturing me right up to my chest, squeezing but not pulling me under. My world was rocked violently but not in such a way as I would come to know death's evil grip. And it does have an evil grip! It does!

Death is EVIL.  Don't let anyone try to placate you with how normal it is, how it's just a part of this great circle of life we are all a part of. It's NOT just a part, it's a huge, evil part! 

This is why death lurks as an undercurrent in our lives, ever there, ever waiting, it's evil showing off its teeth and talons, its victory- even if it's only temporary, it's still a victory of evil's making.

Death is inevitable but part of us knows, we KNOW, that death isn't how things are supposed to be. We know something went terribly wrong somewhere and death was a result.  You've seen the horror movies where plagues devastate society- something went wrong in some lab somewhere and the result was the almost extinction of humanity. The sense they try to portray in those movies is something going wrong to cause this to happen. I'm going to scale it way, way back to not an all humans gone at once scenario, but the horror story of the slow extinction. Every hundred years or so the earth has an entirely new group of people living on it except for a few oldtime stragglers holding on to 101 years, 102, and so on, but surely not more than 120 years at any given moment.   A hundred years ago today, the majority of people born are now dead.  And it will be the same tomorrow and the next day and the next. 

This was NOT how humanity was supposed to be.

Living with an undercurrent of death is how it is though, meant to be or not. That undercurrent can be swift or slow, rising or deep but it's there all the time. Part of us becomes immune to the true awfulness of death until we are caught in that undercurrent with our loved one only to survive while they perish. Part of us can die with our loved one, we may have survived the horror of being swept away, but we are never left unscathed.

Death is the undercurrent of our lives, but Eternal Life is the air we can breathe, the hope we leap for, the knowledge there is more beyond the awfulness of death. Eternal life, where death is annihilated completely and never a part of our existence ever again. Eternal life, how we were intended to live. Eternal life all that keeps the darkness of what death tries to be at bay. 

When we've lived through the evilness of death's existence in our life brought on by the great deceiver, the evil one, the Devil- we know that touch of evil intimately. We can THANK God through JESUS CHRIST that death will be abolished! There will be a victory over ALL death! Yes, I believe this with my whole heart for as touched by the evil it has been - it has been sealed with the love of my Savior for eternity, He is my everlasting hope. The undercurrent of death will be taken away entirely, wipe from our existence once and for all. There will be no more seaweed tickling our toes and inevitably threatening us with entanglement. That joyous day of Christ's return, that wondrous day of eternal existence with Him bodily, is hope, is love, is evil's complete and utter end promised in a glorious new way. 

Come, Lord Jesus, come soon! All through Your amazing love beyond my ability to fully comprehend! Thank you! All glory, praise and honor to You, Lord, now and forever! Amen!!!!!!!

Rom_12:12  Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer

Rom_5:2  By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Rom 8:24  For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? 

Rom 8:25  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. 

1Co 2:1  And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. 

1Co 2:2  For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

1Ti 1:15  This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. 

1Ti 1:16  Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. 

1Ti 1:17  Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

Joh_4:14  But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Joh_5:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

Joh_6:27  Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

Joh_6:40  And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh_6:47  Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

Joh_12:50  And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.

That I May Know Jesus.

 That I may know him. That I may know Jesus. How many of us come to know fictional characters in the books we read, the shows we watch, the movies we're fans of? There are Fanatic - fans who know intimate details of these fictional characters- not the actors portraying them- if they are from a show or movie, but the character, the made up person. People fall in love with fictional characters and mourn their passing should that character be written to die. Some go so far as to write angry emails demanding their character be miraculously revived- that it was all a nightmare sequence in the story read (show watched- you know what I mean).  That we can come to know characters that aren't real so well that they become a part of our lives is a sign of what? A good imagination?  A slight mental/emotional instability? Just part of being human? Who among us hasn't cried bitter tears at the death of a beloved character in one form or another? Sure, there are probably some who could say they never have and I believe them. Some people simply aren't born with an emotional ability to that depth, I've known at least one person like this in my circle of life. Others cry constant tears at attachments they've formed to fake…er…uhm…fictional characters, because they can attach themselves all too readily. In the span of a single- one hour tv show without knowing anything previous to a character- some can cry at their plight whatever it may be. We are humans who feel deeply. We even cry at two minute long television commercial characters. We do.

If we can invest that much emotion into a fictional being that isn't truly even real, why is it so many refuse to invest that much emotion in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ- a REAL man, a REAL God? (Before you tell me He's not real He is fiction- Read the book- Case For Christ- this author (man) spent two years as an investigative reporter trying desperately to prove that Jesus Christ wasn't real, and what happened at the crucifixion and resurrection wasn't fact. Seriously- do yourself that favor and watch the movie based on the book if you don't want to read the book.)  

Jesus a REAL human being! Jesus who promised YOU and ME a comforter- the Holy Spirit to be in our lives right now while Jesus ministers in the Most Holy Place in Heaven. It's a real promise from a real man!

Are you invested in Your Savior? You should be, He's in a daily show called- 'Your Life.' You can make Him as real as any character on tv etc. in fact, you can make Him much more real- He is real.  We act as if He's not knowable, but He is, He really is. 

Php 3:10  That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 

Php 3:11  If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

That I may know HIM.

I want to know HIM. I want this loving God in my life! I want to know HIM. I want to comprehend His workings in my day to day life. 

Joh 16:7  Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 

Joh 16:8  And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 

Joh 16:9  Of sin, because they believe not on me; 

Joh 16:10  Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; 

Joh 16:11  Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. 

Joh 16:12  I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. 

Joh 16:13  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. 

Joh 16:14  He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. 

Joh 16:15  All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. 

WE CAN KNOW HIM! Please Lord, let the SPIRIT OF TRUTH come to us as individuals seeking to know You and Your truth. Please let us see with spiritual sight all that You are in our lives. Give us the Comforter, let Him come to us! We would know YOU, really, really know You, LORD JESUS, and in knowing You we will know the FATHER and we will know the Holy Spirit! All though YOUR love, now and forever! AMEN!!!!!!!

The Royal Law- Love.

 What is sin? The transgression of God's royal law- the Ten Commandments. What are the Ten Commandments? They are the written laws of love. People don't like to think of them that way. People would much rather consider those Ten Commandments as being done away with and old fashion. They don't want to comprehend the love in the Royal law because to do so would mean having an accountability to them.

Love.

Loving God and Loving Mankind.  

Loving our Creator, our Redeemer. If you're reading this and you do not believe in God as your Creator or Redeemer then there is nothing here for you. Seriously. There isn't a single thing I could say that would make you change your mind to believe in something you've chosen not to believe in. I could go on and on about my own belief and why I believe and still that wouldn't be enough. The reasons for your own unbelief will rear up as a bear on its hindlegs ready to intimidate an opponent before charging into a fight. I'm sure that's what your unbelief will do because we tend to cling tenaciously to our personal beliefs believing they are what makes us who we have become. To deny our beliefs even in the face of indisputable facts would still rip some vital core inside of us and make us vulnerable to our made out of clay status. We do NOT want to believe we were made from the dust of the ground, that we were shaped as clay vessels by a Creator- it makes us feel small, and insignificant in some way that repels our sense of self. We hold ourselves to be brilliant beings all on our own without any help from some old Creator. 

Then there is the whole 'IF' about the Creator -- if He really exists why are things so horrific.  That's a long, long talk that I'm willing to have but not right now.  Right now I just want to say that sin is a transgression against love.

Sin is harming God or harming one another in some way.  When you choose to harm God or another person you sin. If you sin you are in need of forgiveness. If you enjoy harming God and others, you truly are a child of sin's author- the Devil. Ah, did I lose you there? Have you gone and closed the window…maybe not quite yet if you're still reading this. We need to love. 

Jesus will end the Devil once and for all, it will happen of that I'm sure. Sin will end. There will be love, only love. If this isn't something you want to hear or believe I pray the Holy Spirit touches your life and you yield to that touch and accept Jesus Christ as Your Savior. Accept Love.

*

Rom 16:20  And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. 

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 

Isa 25:8  He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it. 

Isa 25:9  And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. 

Rom 8:37  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 

Heb 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; 

Heb 2:15  And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 

1Jn 3:8  He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 

Rev 12:10  And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. 

Rev 20:1  And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 

Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 

Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. 

Just A Box of Tissues

 A Box of Tissues.

It's not a box of gold to treasure. It's not a container of trinkets to cherish. This box of tissues sitting there on the bathroom counter, right there near the window sill, right there where he liked it to be, it isn't worth anything at all to anyone- but me.

So many things have been taken out of their place- it was inevitable because one of the ways I deal with uncertainty's unfathomable stress as it bombards me is to move things. You know you can't see stress, but you feel it's affects in your life if you take a few minutes to recognize them. I don't feel like a wind-up toy ready to be released the instant a fingertip moves from my string. Yet, underneath the surface of my skin it's there, this odd vibration telling me my life is out of sync. There is a strange energy I need to expend and believe it or not most of the time I'm not even aware it's there. That's stress. It hides inside us playing its special music unique each of us. The silent tune resonates through my life right now fixed in me for the time being and I sing along with it by moving things around. There's a purpose to each move, it's not random and chaotic. There's a thought process involved.  When Jerry was in and out of rehabs and hospitals for almost a year it first started - that invisible thrumming of stress. When it became apparent he would eventually come home different from when he left, that things would need to be moved, my newly strung internal instrument of stress found a source of sweet, yet brief, release.

Things had to be moved, and moved they would be.

You know that too wide dresser had to be replaced by a thin shelf. A too big of a chair exchanged for a smaller chair. A desk in slow decay- gone for another used desk, but only at the beginning stages of its decline. A sleeping chair made way for a hospital bed.  All these many changes resulted in many moves. First things had to be rearranged this way and that way just to see if we could manuver with a wheelchair moving about- that was a lot of moving involving many days and nights (it varied) of doing so. Of course, all the moving of things really meant little until Jerry could come home and test run through it all. My feeble attempts to mimic his invalid state never got it quite right. 

I could wheel around through the room this way and that way, I could reach this and that, I had access to this thing and that other thing… all in a wheelchair… but it wasn't the same not one bit. I wasn't weak through muscle atrophy. I wasn't wracked with pains- sharp, dull, and everywhere in-between. You can't truly imitate the reality of another's existence- but - you can try.

You could ask my son about this little moving stress monster inside me- he'd come home or wake up and see the daily changes and shake his head, voicing his concern with his oft repeated words-- "Don't overdo it, Mom, please." My mostly mute stressling inside me would choose this time to speak for me. "I won't." I'd reassure Matt, and of course I never ever moved things with the idea of overdoing it, I can't speak for Stressling though. 

Now in our lives, with Jerry no longer here, on a whole different level things are being moved constantly, almost daily. The upheaval of my life demands it because of my lack of financial security. I don't have time to rest and grieve, I have time to move and mourn. My stress simmers inside sometimes buried deep, other times in ripples under my skin. But isn't that the way it is for a lot of people? Worries, stress, this isn't unique to me or you, it's just life. 

Let's return to the unmoved tissue box that has managed to escape the constantly moving household landscape of my life. I had an awful revelation today as I plucked a single tissue from the box and realized there were only a few left… 

How will I use the last tissue from the very last box of tissues we will ever have shared? 

It's only a tissue box, it's only tissues, but they were our tissues. He touched that box, he used the tissues that came before. Ah, the things that stand out as I move and mourn, silly little things. The question remains unanswered, I don't know if I will use the last tissue from the very last box of tissues we shared. I just don't know.

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C.S. Lewis quote- "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world" "Always keep alive an eager longing for the next." 

'Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.' Romans 8:28

George MacDonald quote- "The Christian life is a constant fighting. You think that Jesus Christ came to save you from any suffering and to do you good. He came to save you from your sins, and until you are saved from them He will step between you and NO suffering." 

'As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent.' Rev. 3:19 

Zec_13:9  And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God

Jas 1:12  Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.