How do we do it?

I work at my church in pastoral care. That's dealing with the hurts, pains & deaths of life. Days like today, overwhelming me with death, murder, sickness, pain and heartache... bring me down. I just don't know how to get out of this funk I'm in. The phone rings and I cringe knowing it's some more bad news. An email comes from someone with the subject : PRAYER REQUEST. I breathe deeply before I look at it. Days like this are very few. But when they come, they are over-whelming. What do people do without the Lord? How do they put one foot in front of the other while going through the emotions of life? If I did not have my God, my Maker, My Hope, My Lord, My Savior, My Redeemer, I just don't know what I would do. Thank you God that you know those groanings within me. I give them to you, knowing you are my warrior.

But God

How long, Lord? - How long is this to continue? Can it be that this is to continue always? Is there to be no change for the better? Are the promises which have been made, never to be fulfilled? It is so easy to become overwhelmed. So much is happening in the world. God warned us there would be wars and rumors of wars. He warned us that families would war against one another. He warned us that satan would be the world's master. He warned us there would be false prophets. He warned us that we needed to live in the world but not be part of it. Disease, earthquakes, tsunamis, starvation, murder, incest, rape, joblessness, power struggles... these have touched all of us. When I say ALL, I mean the world's population. At 2:36 p.m. on this date, March 31, there are 6,909,272,041 in the world. Not one of these people have lived a life without being touched by disaster of some sort. Even the birthing experience is traumatic for both mother and child.

I'm constantly asking God how to pray. I need to pray for the people in my life who are having battles. How do I pray. Bless them Lord? I know He will. But I YEARN for, NEED, COVET, STARVE for, DESIRE the mind of Christ. I want His words to be the ones coming out of my mouth. I want His mind to know how to pray.

It becomes overwhelming on Wednesday evening when my prayer group gets together. We have a small prayer group... and our Sunday School class has about 35 in it. We are small compared to the over 6 billion people in the world. Nevertheless, we spend an hour just laying out the hurts in our own little worlds.

In my little world ... family and friends ... to name a few there is:

• a wayward child


• an unmarried couple living together


• a family member with cancer


• an angry child


• one whose parent is dying


• one whose child just died from unknown reasons


• one whose car broke down and there's nowhere to turn


• one who cannot afford to pay the bills


• one who lost a job


• someone who will lose a foot because of infection


• one whose family has abandoned them

I could go on and on.

But God...

Where would I be without those 2 words. He is the Almighty Warrior, the Cornerstone, The Great Physician... and none of these happenings have taken Him by surprise.

What do I say in my head when given bad news?

Praise God anyway.

Why?

But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions --it is by grace you have been saved. Eph 2:5-6

It's Amazing to Me

It's pet peeve time!

It is amazing to me how many TEACHERS misspell words.

Its verses It's.
There verses their
You, your, you're OH MY
Lose verses loose

I know people get in a hurry...I understand...but the constant wrong terms... the constant mistakes just overwhelm me...


1. Long morning out running errans
2. So sorry for the lose of your dad.
3. Still raining. Oh well, just means more flowers are on there way
4. supper is simmering and the house is nice and quit
5. They have awaken from their slumber

It wouldn't be so bad...but all of those are from the same teacher. TEACHER! EGADS.

I'll never forget the teacher that "retired" after I went to my daughter's school and told the Principal that my children do not talk like the teacher was teaching them.

BASROOM instead of Bathroom

And then the teacher says out loud for all of us to hear: "Well, alls we wants to do is give them a good education."

And that's when I stood up and said "WE do not talk that way." My daughter got moved to another class and the teacher suddenly retired. The worst part... she had taught in the school system for over 25 years.

I know the majority of teachers speak and write plainly and correctly. But those who do not need to be held accountable. . . by another teacher!

I'm off my soapbox.

Ouida

Now...I've got that off my chest... and I just KNOW that God will hold me even more accountable now! I have a love/hate relationship with that.

I Took Out The Trash This Morning

I had not thought about the correlation of taking out the trash and living the spiritual life. It just never occurred to me that the "feel good" feeling I get when I realized that the trash has been taken out was so freeing.

The evenings I come home after taking the trash out, I almost smile. I think how wonderful all of that gunk and junk is out of my house. It's almost a feeling of complete freedom!

And then... this morning, God put a picture in my head.

How wonderful it is when we clean out our temple of the gunk and junk that piles up. It's so freeing to be rid of bitterness, envy, strife, gluttony, pride, lust, anger, greed and laziness.

And then... I also realized that I would have to take the trash out again next week because it will be full again. Just like those sins. We must continually "take out the trash" in our temples. The sins just keep piling up, like trash. But that trash needs to be dealt with each day.

Mental picture...trash can with lid. When I start feeling one of the 7 deadly sins, I just mentally open that trash can and throw the feeling away. If I continually hold on to it, it will become rancid...and stink...and grow moldy and trash the temple that God has freely given me.

Who knew taking out the trash could be so freeing?

Ecclesiastes 10:1 "As dead flies cause even a bottle of perfume to stink, so a little foolishness spoils great wisdom and honor."

Laughter

I've had two complete days of laughter. It's been marvelous, but WOW my face hurts. I realized I must not exercise those muscles enough. I need more laughter. Isn't it in Proverbs the Bible says a merry heart does us good? I plan to remember to laugh each day!

Don't know why I was thinking about these things...

Little memories starting popping up this evening...memories of my children..

Chris was so impressed with the garbage man... he aspired to be one when he grew up. I guess he is in a way...he works in law enforcement.
He loved to take apart everything in the house. I'd find radios with pieces strewn all over. He was always so curious about how things worked. I read today that he will be moving the plugs in his house to different locations? Because he can! He loved Captain Kangaroo, I ordered the free "picture pages" from the show, and he painstakingly worked on them with the characters. (The clock--what was his name???... Mr. Green Jeans, Dancing Bear)
His favorite foods at two years old were chocolate milk and french fries. Who wouldn't love them? I think he probably thinks I shouldn't have given him so much of them now...having to work hard to lost that baby fat!

Geoff was innovative on his own account. Just doing things in ways that confounded me some times. I often wondered why the underarms of his shirts were always so dirty...I mean there were clots of...stuff in the arm pits of all his shirts. He found out that if he wiped his fork clean between his underarm and chest, it would be ready for the next course at each meal time.
His first time at mowing the lawn was a source of great frustration to me...I do wish I could have been more open-minded than I was, because I would have probably had an accomplished artist on my hands. He mowed a little here, then would cross the yard and mow over there, then move over there and mow a patch or two... it took us hours to get all the little patches out of the yard.
Geoff wanted to be a super-hero when he grew up. I guess he is in a way...he rescues people who are hurting ... he feels their pain.
He still has very unusual thought processes, but now I appreciate them, because my patience level is very high.

We were driving down a highway and she saw men, dwarfed by the huge billboard they were working on. "Mommy!" my three year old daughter exclaimed, "Look at those itty bitty men." I remember laughing so hard I had to slow down driving for fear I couldn't see.
Melissa hated meat loaf. But living in a home where we barely had meat, to me that was a delicacy. She finished her meat loaf... I found it, individual little rounds of hamburger under her chair. I think she was hoping the cat would eat it. The cat didn't. Melissa swears I made her get down on the floor and lick it up...I don't remember that... but it would have been innovative on my part...getting the floor clean and making sure she got her protein. I never made meat loaf again, and still miss it at times.
She ran away from home twice, because she wanted her own way. I laugh now, because she was always so head strong. I took dinner away from her for two weeks because she wouldn't clean her room. After two weeks she got dinner back, and her dirty room. She won.
I'm just thankful now that she appreciates a clean house.
She is so head strong at work, demanding the best of herself at all times. I think the meat loaf helped her get that way.

None of my children liked Mr. Rogers. I'm sure there's a deep thought about that somewhere.

The Silence of Snow

Waking up this morning I knew something was different. The silence was amazing. Amazing because it's so rare in this world of noise.

There wasn't a songbird singing, not a car starting... nothing but silence. Opening the blinds I saw the beauty that awaited my eyes...the same beauty that filled my ears---- pristeen, beautiful, quiet, white, virgin snow. No footprints. No car prints, just a sea of white.

And the silence was not deafening... and it was welcomed.

I listened. I "felt" that still small voice of my Lord. Illustrating in the whiteness of the blanket covering my world, was my sin--covered by the purity of my Jesus. The bland cement, the rusted cars, the dull beige of the condos, the barren trees...all covered by a blanket of purity...making everything clean and perfect once again.

A tear trickles down my cheek as I realize that all nature is crying out His majesty, His Lovingkindness, His Words...His love...His forgiveness...if we will only stop and listen...in the silence of snow.

Lord Jesus I long to be perfectly whole

I want Thee forever to live in my soul

Break down every idol, cast out every foe

Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Whiter than snow, yes whiter than snow

Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Psalm 51:7 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow.