After Seven Years. . . Finally!!

After seven years of being run down and sick from two rounds of surgeries and chemotherapies for cancer, I finally, finally got to ride my bike on our beautiful greenway system we have where we live. It meanders along a river and even through an old civil war battlefield. There are a few small waterfalls along the way. A number of spring wildflowers were in bloom and long the riverbanks you could see the remains of large, ancient trees.

Life can be difficult, but with the grace, mercy and strength of God we can persevere. Sometimes you just have to lean into Him really intensely.

Our family has had a very difficult ten years. It started out with moving out of our family home we had lived for twenty-seven years which was stressful in itself. Only a few months after that our daughter went through an unhappy divorce. Not long after that she met someone else and married them which was a happy event. Only a few months after the marriage she came up pregnant with our first grandchild, a beautiful little boy, Baric, another happy event, but within his first year we could tell something was wrong. He was not developing the way he should. Three months after his birth, my daughter became pregnant again.

While she was pregnant with our second grandchild, Baric was diagnosed as being autistic. Only two months after that diagnosis, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer and immediately had surgery and a year of chemotherapy. Four months after my cancer diagnosis, my son-in-law’s father was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Unfortunately, he died within the year.

While I was on chemotherapy, my wonderful granddaughter, Rylan, was born. I got to come off all the drugs. My daughter moved to another town for my son-in-law’s job, and because we love being close to our only child, we also decided to move close to them to help with our grandchildren.

But it happened again. Right after we sold our condominium and during the process of moving my cancer came back for a second time. We moved on one day, and four days later I was back in surgery. Again, I had to have chemotherapy, not quite as much but still more drugs. I, of course, made it through. Whew, that was a lot in ten years!! It makes me tired to think of all of it.

If it had not been for my faith and closeness to the living God, I could not have made it through nor could any of my family. I’m so grateful to still be able to help with the children. May God show you today in this day the same love, mercy and grace that He has just shown us. Praise God, Christ and the Holy Spirit!!!!

Silver Soul or old habits are hard to kill!

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I used to love to write poetry. I have just recently started again. Here are a few old ones from years ago.

Silver Soul

The silver soul
Sits on the wire.
The golden globe lights
With eternal fire
The sky and waiting soul.
Changing in His passing by
More nearly each to burning gold.
Both breathe for this a longing sigh.
Golden mirrors of His warmth
For this lost world to view and know,
Making it more clearly seen
The riches of His Heavenly Glow.

Rebirth

It tears at my flesh,
My soul is reborn
Into a world of light.
No more running out of the night.

I thank you Gracious Lord again
For this glory of new life.
It runs downhill and up
In endless joyful flight!

But. . .And that’s a big But

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Life down here on the face of this planet can get terrible, horrible and hellacious. All you have to do to have proof of this is to look at the children living in desperate poverty, women caught up in human trafficking and children caught up in child prostitution rings, and the list goes on.

My own start in life as an orphan was terrible and traumatic. I too can understand suffering first hand from my own life as most of us can. It can be at times so difficult to almost impossible to understand intense levels of pain whether it’s physical or emotional. It can feel so devastating——but, and this is a Big But, God sees and knows your pain. He loves you completely and totally. He is there in the middle of your suffering and can turn it around. Pray deeply over your situation. Stay connected to a spiritual community that can pray for you. Prayer demolishes strongholds!!

We all ask why the pain. I still cannot understand all of that mystery, but do not leave out the but God is there with you in the middle of the pain. Paul in Romans 8 says in the middle of his suffering ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’. The sting of pain in this world does not come close to the glory of our new life we will have as believers in Jesus of Nazareth and his power and glory. Revelation describes our new earth and new Jerusalem in such vivid terms of unimaginable beauty. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him. Could it be that in comparison to heaven’s stupendous, fantastic beauty all our pain down here will be as if we had only slightly stubbed our toe?

The pain of life down here is real, and I by no means would belittle the suffering of anyone. It hurts, and this does not mean we should not try to alleviate suffering whenever it is possible for us to do so. We are to be the hands and feet of God and Christ. Three of the most beautiful words in the Holy Scriptures are God is love 1 John 4:16. Further down in verse 21, And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (NIV) gloryofgod

Spring Rites

I could not resist! I like to take photographs along our greenway system where I live. A few of the spring flowers are out in bloom and there are mounds of heavy-headed groups of honeysuckle. The air is full of their wonderful smells.

The trail winds over a river and along a creek. I even got to enjoy the company of a fine-feathered friend. Hope you can enjoy your spring and try to get outside to enjoy the natural sights our Heavenly Father has created for our pleasure.

Pure Innocence

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I have talked about my beautiful, little autistic grandson, Baric Micah, in an earlier blog post. He has the sweetest disposition and is so precious to us. We enjoy taking care of him. He sets an example for us every day.

There has been placed in him such a pure innocence. He cannot comprehend in a lot of ways good and bad. His filters for danger are not what a normal child’s would be, and we have to watch him closely to keep him from hurting himself. He likes to climb on everything!

But oh, when he loves on you. Like I said, he just loves so purely and so innocently. He came up to me the other day and kept leaning on me for me to hug and kiss on him. It’s wonderful. I get as much out of it as he does. I can’t forget the day I was just sitting, and he came in and leaned his head toward mine. I thought what is he trying to do then he leaned in and kissed me on the lips. Granted it was a little wet and slobbery, but it was wonderful. He walked across the room and did the same to my husband. His mother has been so good about making him feel loved.

I think this child-like, totally innocent and trusting type of love he demonstrates is how God wishes us to love Him. It is the kind of relationship with our great and wonderful Creator we were meant to be in. We were created by love, through love and for love’s own pleasure. Praise God. Have a wonderful day!!

A Repeat

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Here is a repeat of a blog I wrote in October of 2018. I will never forget this experience and hope that it helps your faith in some way. Praise God!!

For years now, I guess about 7 or 8, I have been wanting to talk about, tell, something that happened to me one night. I have only told family members about it since I’m not very good at standing up and talking in front of people or telling things to people. I guess I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me.

I have sleep apnea. I don’t know if you know what that is, but that’s where when you lay down on your back to sleep the muscles that hold up your soft palette at the back of your throat relax so much that the palette itself collapses downward and completely closes your airway. In other words, you stop breathing. It is dangerous and can kill you. I do not think I could sleep with one of the breathing machines they use so I sleep with the head of my bed raised and try to stay on my sides.

However, one night I went to sleep and somehow must have gotten off my side and into a position that was not safe. I woke up suddenly, fully awake and conscious, and was in a different place.

I remember feeling a slight tinge of fear but was mostly confused, thinking where am I?? All around me was nothing but deep blackness until suddenly I could see this spiral of beautiful, puffy white clouds spiraling off into the distance. I did not want to look at the far distant end of the spiral because I had this sudden knowledge that if I looked at it, there would be no going back. Somehow I just knew that. Don’t know how, but I just did, but I was not given a choice. I had to look at the end of the spiral, and so I did.

Next, let me say that I had no physical sensation at all. I was fully conscious, but there were no physical sensations. I had no awareness of a body.

To get back to where I was, as soon as I looked at the end of the spiral of clouds, I was in the other place, but this one was different. This beautiful, beautiful light was everywhere. It glistened and shone like nothing I have ever seen. But the light was alive. There was an intelligence or presence inside the light. Like nothing I have ever experienced.

It was so bright it almost hurt to look at it and the colors of the rainbow were moving through it constantly. It was so bright that I turned to look away, but again, I was not given a choice. I had to look at the light so I did.

When I turned to look at it again, suddenly it felt like somebody had taken me and thrown me as hard as they could up against a brick wall. There was this really hard boom, and I was back inside my body. Totally awake but back inside of my body going “What just happened to me.”

I laid there for a few minutes, thinking about what I had just seen and experienced. I moved around a little trying to get my bearings back and then decided the only thing it could have been was for a few minutes or less, because it happened so quickly, so very quickly, is I think I died! It is the only explanation I can think of.

I believe for a very few brief seconds, I was allowed to see some of the glory of the Living God. The light was beautiful beyond words. I wish everyone could have seen it. Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

The only reason I wanted to tell this is I hope it will reassure everyone that there really is life after death, and that God is more beautiful than any of my weak human words could ever express.

I pray that the living God Himself will bless your day and your whole life and that you can get to know Him better. He really does love you profoundly, passionately and completely. God Bless You.