Tagged: suffering

[caption id="attachment_3700" align="aligncenter" width="596"] For my mother-in-love, a Master Gardener who taught me the fruitful practice of hard pruning.[/caption] I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful (John 15:1-2). Well, it seems we are all going to have a holly, jolly, pruning Christmas. The Oxford Languages Dictionary defines pruning in various degrees: trim (a tree, shrub, or bush) by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems, especially to increase fruitfulness and growth. cut away (a branch or stem). reduce the extent of (something) by removing superfluous or unwanted parts. December is a bit… Read More

For my mentor, her family, and all who hurt this holiday season. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). No one wants to spend the holidays in a hospital.  No one ever wishes to spend Thanksgiving planning a loved one’s funeral.  No one ever chooses to spend Christmas unwrapping bandages instead of gifts, tending wounds instead of Christmas dinner. Wounds on their child’s burned body so deep they don’t even bleed. Such thoughts are horrifying. But they are a reality for many people this holiday season. The word holiday derives from the old English “holy-day”. How ironic for those who hurt on the holidays, those in excruciating circumstances they never chose. How could a day meant… Read More

  Psalm 62, Our Champion Defender I am standing in absolute stillness, silent before the one I love, waiting as long as it takes for him to rescue me. Only God is my Savior, and he will not fail me. For he alone is my safe place. His wrap-around presence always protects me (??????) as my champion defender. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in him. Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion (Isaiah 8:17-18). Trusting the God I do not understand is very hard. Trusting the God who allows my… Read More

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for the One who made the promise is trustworthy (Hebrews 10:23). 4:00 am Prayers! Our son has lost excessive amounts of blood through the donor site where the graft was taken and his hemoglobin levels are dangerously low (for you medical folks, it’s 4.1). He’s as white as the sheets he’s lying on. The doctor thought the hemoglobin count must be a mistake and did a retest but the number was accurate… 4:45am He is getting blood transfusions now.  1:30pm Second transfusion. Waiting for wound care team so we can determine if the bleeding has stopped… Don’t need blood donors as of yet… 3:30 pm The team just started the procedure. We were gently asked to… Read More

You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them. Psalm 89:9 Again and again and again Lord You bring this word to me lately… And now it is Anne’s opening word tonight at prayer, which I barely made it to because of the enemy. My heart cry is, not just more of You, Jesus. All of You. -from my journal around 6:30 pm on November 6, 2019. From my journal entry to friends and family on the Caring Bridge, the next evening, November 7: "You rule over the surging sea, and when its waves mount up, you still them." -Psalm 89:9 They told us the first 24 hours would be critical. So we reached out to you, and you stormed… Read More

for sw, my safest person The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, than the mighty waves of the sea.Psalm 93:3-4, NKJV I watched the helicopter rise from the hospital helipad, each thunderous throb of its propellers coursing through my body like a terrible shockwave. We were sitting in a beautiful garden outside the hospital while our son slept on the tenth floor. The sun shone warmly and a magnificent hydrangea bush nodded in the gentle breeze beside us. But I was not present. I was in the dark, standing on a lonely platform looking up into the night sky seven… Read More

Run and tell his disciples, even Peter, that he is risen.Mark 16:7 Even Peter. How curious that the angel sitting in the empty tomb on the Morning of all mornings would emphasize the disciple who denied Jesus in his darkest hour. The angel was a servant messenger of the Most High God, and he was doing just what the Master had instructed. His words conveyed Jesus’ heart. Do not forget Peter especially. He needs to know He is still loved. Times of fear and panic cause people to act in ways contrary to their deepest beliefs. Patriots abandon the battle. Mothers walk away from their babies. Fathers leave their families. Disciples deny their Lord. Jesus knows and understands. He loved us before we loved Him… Read More

"Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."Mark 11:22-23 I have a list in my journal titled, “Mountain, Go Throw Yourself Into the Sea.” Underneath is a long line of things I cannot control, cannot possibly budge on my own, impossible things. I have given them to Jesus, the One who makes the impossible Possible. I have replaced my to-do lists with He-Can-Do. There are things I can… Read More

He will restore us in a very short time; he will heal us in a little while, so that we may live in his presence. Hosea 6:2 How strange, apocalyptic, it must have been for the people who entered our home and boxed up all our belongings after the fire. Room by room, they picked up every salvageable item and placed it carefully in cardboard boxes to be cleaned and restored. We were plucked up and removed from our life, as it were, in an instant. We did not know that morning when we threw the covers back to face another day that we would not be in our home that night to snuggle down again into our comfortable beds. Or for many, many long… Read More

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.2 Corinthians 4:7 For many years I read this passage with one clear image in mind. Terra-cotta, reflecting the earth’s rich hue, thick, rough-hewn earthen jars just the right size to hold in two hands. Their purpose, to be filled with whatever is needed and poured out in service. I imagined them brimming with freshly pressed olive oil, warm water for washing tired feet, or frothy goat’s milk newly squeezed. Such mental images came to life in my travels through South America and East Africa as I discovered countless vessels created to hold something useful and aid in service.  I thought deeply about the… Read More