Month: March 2018

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Praise Him in the Storm, Part 2

After the last post, I would like to share with you a bit about one of God’s Saints who defined the strength of faith and the ability to praise Him in a storm. We should all be gifted enough in our lives to know someone like this. I was fortunate enough to be loved and blessed by this daughter of our King. Cynthia (my wife) grew up with and got into the mischief of her youth with Donna. I came to know her later in life but was instantly given a place in her heart and the hearts of her family. She was still full of mischief and the sparkle in her eyes was a beautiful advertisement for what was brewing in her head. Sadly, we lost this precious light after a crushing storm. These words are in memoriam to Donna after the storm.

Donna’s storm

Donna was diagnosed in September of 2016 as having Glioblastoma, a very aggressive, devastating form of brain cancer. This is the same cancer as John McCain was diagnosed with. I must say here that I am not a doctor nor am I a trained clinician, I have a layman’s understanding and must speak as a layman. When Donna was first diagnosed, she was given only three months to live if she went untreated. If she agreed to the rigorous treatment plan she might have a year. Donna prayed with her family and friends for guidance and for healing. In the end, she decided to follow the doctor’s advice and try to remove the tumor.  Surgery was a success and the surgeon proclaimed that scans showed that they “had gotten it all.”

The insidious thing about this particular cancer is that it grows appendages that dig deep into the brain. On the ends of those appendages the cancer plants seeds in the brain’s tissue. As I understand things, it is nearly impossible to remove all of this deadly intruder. As you might surmise, “we got it all” soon turned into the cancer is back and it has grown. Donna’s faith never wavered. She kept believing in God’s healing Grace. She told everyone that all was well, that she was in God’s hands.

Donna and her husband, Fred, traveled to MD Anderson Cancer Institute in Houston, TX, for treatments that left her drained and sickened. Away from her family and loved ones, living in a travel trailer loaned by a friend for weeks at a time; Donna and Fred did the best that they could to live a “normal” life and they never stopped praising God for His goodness. They never stopped witnessing about the healing power of God, of the love of the Father.

There were many treatments. Many trips to MD Anderson. Houston soon became their second home. The tumor’s growth might slow for a bit but it continued to grow. Donna continued to tell everyone that God would heal her of her cancer. She continued to inspire all whom she came into contact with because of her trust in the Lord. We continued to pray but Donna was getting weaker and the effects of her cancer were taking their toll. During all her ordeal there had been momentary breaks in the clouds, the rain had slackened up for a bit but the storm still raged. For everyone except Donna.

Always His

Her family was constantly gathered at her side. Though she was now spending most of her time confined to bed, weak and hardly able to speak above a whisper, her faith in God was so many times larger than the tumor that refused to relent. “I’m in God’s hands”, she would tell us in her labored breath. We began to hold vigil as Donna slept. Having to be content with holding her hand, whispering I love you in her ear, kissing her brow while there appeared no let up in the storm.

Donna’s Storm is Over

At 5:45 AM on August 30, 2017, the storm was over. Donna left this world behind. Her suffering was over. She had been right all along, she was in God’s hands, in His loving arms. As she took her last breath on this earth, she took the next breath in Paradise. She is looking down on her family and loved ones from Heaven, doing exactly what she always did. She is praising God, walking with Jesus, and casting her love out to all those whom she counted hers.

Cyn and Donna

Donna had proven more right than we had known. God might not have healed her cancer in this world but He had certainly healed her in the next world. Her illness, as horrible as it was, had been for the good. She blessed her children and grandchildren with her ever solid faith. Donna was a shining example of what we should all aspire to be. Donna lived her life in this world for the Glory of God. She shared her faith with so many people. My friend had been a Warrior for Christ and through her faith, she became the Hero of many. She certainly found a triumphant reception in Heaven. Donna has found the rainbow after the storm.

 

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Praise Him in the Storm

I trust that everyone here is the “Praising God” type. Let’s hope so anyway. I hope most of us pray and praise our Creator as is His due. Some of us are more consistent or frequent than others. I make no judgment, only observe my own occasional inconsistency. For most of us, it is so very easy to praise God when everything is coming up roses. When you score the big raise at work or make the grade on a test that you dared to hope for. For many, it is not so easy to be thankful when struggling, unappreciated or stressed. I encourage everyone to remember to praise God when their skies are not so bright. Praise Him in the storm.

On a day when we are feeling unloved, who loves us more than our God? He loves us in our brokenness, in our tattered, tortured state as much as when we are all shiny, maybe more. This is the God who through the power of a thought and a breath, the passing of His mighty hand created all there is, in all its perfect synchronicity. And yet He not only created us to be in communion with Him, He knows us so intimately, He knew us before we were born and He knows the number of hairs on our heads.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you;   Jeremiah 1:5 ESV

“Why even the hairs of your head are all numbered.”  Luke 12:7 ESV

Count your blessings

Even in the midst of our troubles, physical or financial, are we not richly blessed?  Have we not enjoyed God’s favor? Did we not wake up with a roof over our heads, don’t most of us have shoes on our feet or some change in our pockets? Most of us know where our next meal is going to come from. Most of us didn’t have to walk for miles to fetch water.

Even during the downpours of life, we are still children of the One True God. Jesus came down from Heaven, became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit, and died on a cross. The curtain of the Temple was torn asunder so that we were granted personal access to the Father (something mankind had only known on limited occasions since the Garden of Eden) and we know forgiveness for our sinfulness. Jesus was resurrected and ascended to Heaven to make a place for us. Beloved, those are reasons to rejoice, reasons to praise our God above. Praise the Creator for His creation, for His love, and for His Mercy.

Learn to Dance in the Rain

Do not be afraid to rejoice in troubled times. When are we in the most need of lifted spirits? Lift up your face to the heavens and make a joyful noise for the things by which you are blessed. They are myriad, after all. I remember, as a child in Florida, playing in the warm rains of summer, barefoot, soaked to the bone, having the times of our lives. I believe we had it right. There are times when it is quite alright to be as children. Kick off your shoes, learn to dance in the rain. It can wash your cares away, as the water washed away your sins.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”    Matthew 5:8 ESV

 Just Passin’ Through

I believe we should try to live your lives on this earth as they truly are meant to be.  We are, after all, only temporary visitors on this island planet. Our true home is in Heaven with the Father where there is no sickness, no worries, no taxes or unemployment. We are here to prepare, to learn what we must know, how we must live in the next life. The life we were made for. Rejoice in it. Celebrate it. Live it to the fullest, but never forget to lift up praise to the Father. We owe Him everything!

 

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Kindness and the Language of Love

I heard someone on the radio say this morning that kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see. I was struck by the simplicity of this profound statement. Kindness, like common sense, is a flower that does not grow in everyone’s garden. What a shame! Remember back in the 90’s when the trend in vogue was to perform “random acts of kindness?” Why should these acts have been random? Why not habitual acts of kindness? And why did kindness need to be a fad like bell bottoms or hula-hoops or pet rocks?

Kindness should be a fundamental building block to be taught to our children at an early age. It should go hand in hand with teaching a child to walk or speak or to practice good manners. What would our world look like today if every child learned to first be kind? There would be no need for gun control in a world where we practiced kindness first.

 

Mantle of Integrity

Kindness is a thread to be woven into the mantle of Integrity.  The concept of integrity is as a garment to be worn everywhere we go. Kindness should stand out in the weave like a thread of gold. We are never too old to practice kindness, never too young. I believe we should practice kindness to all we meet. We are called to it. Paul instructs us thus in his Epistle to the Colossians.

“12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”  Colossians 3:12-14

Also in Paul’s letter to the Church at Ephesus:

“32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”    Ephesians 4:32

Kindness is a virtue

So, kindness is a virtue to be practiced according to the Bible, not only that, it is an ointment to a tired soul. Kindness has double benefits. It is not only a gift to the recipient but also the practitioner. Kindness relieves one’s heavier burdens of anger and bitterness. It is no fun carrying that stuff around. Be kind.    Kindness is habit forming like a drug or Coca-Cola, but this habit is good for you. Besides, who would not rather be known as a nice guy or girl, rather than a nasty, pain in the backside. More flies with honey, you know.

 

Kindness is a cornerstone of love.  Kindness may be interchangeable with compassion, and mercy. All of these are components of the character of Jesus Christ. I pray to be more like Jesus daily; to be able to show the love of Jesus to strangers, friends and family alike. Most days my prayers are answered. Some days, not so much.

Careful what you pack

I used to urge my Boy Scouts, yes, I was a Boy Scout leader, to treat their character as a suitcase. Something in which they would pack away essential things to be pulled out and used upon occasion. I would tell them that their suitcase would also be unpacked at the time of their passing. The things that they had packed away would be seen, remembered by others. I would encourage them to fill their suitcase with integrity, kindness, faithfulness, generosity, and respect (for themselves and others). These traits would become the way that they would like to be remembered.

What will your friends and family find in your suitcase? I pray that kindness is prominent amongst your possessions. It is a language that we can all understand.

 

 

 

 

 

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Healing Revealed… No Theatrics Required

As I left the true story of my soul-crushing experience with the fake healer/showman/thief who robbed God’s people of both their money and a true miracle; I was burdened with playing a part in persuading some that miracles and healing do not happen. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Miracles and miraculous healing happen as surely as we all draw breath. In fact, if one is in doubt of this very statement I invite you to watch the birth of a child. I believe that a live birth of a tiny human being is one of the most overlooked miracles in this world. Friends, this ain’t no cosmic sneeze. Miracles exist all around us. No special effects are required, no smoke and mirrors… No theatrics necessary.

As I previously left off, I was in a funk. Unable to reconcile my part in a horrible sham. The feeling of guilt was hard to shake and I had begun to question whether all faith healers and evangelists were involved in the same type of hoax. In my heart of hearts, I knew that this last could not be true, but there were so many of these televangelists out there working this same angle or something similar. One touted working miracles if you made a contribution wherein he sent you a piece of one of his ties somehow through which miracles would happen. One beseeched you to lay your hands on the television and your divine healing would take place. My mind kept asking, “ what if?”

Where had healing gone

Scriptures are clear, but we have traveled so far down the darkened path from the healing that Jesus and His Disciples performed in the Bible. The Church, somewhere around 300 years after Jesus, began to take healing out of the hands of the faithful and hoarded it, only to be done by the priesthood.  Healing in the name of Christ Jesus and done by the Holy Spirit nearly stopped being practiced because of jealousy. The clergy wanted all the cool stuff for themselves! How dare the rabble, whom they felt beneath their lofty position, lay claim to such a gift from God? For decades, centuries even, healing slipped out of sight. People began to feel that it no longer existed. That the Holy Spirit had, somehow, lost the will or power to heal.

Never really gone

Healing has enjoyed a bit of resurgence in recent years, thanks in part to the faith of some true believers in Jesus Christ. There had been no statute of limitations in the New Testament. Jesus did not write an expiration date to the “Great Commission.”  He never said, “Hey, you guys go out and spread the Good News, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, but give it a rest after a couple hundred years.” Thanks to the likes of Billy Graham, Francis and Judith MacNutt, and many others, healing is enjoying a revival.

Personal revelation

My wife and I were invited to attend a healing conference put on by St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, the Church we attended in Collierville, TN.  This was somewhere around 2010. I was to run sound for the weekend and my wife was to receive healing prayer because she suffered from Fibromyalgia for many years. Fibro, for those who are not familiar, is a chronic pain disorder that is still somewhat of a mystery and it absolutely cripples many of its sufferers.  Cynthia was one of those who suffered the pain and several related disorders including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  She had taken nearly every drug known to modern medicine to end her pain, including up to five doses of morphine daily. Nothing was entirely effective and many were not effective for long. We welcomed any attempt to stop her suffering.

There were around 60 people who attended the conference. The headline speaker was an Episcopal Priest from the United Kingdom. He was humbly and comfortably dressed. He looked a little like the Renaissance paintings of St. Nicholas. A jolly sort with a comfortable, disarming voice. His honesty and sincerity were beyond a doubt. He talked about healing and how he had seen it take hold of many who had faith enough to believe it could happen. He was careful to state that he didn’t feel that people were infirm because of a lack of faith or that they were somehow at fault for their maladies. Sinfulness might not be the reason for their illness.

He made quite the impression. Not because he was some kind of showman, quite the contrary. He believed that Jesus Christ had given His followers a gift. Those followers, with the help of the Holy Spirit, could come to Him in prayer and because of His mercy and love for us, He would grant more than we might hope to ask. The Grace of God was palpable in the room. Our speaker believed and we were convinced that he was right. It is a wonderful place to stand, in the midst of a blossoming, spring-like eruption of Faith.

Come Holy Spirit

The time to test our new-found confidence came and Cyn stepped forward to take a seat before Father Jeff Marx, Jean Woods, and Mike Gibson. These three were our friends. Like us in many ways. I will be forever grateful for their faith in workings of the Holy Spirit. I stood behind my wife with my hands on her shoulders. Our prayer warriors began to pray. They were soft, sincere, comforting and they prayed to God as though he was sitting in our midst. As you know, Christ promised to be in our midst when two or more of us were gathered in His name. The three prayed, they shed tears and they asked Jesus to heal my wife, to remove her pain. There were no harsh spotlights, no microphones. There was only heartbreaking realism as these three faith-filled disciples of Christ poured out their energy in prayer to the Savior, the Healer. They begged Jesus to turn my wife into the person that He already saw her as, his perfect child.

What began to happen next was the part that got my attention and proved to me before the praying stopped that the Holy Spirit had been present in that small, still place.  The room was full of small groups who were praying their own prayers. We were not alone but the others may as well have been miles away. All I could hear was the sound of these wonderful prayers and my wife’s quiet tears. To my amazement, I began to feel a power, like an electrical current, traveling up my arms from the spot where my hands lay gently on Cyn’s shoulders. I could not have moved my hands if I had wanted to move them. I knew at that moment that my wife was being healed and that I was being included in the miracle of God’s Presence. I was being marked just as Thomas had been marked as a true believer when he put his fingers in the wounds on the resurrected Christ’s side. From that moment, that precise moment, I would never doubt again.

The praying stopped. Everyone in our little group was exhausted. Most had tears visible on their angelic faces. Cynthia sat for a moment, unable to stand on unsteady legs. We all knew that something amazing had happened. We had witnessed a miracle. Had been a conduit for the Power of our living Savior. He loved us not just enough to show up, He loved us enough to keep His promise and granted far more than was asked. Cynthia slowly stood, a look of pleasant awe on her face. She was spent. I helped her upstairs to a room in the venue where she could rest. She rejoined us a couple hours later after a restorative nap. She knew that she was different. We all did. She would never be as she had once been.  She had been touched by the healing power of prayer. Christ had laid his hands on her just as surely as I had.

It is now several years later. Cynthia has never, since that blessed day, had to take another morphine pill. She quit them cold, with no withdrawal. She still gets tired but she is no longer in pain. She is, as I have been, blessed beyond measure by the personal touch from our Creator. We will never again have any doubts about the healing power of prayer. Our God is just waiting to hear from us. He is always faithful. He is ever Merciful. No special effects, no smoke, and mirrors needed.

Seek and Ye shall find

Unfortunately, we turned to God as somewhat of a last resort. Sadly, it had not been our first approach to healing. Sadder indeed, is that we were not the only ones who turn to the Healer late in our need. He is only a bowed head, a trusting heart, and fervent prayer away. The coolest part is that He wants to show us how much He loves us. All we have to do is to give Him the chance.