Happy Valentine's Day?

Never noticed how many people wish me a Happy Valentine's Day.  Maybe due to it being on Sunday this year, I was around people on that day.   It was just strange.  

I, of course, wished them a happy Valentine's day back.  Some people even gave me candy and cards like Christmas.   

But it was not a happy Valentine's day at all.  It was a sad day.  A day that for 37 years I had bought cards and given balloons to my beloved.  A day we celebrated our love.  I was always the romantic in the relationship.  It meant more to me than to her.  But it was a day I looked forward to every year. 

Now it will be a year I dread each year.  For it reminds me of that empty space in my life.  A space that will never be filled again in my temporal life.  A space forever void in this life.   An emptiness of emptiness.  

So no, it was and will be a sad Valentine's day.  One of sweet memories and desires to remember more.  If I had only kept better records of the days.  I took them for granted like they would always be here.  But, I denied death's coming and took for granted treasures of days that would one day past.   

Lord, comfort my broken heart.  Grant me good memories of Valintine's Day past.   Hold me close Lord and help me to find refuge in your love this day.  Amen

Am I OK?

Am I OK?  By the grace of God, I take it day by day.  The best way to describe it is that I have been being transported to a new world.  There are continuity and discontinuity from the old world but really my world has changed. 

 For a number of reasons with Terry no longer being with me, many other things changed as well.  So now I live in a new world.  I miss my old world but there is no going back to it.  So I am OK. 

 I am in this new world by God's design.  The LORD has moved me to this new world.  Like Daniel in Babylon I now serve in a new place and in a new way.  But everything is different than when I served in Jerusalem.  But it is OK. 

The Veteran is alone

"The Veteran is alone now
His companion pass away

The two of them the battles fought
Always the two of them
One wounded the other healer would be.  Together they pressed on. 

But now the Veteran is alone
Bleeding from the heart

With no companion by his side
And many battles yet to fight

The Veteran is alone.

Dr. Norman Wise

For a season, there must be pain

For a season there must be pain--
For a little, little space
I shall lose the sight of her face,
Take back the old life again
While She is at rest in her place.

For a season this pain must endure,
For a little, little while
I shall sigh more often than smile
Till time shall work me a cure,
And the pitiful days beguile.

For that season we must be apart,
For a little length of years,
Till my life's last hour nears,
And, above the beat of my heart,
I hear Her voice in my ears.

But I shall not understand--
Being set on some later love,
Shall not know her for whom I strove,
Till she reach me forth her hand,
Saying, "Who but I have the right?"
And out of a troubled night
Shall draw me safe to the land. 

Rudyard Kipling

Musings on Psalm 88

Musings on Psalm 88

Living and great LORD, the ultimate supreme power that can save me out of futility and death, hear my cries.  All mighty and wise ONE, have mercy for the sake of the Messiah Jesus on me and hear the cries of my heart.

My soul faces many struggles, losses, and is in the dark about many things. I feel that I have no strength in my soul. YOU have ordained this chapter in my life that is dark and deep with sorrow. The weight of my life is crushing me.   My heart is heavy with grief. The pounding waves of change are overwhelming.

I seek you day by day. Not as much as I should. Not as intently as I should. Forgive me for not having greater focus and faith that would lead me to you. My eyes are filled with sadness because of the sorrow of my soul. I lift my hands to you and need you to fill me with your peace.

Do not hide your face from me. Let me see your face. Help me to see that you are not casting away your love for me but that nothing in creation can separate me from your strong committed love. Lord, I am helpless and have many fears.

My beloved and my friend is no longer by my side. You have called her home. YOU are my refuge and comforter. In you, I will trust. In you, I will find my rest and restoration.

Come now and help me this day to know how to follow YOU. Increase my love for YOU, LORD. Open my eyes to see YOU, LORD, as you are and allow me to encounter you in many ways in my life. Amen

Musings on James 1:2-4 -Count it all joy?

James 1:2-4

2  Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

3  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

4  And let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

To one griefing these verses sound at first like a mockery of everything we know.  It forces us to ask some questions. 

What does the bible mean by joy?  The word joy is used about 182 times in the bible.  So it is a significant theme.  

To have joy in this context is to know that there are purposes and profits behind every trial, loss,  and difficulty that we face.  We can have an inner confidence and praise to God knowing that our greatest and most severe losses will produce in us a stronger, preserving, and steadfast faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  

This undying faith in the middle of loss is one of the greatest defeats the devil can experience. 

There is a joy knowing that the plans of the dark enemy of our soul  to have us "curse God and die" have been defeated by our trusting the Lord in the dark painful circumstance we face when suffering cataclysmic loss.  (Job 1&2)  Even as Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, knowing that his death would lead ultimately to God's glory, we are not kept from grief but saved from despair.  

So as we weep, ask our questions, struggle through the process of grief, let us also have  a godly joy that is trusting that all of this pain, loneliness, and loss of everything we knew, will be used by God's great power at work in us to make us more like Christ Jesus and be part of crushing the head of the serpent. 

--------------

Prayer

LORD, I don't really understand how to consider what I have gone through joy.  It runs counter to every instinct in me as I strive to keep my head above water in this world of change.  Give me the ability to see the victory in this time of travail and turmoil.  Open my eyes to your work in me and others through this time of mourning and grief.  Allow the story of your victory over the evil one through my suffering provide a sense of joy to spring from my inner self.  Lord, remember how weak I am and help me to grow in enduring faith.  Amen

What If God Says No?

RED ROOTS

What If God Says No Lyrics

One year ago today, she got the call

That stopped her life

And ever since that moment,

He prayed God would heal his wife

She got weaker by the minute

In that hospital bed

And she could see that he was mad at

God, so she took his hand and said

What if God says no

It don’t mean He loves us less

It just means He knows what’s best

What if God says no

It’s enough we have His grace

So don’t let go of your faith

What if God says no

Just south of Atlanta,

It’s been slow out on his job

But now he’s lovin on his family

And has time to talk to God

He’s prayin that a miracle

Will turn his business back around

But what if God gives him the answer

That His grace is good for now

Jesus prayed on the last night

Before He was crucified

And said, “Dad if there’s another way,

Could you let this pass me by?”

But God saw the big picture,

That it had to be done

So as much as it hurt

He couldn’t say yes to His Sonhttp://www.elyrics.net/read/r/red-roots-lyrics/what-if-god-says-no-lyrics.html

Lyrics found <a href="http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/red-roots-lyrics/what-if-god-says-no-lyrics.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>

The emptiness following loss

“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. 

At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. 

Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.” 

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer