pray for Peter

Please pray for a solution to Peter's seizures. They can be violent and happen almost every day, multiple times. We have never had good seizure control from drugs, and we have tried many drugs. The neurologist has nothing to offer but to try more drugs, which we are doing.

There is a possibility of Peter being in a clinical trial for a different "drug" (a special oil, really). Pray that if this would be good for him, that they will approve him for it, and that he would get the real thing and not the placebo for the first 2 months.  (After that, all participants get the real thing.)

Two great blessings recently though:
1) Peter got approved for CAP/C, a program that gives us an aide in the home for him every morning. It also gives him medicaid to help pay for equipment and medical expenses!

2) We did finally get the aide, and she is awesome and even comes to our church.  It is an answer to many prayers!

Suffering and God's love

Rom.4:24-5:11

"... Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

The second paragraph above is part of the first. We rejoice in our sufferings... how? why? The human tendency is to say, "God must be angry with me, and therefore I am suffering." Paul is saying, God shows His love for us in that Jesus died to save us while we were still ruined sinners. If Jesus' death paid the punishment for my sin and reconciled me to God, much more will Jesus' life now in Heaven interceding for us save us from God's wrath in our life presently.  God cannot have His anger upon us now, because the Son He loves, whom He always listens to, is on our side and pleading our case before Him. Therefore nothing in my life can negate that. No circumstances can be construed to be evidence of God's wrath upon me, if I am in Jesus.

Therefore - I can rejoice in sufferings, because I can be sure that in Jesus, God's love is resting upon me. Therefore He must mean good by giving me trials. He will use those trials to produce the endurance of faith, which will yield character, which gives me hope that I am truly His, that I am truly being made more like Jesus, which is the most loving thing God can do for me! And this in turn gives me more assurance of His love for me, love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

Suffering then - rather than being evidence of God being against me - is an evidence of His love, if I am hidden in Jesus.  It brings me closer to the Father!

tears

There are tears for what will never be

Sometimes it is better not to think of such,
not to grieve
not to take note of the pain, the loss,
only with blinders to live
to see what is
to focus on where I am placed -
present duty
just-for-this-moment grace

to stay away from the children
mine never will be
to forget for awhile
their normalcy

At least with a death
it is done
someday you'll adjust to them gone

but not this -
it is fresh every time,
a reopened wound
and I cry

tears for what will never be
Jesus bottles them for me

Healings and Jesus

Jesus' power to heal today is as real as it was when he was physically on earth. Yet we do not often see miraculous healings now. His power and love have not changed - but neither has his purpose. 

He healed men on earth in order to bring them to himself, to cause them to trust and believe in him, and to bring glory to his father. Today he still has those goals - ultimately, to give us God himself. 

In places in the world where He is not yet known, he often heals miraculously, and people are moved to come to him and to believe. But here where he is already known, his goals are often accomplished through our sickness. 

He wants for us something better than healing: to have God himself!


Mark 2:10-11
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” —he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”

He must become greater

I just read this in a blog post. It needs to be my life verse too.

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

He must become greater; I must become less.

The point of life is not our current circumstances.

The point is not what He is doing in me or in our family.

The point is, and always has been, that He is seen and worshiped for who He is.

The point is that Jesus shines.

How He chooses to accomplish that through me is His prerogative.

He must become greater.

I rest content in that.

http://theblessingofverity.com/2013/12/mostly-sunny-with-a-few-showers/

No grumping

I have no cause for grumping around, or for self-pity!

1) everything that comes to me is from my Father's loving hand. Not from a stern, uncompassionate task-master who cares not about my frame. But from my Father, who has promised that nothing he gives can ever be interpreted to mean that he is not loving me in it. 

Rom.8:35-39, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

2) whatever my Father gives, he has promised to be with me in it.

Matt.28:20, "behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

And he has promised to be my strength in my weakness.

2Cor.12:9-10, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

3) Heaven, rest, and peace are coming.

Rev.14:13, And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

Rev.21:3-5, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” 

Rejoice!

Great sermons yesterday!
(Check them out at www.grbc.net - 12-1-13 AM and PM)

As children of God through Christ, we can rejoice always! - because everything, everything in our lives comes from the loving and wise hand of the God of the universe, who before time planned out our salvation and redemption.

He has promised to make everything in our lives (if we are his children through Christ) work together like ingredients in a cake, to produce in the end a beautiful product that will be for our very best good.

He has promised to be with us always, and that nothing ever anywhere can separate us from his love in Christ.  He has NOT promised to take away all those things - persecution, trouble, neediness, danger, sickness, things present or things to come - but to make us more than conquerors in them. To have his love upon us in all those things. To cause them to produce our good rather than our harm.

Rejoice! Live boldly!
(and remind me of this when I forget it all in the busyness of the day...)