GROWING SEEDS: JOB-ETTE

"Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil."

Ephesians 6:11

JOB-ETTE

That's the name someone called me a few years ago as I struggled through a battle with Satan and his little minions.  An invisible war...a fight so strong and exhausting, you wonder how you're going to keep your footing as you climb up that steep hill of despair.  Satan had an advantage; he knew my weaknesses.  He had been watching my patterns and me for many years.  If only I had been watching his as much as he had been watching mine.  If only I had a battle plan....

My Dad's favorite book of the Bible is Job.  Seems an odd book to be a favorite of, but you don't know my Dad.  He's had many trials and struggles and Job-moments in his 90 years of life.  He has a right to call that his favorite book.  And if there had been a book titled Job-ette in the Bible, well....that would have been his daughter's favorite book as well.  

"For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, 

but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world....."

As I see it, we could learn a lot from Job, because the story of Job is the story of us.  Catastrophic loss, by definition, precludesrecovery.  It will transform us or it will destroy us, but it will never leave us the same.   God gave us the ability to know the enemy, as well as the enemy, knows us.  He has personally handed us His own tools...His own armor....and given us the strength and WILL to win this battle.  So why do we so often head into combat with Satan without a game-plan?  You can sure bet Satan has a mapped out strategy.

So the next time you feel dirt thrown in your eyes or the words "Give Up" in your ears, head to the War-Room.  Buckle up that belt of truth around your waist and place the impenetrable breastplate of righteousness over your heart.  Pick up that shield of Faith that will protect you when the arrows of Satan's wrath head your way.  Place that helmet of Salvation over your head where nothing can mess with your mind and secure with velcro that sword of the Spirit.....the Word of God....firmly in your hand.

And lose the white flag, for goodness sake...YOU'RE GOING TO WIN THIS BATTLE!

GROWING SEEDS: Heaven .......101

"Has this world been so kind to you 

that you leave with regret?

There are better things ahead 

than any we leave behind."

C.S. Lewis

I love dreaming about Heaven.  Seriously.  I have thought about and visualized what my life in Heaven will be like every-cotton-pickin'-day for the past ten years.  

Heaven.  Do you ever just sit and visualize yourself there?  Can you picture that exact moment when you go from here to there.....when that last breath has left your lungs and you travel past the stars straight into the gates of Heaven?  I picture a reception line of my favorite people who arrived there before me; witnesses to my life cheering me on as I take those last final steps into my forever Home.  And who but Jesus Himself holding His arms out saying, "Welcome Home, Liz"!  

Sometimes I think I can actually feel the skin of His hand as He takes my hand in His and leads me over that finish line.

I worry that most of us are so wrapped up in the journey, we forget to focus on the destination.  Chuck and I used to travel each summer in a motorhome.  We would read and study about where we wanted to go...we would pull out our Good-Sam map and figure out what route we wanted to take....and would feel the excitement as we "anticipated" arriving at this destination we had only dreamed about.  Our main focus was never on how rough the road was going to be or how long it would take to get there.....our eyes were always on the joy of the destination.

And shouldn't we feel the same way about Heaven?  As Billy Graham once wrote, "My home is Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world."  Shouldn't we also see Heaven as the goal line?

This world is simply a journey, friends.....it was never meant to be your home.  A new house is nearly ready for you there.  Moving day is coming.  One day soon you will be home  - for the first time.  

 

"For we know that when this earthly tent (body) we live in is taken down 

(that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), 

we will have a house in heaven, 

an eternal body made for us by God Himself and not by human hands.  

We grow weary in our present bodies 

and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing."  

2 Corinthians 5:1-2

GROWING SEEDS: Do I Go East.....Or Do I Go West

August 5, 2018

"God does not promise to take us out of the 'valley of the shadow of death"; 
He promises to be there with us."
David Littell

We had church in Room 915 of the ICU this past week.   

We clasped hands, just as we do every week in our little church in Mt Vernon, and we each said a prayer of Thanksgiving.....a prayer of Peace......a prayer of Healing....and yes, a prayer of 'Even if He doesn't'.  

When you're at a crossroads......and you must turn left or you must turn right .....go east or go west....and you don't know which direction to go, the only direction to go is to your knees.  And we did just that a week ago today.  

Chuck hadn't been feeling well.....thought it was a cold....maybe allergies...maybe an MS attack.  But when he passed out and his color wasn't right and his skin was ice-cold and his already weak body was weaker, we found ourselves at that crossroad.  Do we go east to the closest hospital 30 minutes away.....or do we go west to his doctors in Dallas two hours away.  And that's when my knees hit the floor of the closet.  "Which direction Lord", I remember praying.  

The phone rang almost immediately.  It was a nurse at UTSW in Dallas.  "Go west", she said.  

And so we did.  We drove two hours to the Emergency Room at UTSW in Dallas where, after many tests, it was discovered this man I married 21 years ago had a very large blood clot in his heart.  IN his heart.  Our cardiology team said they had never witnessed the exact moment caught on a scan of a blood clot "in transit" through the heart..... and time was critical.  They needed to dissolve it immediately or it could mean sudden death.  They rushed him to ICU where they started a procedure called TPA - Tissue Plasminogen Activator - to dissolve this large clot before it could leave the heart and leave my husband dead. 

A team of 20 cardiologists and pulmonologists, as well as his MS neurologists, quickly conferred together.  They watched as the blood clot dissolved through the TPA procedure.  They saw his color return.....and they admitted; they witnessed a miracle.

The miracles were flying faster than we could keep up with them.....what if we had gone East to Mt. Pleasant instead of West to Dallas?  We would be planning his funeral today.  What if the doctors hadn't realized he had existing aortic valve stenosis and not done that echo cardiogram which discovered the unexpected blood clot?  We would be planning his funeral today.  That's the reality of it. The cardiologist said we had maybe hours at the most before this would have taken his life.  Most likely our East Texas hospital would not have done an echo cardiogram on Chuck and never known about the blood clot.

But yesterday, a week later, we came Home.  He's not out of danger just yet.....still has a large 8" blood clot in his leg and several small ones in his lungs....but today, as I type this to you, I'm listening to my husband breathe as he naps in front of me...his tired body grateful for more time.  His wife grateful for more time.....however long that might be.

And all the while......God proved Himself present with us through the valley of the shadow of death.  

"If God wants to perform a small miracle, He places us in difficult situations.

If He wants to perform a MIGHTY miracle, 

He places us in impossible circumstances."

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