Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. -Deut 7:9

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My niece, Rachel has taped to her bed a piece of paper

For I am the LORD, your God,
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you. (Isa. 41:13)

right next to her firearms safety certificate, issued by the state of Michigan when she was 12.

I was going over my day…as tired as I am, I have been tempted to be a little impatient.  Maybe that “natural”, but I don’t want it to be me.

I snapped at my dad.  We had mom halfway out of the car on her transfer board.  his cell phone rang and I said, “ignore it”.  He answered it, dropped the board, my mom was slipping and he said, “we’re having a hard time getting your mom out of the car.

I said, “that’s because you’re talking on the phone!”

Just now…a man named Joseph came to mind.

When pharoh’s wife was tempting him to sin in a sexual way, he fled.

(Joseph has left the building)

Ran away.  Flee temptation.

So fast, when she grabbed his cloak he didn’t stop to get it.

I need to keep a handle on my thoughts when slips happen.  Flee that temptation.

his blood sugar was 498 before he left the hospital.

after they kept him fasting all night and gave him chocolate milk and grits for breakfast.

His blood sugar is screwed after a night of not eating, no insulin and then a carb only breakfast.

they say the MRI is normal, but his speech is a little slurred…and he’s talking WAY toom much.

“True contemplation (of the cross) is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten.  You must be overwhelmed by the frightful wrath of God who so hated sin that he spared not his only begotten Son.  What can the siner expect if the beloved Son was so afflicted?  It must be an inexpressible and unendurable yearning that causes God’s Son himself so to suffer.  Ponder this and you will tremble, and the more you ponder, the deeper you will tremble.

“Take this to heart and doubt not that you are the one who killed Christ.  Your sins certainly did, and when you see the nanils driven through his hands, be sure that you are pounding, and when the thorns pierce his brow, know that they are your evil thoughts.  Consider that if one thorn pierced Christ you deserve on hundred thousand.” (Martin Luther’s Easter Book)

…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? (Hebrews 12:2-3)

This day has been an exercise in aloneness.

Holding a towel to my dad’s face, trying to stop the  blood streaming down his face.

cleaning up a pool of blood as the put him in an ambulance

the helplessness I felt as I was torn between following the ambulance with my dad in it…and leaving my invalid mother with people I don’t know.

The knowledge that only a month ago…ah.

sitting alone in the waiting room of the emergency room.

watching them put stitches in my dad’s face.

helplessly waiting for somebody to give him something for nausea.

Crying while he vomited up the blood he has swallowed

coming back to my sister’s house and trying to put a good face on it for my mom and assuring her that everything is okay.

because it isn’t.

when I became a widow, I became aware of the existence of “smug marrieds” and I will not (regardless of my future) be that.

Now, losing Phil, I’m aware that people who have somebody to lean on, are not aware of others who do not.  I will, from this moment forward, determine to be aware of those who need support and fill in where others will not.

Falling in love with Phil, I became more aware of how our divorced brothers and sisters are treated within the church…and I will never back down from defending them.

I am also keenly aware of the confusion, loss and guilt that comes with a broken heart.

Listening to Driscoll

Reading Riddlebarger

Reading Hebrews 4

~

Please, Lord, let this be the day. Let this be the day that time ends.

My Bible fell open to Isaiah 40

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the LORD’s hand

double for all her sins.

I’m reading in Hebrews 4…

God’s Sabbath rest.

¹Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. ²For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

some manuscripts say because it did not meet with faith in the hearers.

It is not that we lose our salvation, it’s that the promise of rest did not join with our faith in the first place.  We are united by faith with those who listened to the gospel and believe.

This is also cross referenced to Romans 3:3

Even though there are those who do not listen and there are those who do not believe, that does not mean that the promises of God are not true.  God is faithful to His promises, even when we are not faithful to Him.

³For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

“As I swore in my wrath,’They shall not enter my rest,’”

That’s a direct quote from Psa. 95.  Matthew Henry says, “Let us be aware of the evils of our hearts, which lead us to wander from the Lord. There is a rest ordained for believers, the rest of everlasting refreshment, begun in this life, and perfected in the life to come. This is the rest which God calls his rest.”

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”

Exodus31:17, “It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”

We long for that rest.

I long for that rest.

Humans are designed for a Sabbath and I feel as though I have not had one for a long time.

I found a piece of napkin in my Bible.  I must have been at a luncheon or something in order to have a napkin.

God works by contraries so that a man feels himself los tin the very moment when he is on the verge of being saved.  When God is almost ready to justify a man, He damns him.  Whom he would make alive, He must first kill…Man must first cry out that there is no health in him…when a man believes himself to be utterly lost, light breaks.  Peace comes in the Word of God through faith.

In the past I’ve had “brushes with the prophetic”.  I believe that I had another.

Since I’ve been fasting, my mom has made some pretty important improvements

• she stood without support for a minute and a half
• this includes standing up straight, without her knees against the cupboard in front of the sink
• she is doing short arc quad extensions without assistance. (not very high, but she’s getting her heel off the bed
• for the first time, she’s expressing an interest in knitting
• for the first time since her surgery, she’s reading.
• she’s listening to music every time she lays down.  My brother in law (Jim) put hymns on an mp3 player and she listens a lot.

My mom was listening to this and I remember her singing it to me as a child.

I have several versions…

not a single one by Chris Tomlin

Death has been called “the new obscenity”, the nasty thing that no polite person nowadays will talk about in public.  But death, even when unmentionable, remains inescapable.  The one sure fact of life is that one day, with or without warning, quietly or painfully, it is going to stop.  How will I, then, cope with death when my turn comes? (J.I.Packer, “Growing in Christ”)

John Preston said, “I shall change my place, but I shall not change my company.”

right now, my mom is markedly better.

and I don’t know if (after a couple of days) if I’d really be fasting, or just not have an appetite.

7- define “monagamy”

see “define faithful”

monogamy…one partner. Period.

8 – What are you looking for in a life time mate?

I’m not interested in “stuff”.  I don’t want a man for the stuff he can give me.  I want a man who will strive to be Jesus to His bride, God to His bride

…He will bestow preciousness upon me

…He will be my refuge, (Psa 61)

…He will stand up for me (Psa 94)

…He will nourish and cherish me (Eph 5)

…I will trust in his steadfast love (Psa 52)

…He will speak tenderly to me (Hos 2)

…He will be merciful and full of loving kindness (Tit 2)

…He will wipe away my tears (Isa 25)

…He will make me beautiful (Isa 60)

…He will carriy my sorrows (Isa 53)

…He will come to serve (Matt 20)

…He will restore my soul, He will lead me  in paths of righteousness (Psa 23)

and the tears are right here.

I think we saw real progress today.  She’s getting stronger and I helped her with PT for the first time since I left last week  there are exercises that she’s doing on her own that she could not do then.

I was just re-reading a couple of articles…

Barack Obama said during his presidential campaign that Reinhold Niebuhr was one of his favorite philosophers.

I’ve been reading “Mere Christianity”

Niebuhr said, “we use evil to prevent a greater evil”

and

“There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war”

Lewis said, “There is no evil without good”

What is evil?

some would say that “evil” is the opposite of “good”

Lewis says that evil is not the opposite of good, but rather it’s the perversion of good.

There can be no evil without good.

Unless we have the ideal to compare an action to, there is no concept of what it means to violate God’s Law.

is having food to eat “evil”?  No, it’s a good thing, but to have it because you stole it is a perversion of the good thing (having)

Unless you have a concept of what “truth” is, the term “lie” has no meaning.

Rest is a good thing…perverting rest into slothfulness is not.

Wine is a blessing, drunkeness perverts that blessing into something that is not good.

Back to Niebuhr…

there is a concept of “just war”.  Some buy into it, others don’t.

When Niebuhr said, “we use evil to prevent a greater evil”, he was referring to war.  If war is always “evil”, then protecting a nation against attackers is using evil to prevent greater evil.

Questions:

If evil is not the opposite of good, but rather the perversion of good, what is the good that war is the perversion of?

If war is used to protect and prevent evil, is it “just war” evil?

I need to find some different ones.  All the ones that we discovered together…just hurt.

For right now, I’m listening to music when I walk.  And reading while I sit.

I can listen to C.S.Lewis.

I thought it would be an easy process…it took too long away from prayer.

I’m still right here.

I prayed a lot this morning…now I’m going to hit the treadmill.

Praying for all those I love dearly.

the health aide comes and then the visiting nurse.

I just had the coffee maker together wrong and it put coffee all over.  the last of the water in the filter is running out now.

The plan today is to back up my wordpress, download 2.8.whatever.  I’m having trouble with uploads from here so I may have to go to BigBoy to upload.  I also need to upload a photo (another weight loss goal that I thought would take me all year.  I guess that what I’m doing is “working”).

When I changed themes I forgot to insert the html for sitemeter so I don’t know who is reading…and I think that’s a good thing.

After that, I brought along Riddlebarger and White.

Interspursed with fasting, much time on the treadmill, prayer and Psalms.

I miss the intellectual interaction, computers, science, politics, theology…  I was thinking about that last night in my many sleepless hours.  I pray better when I’s either typing or walking.  I can hit the PollyAnn later, when Mom is resting

I’m still right here.