Author Archives: MzEllen

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I don't remember if it was Spurgeon or Chandler or Lewis...or maybe a combination.

Scripture gives us many promises, but those promises are only as good as the God who makes them.  I can cling to the promises of Scripture, but ultimately my faith is in God, not the promises.

Because my faith is in God, the promises are true.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

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There is a sort of emotional pain that is small and nagging - it's persistent and always there.  Like an achy joint.  It's annoying, but you can live with it and most of the time you don't even notice.

Then there is the emotional pain that is so overwhelming that it crushes the breath out of you.   You want to avoid it or make it stop, but the only way out is through.

You feel so pressed, so brittle - if somebody touches you, you'll shatter into a million tiny pieces.

I am familiar with this pain.

I need to understand that this is also the emotional pain that my dad is feeling right now.  His wife of 50 years has gone from being (in pain, but) relatively independent - to not being able to stand up or even use the toilet by herself.

How much will she recover?  Nobody knows.  We hope that she'll recover to the point that the doctor originally thought she would.  But it's going to be a very long time.

My dad is serverely diabetic, he has a cardiac history and he's 72 years old.  He's very afraid that he won't be able to take care of her the way that she is now and he's right.

The pain in that helplessness - knowing the one you love is hurting and not having the ability to fix the hurt...hurts.

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The audio book is on my iPod and I've been listening to it on my travels.   I know I have a paper copy somewhere, but I can't put my hands on it right now.

There was something that resonated with me.

Repentance is not "oops, sorry".  Lewis said something to the effect that repentance is a turning - an "unlearning" of the bad behavior that has been learned.

(there is a difference between "sin" and "sins" that I may get into later)

But in order to repent, you have to have a part of "good" inside you that wants to unlearn the behavior.  That part of you is already good - already turned.

Only a good man can repent.  Only a bad man needs to.

Only a perfect man can repent perfectly - and the perfect man doesn't need to.

The bad man must repent and cannot.

Lewis was not Reformed by any stretch of the imagination, but what I can apply here is "regeneration".  We are all affected by "total depravity" - every part of us is touched by Adam's sin.  We are sinners who sin and we all are in need of repentance.

Through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to repent, however imperfectly.  It is only through the act of the Holy Spirit who calls that we are able to turn to him.

Perfect repentance?  Only God is perfect and only Immanuel, God With Us, is our perfection.

I am a bad person.  There are things that I don't know how to repent of!  I can only trust Christ to cover that sin.,

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My mom is doing pretty poorly.  Her feet do not do what they're supposed to do and she's not strong enough to lift her body weight.  Her surgeon isn't talking (or showing up) and the therapist tell them that they need to talk to the surgeon.  She's depressed and right now I'm not much help in that regard.  She's also worried that Dad wants to put her in a nursing home...

Dad...is really scared that he's not going to be able to take care of her.  One option (if there's going to be an eventual improvement) is a short term stay at a nursing home.  Mom cries and tells him not to give up on her.

Dad cried tonight when he was talking about what he's going to do.

He's remembering when Aunt Joyce died and how my cousin and could not lift her when she fell and how they all felt when they had to put her in the home.

and he talked about how he doesn't know how my aunt copes with an invalid husband in a wheel chair - how does that work and what is he going to do?

And how my Aunt Pat lives alone now...

My dad is really down.  I don't know what to do.

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What enchants thee into such folly as to remain in a pit when thou mayest sit on a throne?  LIve not in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon thee.  Rest no longer satistfied with thy dwarfish attainments but press forward to things more sublime and heavenly.  Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life - Upward to heaven!

In the midst of a trial, a maelstrom of emotions, it is so difficult to see the next possibility.  There have been many points in my life that I just didn't know what to do next.  Sometimes - the object is just to get...

through...

this...

day.

But time passes and life goes on.  Sometimes things are set right (or at least better), sometimes not.  A grief, an illness, a disappointment.  but somehow all these things work to the glory of God.

And all things work together for the good of those who love Christ.  Keep the eye on that ball.

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tree family
Tom's getting ready to go away to college (about as far away as you can get and still be in Michigan).  He's worked hard to get his act together and I'm proud of him.

Yesterday I got into my jewelry box and pulled out the pocket watch that I had given to his father on our wedding day and gave it to Tom.  It still keeps good time, but the second hand has fallen out (so the other hands can catch on it).  We need to take it to a jeweler and have the glass taken off and the hand removed completely.

I'm going to need a bumper sticker for my car (Northern Michigan University)

Amanda...still struggles.

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A few days ago I posted the statement by Jenny Sanford.

On the face of it, it sounds "right".  Forgiveness, restoration, putting a marriage back together.  It takes a lot of work and their work was made much more difficult by the fact that the work is now in the public eye.

There is one thing "wrong" (and it's not Jennifer that wrote it).  I happened to hear Michelle Malkin on the Sean Hannity show right before I read the statement and she made a big fuss (BIG) about the fact that Sandford was in Argentina on Father's Day and not spending it with his sons.

Here's the thing.  The statement said that his wife asked him to leave, so it was her decision for him to not have any contact with his family during that time.

There is a lot that Sanford did wrong - spending Father's Day away from his kids was not his choice so he should not be blamed for that.

As far as what he did - there is no excuse.  We don't know what was happening in their marriage that may have made it "seem" like an option, but what he did was wrong.

Should he resign?  I believe so, but not because of his moral behavior.  If we learned anything during the Clinton years, it was that if it doesn't affect the job, we shouldn't worry about it.

But this did.  I believe that he should resign because he put his staff in the position of lying for him.

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Rarely have I wanted to go to Canada as much as I have now...that I have my passport and want to use it.

When I was a kid, we used to go there to shop.  My second date with Art, we went to Chinese restaurant in Sarnia.  It's the quickest way to Niagara Falls and Maine.  Quebec rocks.

Ah well...we're going to settle for the Upper Penninsula.  which also rocks.