Saturday, May 31, 2014

How Many Miracles?

How many miracles can we ask God for? 
Is there a limit to His mercy
and His grace?
If we ask do we expect to receive what
our minds think is best or what God thinks is best?
These are the questions I have been thinking
a lot about in the past few months and 
especially tonight as our church
faces another night of prayer.
Our Pastor has gone into surgery
for a liver transplant...and we wait
with anxious hearts and prayers for 
just one more miracle!
In his family we have prayed for a 
miracle of release from drug addiction
and his son has been clean over 2 years...
in his family we prayed for his other son
to survive leukemia, pancreatitis,
pain med withdrawal, broken tibia,
ongoing healing...
He has made it 2 years in remission despite
all the complications.
For our pastor we prayed that his liver cancer 
would be healed,
and tonight he gets a new liver...
if God wills it to be so and all goes well.
How many miracles can we ask for
 in one family? 

I don't know-- but what I do know is that there
are no limits set for us in His Word.
He makes it plain that we ought to pray and
ask without ceasing, with faith and in His will.
We should pray even if our faith is as small 
as a mustard seed and He will do
as we ask...according to His will.
So tonight I ask He who knows best for
 just one MORE miracle,
for this family that I have come to know 
and love in such a special way.

I love you Pastor H and Family

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

May

"May is the tender promise we know will come true.
If in the earlier months any of us has doubted that
God loves his children, every one, we doubt no longer.
The sun has come back and rises north of the mountain,
gently flooding the windows of the east chamber
 as it comes up, and casting a soft light
 on the brown kitchen wall
behind the supper table as it goes down.
The grass is green and growing and the cattle are out.
One night at milking time a 
new calf is brought up from the pasture.
The seed is in and the long rows of twin leaves rise from the earth.
The apple trees are in rosy bloom, the blossoms of 
wild pear and cherry like white torches 
against the dark woods and the stone wall.
Day and night the air is bright and sweet 
with the scent of budding fruit, 
the flash of wings, and the song
of birds building nests among the flowers.
The whistle of the whippoorwill is a bugle call to summer."
Gladys Hasty Carroll


Thursday, May 15, 2014

2 Years

Today was a hard day-again.
It was Logan's funeral day.
And it is a day that stands alone in the halls
of pain in my own life.
2 years ago today my husband left for rehab
in CA and from that point on we have 
been separated.
He chose to live in bondage to a substance
and I chose to remove myself from the daily pain
and chaos that had been my life for 10 years
before that day.

This was before...trying so hard to make life
better and easier so he could maintain
sobriety and live a happy life.

This is now...living alone and trying so hard to make 
life better and easier for myself
so I can maintain joy filled, godly living
and be content.
Did I make the right decision?
Did I do enough?
Do I know what the future holds?
Will addiction rob me and my children of 
the man we all love?
These are the hard and unanswerable questions
that I face each and every day.
When I think I am okay and things are better
then something comes along that brings it
all into sharp focus again and I realize
afresh that the pain still hurts just as much,
the tears are just as bitter
and the wound still is not healed.

But...
Gods faithfulness and grace meets me
every day fresh and real,
His love tenderly pours the Balm of Gilead
into my wounded heart and it IS enough
to face each day, not the future with
it's fears and sorrows, but for today.
I will trust that He who says He came to bring 
life abundant means what He says!

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Silent Sorrow

This is an extremely difficult subject
that I am addressing in this post.
My heart is full of tears.
Another dear and precious friend lost
her 24 year old son this week-
but he did not go from joy to joy.
He was on a silent and sorrowful path and 
it ended in a silent and sorrowful 
passing-suicide.
The reason I know this friend in such 
a deep and personal way was that we
share the terrible path of watching someone we love
fall ever further into addiction.
I tried to walk the journey along side her as they tried 
to save him from the slide downwards.
There were many times that I hugged her
and felt her shaking with tears and many
times she hugged me and let me cry.
We didn't do things the same, it was her son 
and I am dealing with a spouse, but we
understood how the other felt, the fear
and the pain and the anger and the rage and 
the fierce love and the aching misery.
We walked silently together many times in sorrow.
I look back and think was there ANYTHING I could have
done differently or better to help him,
but it never pays to look back unless we
can learn from it in some way.

This is what I know-
Logan believed in Jesus
he was in terrible bondage to a substance
he couldn't bear the pain
he is Home.

Beyond that I cannot say anything that
I know for sure.
And when I saw her that terrible morning
not one word came from my mouth,
I could only sit by her and hold her hand 
and weep in silent sorrow.

I love you family of Logan


Tuesday, May 6, 2014

From Joy to Joy

It has been a difficult week to find
the words or interest to write anything here.
My dear friend, since my single days,
lost her first grand child
in a tragic farming accident.
Her daughter posts at 



He was 5.
His life was joy,
each day was full of all the special
delights of childhood.
He didn't get a terrible sickness
that brought him to this place.
He simply went from joy here
to joy there.
That is not the way it feels,
the pain all who love him feel
is incomprehensible.
But for him he never had to know
that life is hard and people hurt you 
and loved ones don't love Jesus,
and the world can be a bad and scary place.
He just passed from joy
to JOY.
and that is amazing.

I love you, family of Skyler.