Our friend with renal cancer received news Friday night that his tumors are starting shrink. Praise God!
Pride and Prejudice
One of my favorite books (and movies!) is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. As a high school English/reading teacher, I had not read the book until my mom bought me the 6 video set of the A&E version. It took me a couple years to watch it, but when I did I loved it. I then read the novel, and several other Austen novels since Mom had bought me the complete works of Jane Austen in one volume.
What hit me the other night as I was trying to fall asleep wat that Austen named the older sister in P&P Jane. The good, beautiful, and calm older sister has the same name as the author. Very interesting.
.
Does God Heal Today?
Oasis Community Church has the sermon online. This is the sermon I took my notes from for today’s post.
The question I’ve been dealing with is whether God still heals. The answer is yes, but we must look at the power of asking. Ever notice how when we ask for something of someone we don’t look at the person? We’re afraid of what they’ll say. After this sermon, I have to wonder, “Am I avoiding eye contact with God?” He tells me to ask, and yet I come to him in fear.
One of the things I’ve heard is that if someone isn’t healed that the person asking didn’t have enough faith. The pastor pointed out that Jesus didn’t heal everyone. He only healed some for the authentication of his mission. We’re guaranteed healing through forgiveness of our sins; forgiveness of sin is healing (Isaiah 53:5). We aren’t guaranteed healing from disease. We live in a fallen world, afterall. That means that there will be bad stuff.
God is always at work. He created the laws of nature. A miracle is God doing something differently than usual. Jesus understands our suffering. But life is more than just our lives. The absence of suffering is good but not The Good. As a Christian, I must focus on God’s kingdom and how suffering that I face can be used for him. Christ understands our suffering and pain because he became one of us. Healing may come in this life, but if it does not, for whatever reason, we know this: it will come in the next life.
One thing is clear: whatever the situation, we are to ask (Matthew 7:7).
“The truth of God’s love is not that he allows bad things to happen but that he’ll be with us when they do.”
Perhaps it isn’t our physical selves that need to be healed but our hearts.
I know that for me for the longest time depression was the disease that I could not get relief from. I prayed and prayed and asked and asked, and yet the depression was still there. I know at one point, through a Focus on the Family presentation that included a poastor who was dealing with cancer, that I received an answer from God. God had told this pastor that even if he was healed of the cancer (and he eventually was) that the cancer would always be a part of who he was. God was telling me that even if he took my depression away, depression would still be part of me.
Thankfully, I’ve had very few relapses and have had success with medication. While I deal with the symptoms of depression, I am able to work, able to socialize, able to function in society. This isn’t total healing, but it is a miracle that I am able to function. I know that as Paul had a thorn in his flesh, my depression is a thorn in my flesh to keep me humble and dependent on God. I am so prone to wandering away from him and do desire being dependent on him that my depression actually is a help.
As for my friend with cancer? I don’t know what will happen. I do know that God is good. All the time. No matter what.
As one of my high school students, whose own brother fought leukemia for a year and then died, said, “No matter what, it will end well. He’ll be in heaven if and when he dies.” No matter what, in the next life, I, too will experience healing.
I apologize for the rambling, but this is very much an issue that is only partly resolved. I’m asking how God can allow such a good man, with a family, have such a horrible disease. I’m asking how I can have depression when I’ve done nothing wrong and work so hard and not being depressed. I have no answers. I only know that this is my lot, and I’m doing the best I can with God’s help.
Sewing and Church
So, I’ve found a really interesting sewing blog at: http://www.blogforbettersewing.com/
I’m also anxiously awaiting tomorrow’s sermon on present day sickness and healing. I MUST make sure that I get to church tomorrow, since this topic applies to me. One of my friends has end stage cancer.
IWOM
In case you haven’t seen these blogs on my blogroll, check out the IWOM’s blog at as well as Fabric Leftovers at You’ll gain all sorts of ideas about sewing, furnishings, and jewelry.
And I Don’t Like It
Why do we have to wait?
To develop patience and trust.
Isn’t that cruel? Isn’t waiting for something good, admirable even, isn’t that going to produce cynicism?
Or more faith.
I have to believe that whatever happens with MM, whether he lives or dies, that it is your will, that greater glory will come to You as a result. It seems awful to think that GLORY can come to God as a result of someone’s death.
Perhaps it is the death that will affect more people.
Again, that is why I must trust in Your ways. If it were my choice, I’d heal him right now, spare him and his wife and kids the struggles that are to come, that are here already.
And then you’d miss the point.
Which is what?
My ways are not your ways. My timing is not your timing. Your concept of goodness is limited when compared to my concept of goodness.
But SUFFERING?
This is a fallen world. The rain falls on the good and the bad. This isn’t heaven on earth. While you can experience elements of heaven here and now, this isn’t what I had originally created. The Fall allowed all the evil into the world. Think of it as the Greeks thought of it: a box of terrible evil was released and the only remaining item is hope. But the hope you have is greater than the hope they had. You have true hope through Jesus Christ.
I still don’t like the suffering.
You don’t have to.
Doubt
Matthew 21:22.If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
It’s been quoted a lot in my vicinity lately. And posted on Facebook a lot. And prayed in church a lot. And prayed in small group a lot.
Why? One of our pastors has been fighting cancer for the last 18 months. He received a miracle 18 months ago and was given these past 18 months, but now? Now he is dying. The tumors are fighting him for sustenance, and the tumors appear to be winning. He’s lost over a pound a day for the last 10 days.
Am I the only one who doubts that he will be healed? I know that if it’s God’s will that he will be healed from the cancer. But what if it isn’t His will? What if more glory will come to God through his death? What if this is a test to see how m uch we’ll cling to God? To see if we will praise Him in this storm?
No matter what happens, be it life or be it death, I have to believe that it is for God’s glory. There are five kids, though, ranging from 8th grade to just married. What about his wife?
I’m not doubting God. He can and will do what needs to be done for the betterment of humans.
I’m doubting my faith that this friend will be healed from this cancer.
Ramblings
I was thinking tonight about Frank Lloyd Wright’s area outside of Chicago because I was reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor and the author mentioned prairies. Chicago was so different from Florida. Seattle was different, too. The prairie, the mountains. Things are different. Against expectations. There are the seasons versus the lack of seasons here in central Florida. My goodness, it’s been above 90 degrees this week.
Am I desirous of change? Do I fear change? Am I searching for significance? For meaning? Why do I think that a radical move would help me in that endeavor? But I can’t or won’t move. My family is here. My career is here. I don’t want to restart my teaching career in another state.
Other thoughts that came to me tonight involve what I call my Indian princess sundress. It’s beautiful and has spaghetti straps. Why do I like it? The purple color, the coolness and softness of the fabric. And then there’s the fact that it has, with the exception of the neckline and spaghetti straps, a Regency period cut to it. Perhaps I can wear a Regency style dress without making the appropriate underpinnings.
And then there’s that Red Satin dress on the blog I’ve just found (http://www.blogforbettersewing.com/). It’s a beautiful dress. I might just make one. Thanks, Gertie.
And no, I don’t yet have an answer
So, no, I don’t yet have an answer to my previous post, and that is the reason I haven’t blogged since then. I guess I’m shocked that I am so cruel. AFter disavowing approval of that remark, I have (all these years later) discovered that I actually agree with the hateful statement.
It isn’t very Christian of me to agree. Then again, I am human, and there would be some very different things in my life if, well if things were different.
Perhaps I truly haven’t forgiven my brother? I keep thinking of Jacob and Esau, which I’m studying right now. It took all those many years for Esau to forgive. I thought I had forgiven. Maybe I haven’t forgiven him. I don’t think I feel hate any more. I just don’t want to see him.
