Memories

 

It was a year ago this month the first time I had a mini-stroke. I had lost over 15 years of memory.  I had no idea who my husband was and I didn’t realize my children were grown and out of the house.  Complete amnesia.  The second time, I couldn’t remember the last few years.  At least that time, I knew my husband and he gently brought me back by helping me to remember.  The other black out moments I was alone, but I made my way back.  It was just as scary.  The neurologist is setting up more tests and working with my family doctor on a treatment plan.  Trying to get my blood pressure spikes under control.  Next time, I might not be so lucky. 

 

I have holes in my memory.  Like most of us, we forget why we walked into a room – “what did I come in here for anyway?”  This is a little more...like driving a familiar route and suddenly not remembering where you are.  At least for today, I remember my name!  But I don’t want to forget those memories that are so very precious to me.  I have to focus really hard to remember my sister’s voice.  It’s been 14 years now and I don’t want to forget. Ever.

 

Today would have been Dad’s 84^th birthday.  I miss him so much it hurts.  Both of my parents. They both had TIA's.  Did it frighten them too? 

 

We lost our father October 19, 2017 from colon and pancreatic cancer.  Just a few short months after his 80th birthday. The last birthday we celebrated with Dad, we had strung up photos to showcase his life.  Photos help me remember.

Time is precious. Time matters. Will you want to remember the good and the bad?  There should be an urgency about time in our lives.

 

Psalm 90:2

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

 

 

What are you doing with your life?  Make it count.

My Kid Sister

Our Beloved Sister

Chemo Brain vs Something Else

The God of Hope

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Dad, I love you  ~

Prayer and Divine Appointments

 

There is power in prayer and I’ve often thought, “There is nothing more powerful than a mother’s prayer for her child.”  Those precious prayers reach the throne room of God with a special urgency that can only come from a parent’s whole being.  It hurts when we see our children hurt. 

 

It is more profound than that . . . Our Father God hurts when He sees His children hurt.  The only thing He asks of us is to communicate with Him.  

This is what it means to Pray ~  Just. Talk. To. Him.

 

Prayer is the lifeline of a believer.  Prayer sets things in motion.  So, pay attention and watch not only what happens, but how it happens.

 

Have you ever had that still, small voice in your heart that prompts you into action? Perhaps it is seeing a homeless person and feeling compelled to do something for someone in need. Or whether it is just waking up in the morning to do your every day job and giving a helping hand just when it was needed.

 

This is what I call divine appointments.  If you listen to God’s voice, His prompting, you will be His hands and feet. It is simply doing God’s will. Simply obeying His voice.  And, oh, what a glorious outcome when we do! 

 

Who have you helped lately?  You may have just be an answered prayer in someone’s life.

 

Remember to shine brightly in this broken world and let people know God sent you.

 

Do You Put God in a Box?

 

Scriptures tell us that God created the Heavens and the earth. He spoke it into existence and declared “It is good.”

 

What is mind-blowing is that first there is God, then there was Heaven.

Heaven didn’t exist before God . . . Neither did time.

 

God exists outside of time and space. 

Yet we seem to tuck Him away in our finite minds and put God in a box.  

 

When the bible says “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day,” it is speaking of God’s infinity. God created us to live in time and space as finite creatures.

 

I often wonder what it would be like to see God’s face. The term “beatific vision” means the eternal and direct visual perception of God. It means seeing God face to face. But we know in the book of Exodus, Moses was prevented by God’s own hand from seeing His face.  Anything or anybody who looks upon the face of Our Father would not survive.  Why is this?

Exodus 33:18-23

God, the Father,is Holiness - - powerful, almighty, gloriously pure holiness. If we are honest with ourselves, we should acknowledge that it is our own inability to fully grasp the awesome power and majesty of our Creator.  The proverbial "box" mentality.  It just makes Him too small and that is a sad way to think of God.

 

God is so big, so vast, that if He were to be seen by His creation, it would be obliterated because of sin. So, God had to send His Son, in human form, in order to walk among us, “His Word”. God’s power and will is shown to us thru the “Holy Spirit”.  God’s attributes.

 

It is simple. Evil cannot withstand the light of our good and Holy God.  Whether we want to accept it or not, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. No matter how much of a good person we think we are, even a speck of evil taints us and, therefore, prevents us from entering the Holy of Holies.

 

Here’s the spoiler-alert.  Something radical will happen to God’s resurrected people. Rev 22:4  It is only because we will be fully righteous in Christ, standing in our resurrected bodies, untainted by sin, that we will be able to see God and live with Him.

 

Can you imagine looking into the eyes of our Creator?

John Burke, a pastor and author who has studied and examined

over 1,000 accounts of near-death experiences, believes these reports

provide faith-building evidence of God and the Bible.

He asks, Do you put God in a box?