Author Archive

Blessings in being sick!

30 Jan 2012 | By

I haven’t posted anything all month. Wow.

It’s been a good month in general. Always fun to start a new year. But the past 8 days have been less than fun. Last Saturday I had a sore throat and even after sleeping a whole lot Sunday afternoon, I struggled through the week. Head cold, morphed into the sneezing and runny nose, then finally this weekend there was more coughing. And it felt like it was in the chest, finally.

Today made day 8, plus some good friends expressed concern yesterday that I was still struggling with this. (And my mother mentioned pneumonia.) So I put in a call to the doctor’s office today. They would have preferred I wait until tomorrow, but I had 1 meeting today and I have 8 meetings tomorrow, so however you do the math, today was the better day to spend waiting in the doctor’s office.

While I’m sitting them I have the thought that maybe I should have just gone to the Minute Clinic or some  thing at the drug store instead of a full-blown doctor visit. But while I’m here, I’ll just have him look at the spot on my forehead that hasn’t healed in a year, even with some major TLC the past 3 months.

Sure enough, the actual doctor visit (after an hour in the waiting room) took just a few minutes. He agreed if it was getting worse instead of better on day 8 it’s time to try antibiotics. Then, his usual question “anything else while you are here” so I pointed out the spot on my forehead which really is just a minor blemish. Until he said “I’m really glad you pointed that out, that is <insert technical term> which is precancerous.”  My options were freeze it off right then, a cream to do the same thing on my own time, or surgery. Notice none of the options were just not worry about it.

So, we did the freezing right there in the office. It stung!

But now I’m back home, first antibiotic pill taken, and waiting for the forehead to heal. I would not have made an appointment just for that spot on my forehead and my next general visit won’t come until Sept. But God had other plans.

 

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Bloodguilt

29 Dec 2011 | By

I love books, as anyone reading this blog knows. One source for books this year has been Cruciform Press. They publish one book a month, it is a fairly small but powerful book each time. I have a subscription so every book comes to me. This has worked out well because I’ve received a few that I wouldn’t have put in the time or effort to buy, but have found to be a worthy book to read, share, and revisit.

Tonight I picked up Innocent Blood by John Ensor. It is an interesting book in a lot of ways. If you want to learn more about why Leviticus and Deuteronomy actually have some parts worth reading, this is a good book. I have read both of those books more than once. Sometimes a skimming, sometimes a more dutiful reading. But what he has pulled out, the verses and the understanding of them, is new to me. And convicting.

The topic of the book is the need for Christians to have courage, faith in a powerful and almighty God, to stand up and defend the innocent, to defend them and prevent the shedding of innocent blood. That concept is not new to me. I still remember reading Oswald Chambers 2 years ago and getting a clearer understanding of why I should not confuse trying to insist on my own rights with the need to be willing and able to defend the rights of another. This book is a good continuation of that truth.

Of course, while talking about the need to defend the innocent, the primary issue this book raises is abortion. As the author points out, it is the primary issue of our day. In the past slavery and caring for the elderly were the issues that needed to be raised. Right now, in this world we live in, it is definitely abortion. And he has a very powerful chapter showing why anyone suffering from bloodguilt (be it abortion or some other heinous crime) needs the gospel in all it’s truth and grace and glory.

He also shows the difference between responding to innocent lives in danger by accident vs lives in danger of malicious evil. Responding to an accident is usually easy and instinctive. But helping someone being attacked or intentionally hurt requires us to put ourselves in danger, it interrupts our life, and it requires us to face the consequences.

During my EMBA class, one of the discussions we had one day was about the importance of helping someone. The issue posed by a classmate was someone heading to an important business meeting in India that had the potential to bring thousands of jobs and help thousands and thousands of Indians who would otherwise not have jobs or continue to live in poverty or die of starvation. Say that person came upon an accident and a man injured who needed help. Should he help that one man, missing the meeting and missing the opportunity to help all of those thousands of others?

I didn’t state my position very well, but I knew it was wrong to walk past that man. One concern is that if someone can walk by someone hurt by accident, they have lost a part of their humanity, and it will easier to walk past the next one. And even to sacrifice people for some better goal. The ends does not justify the means.

Anyway – consider a subscription to the Cruciform books. Consider how you can help defend innocents. Think about being prepared when your faith must become courage. And I’ll do the same.

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Book Review – Why God Won’t Go Away

23 Dec 2011 | By

I picked up my latest BookSneeze book today. Why God Won’t Go Away – Is the New Atheism Running on Empty? by Alister McGrath.

This was a quick and rather enjoyable read. The author describes the New Atheist movement and summarizes some of the views and writings of the 4 men seen to be the most well-known. He also points out the main existence of the movement has been on web-sites, online forums, and blogs. The second section points out some of the weaknesses of the New Atheist arguments in the areas of religion always leads to violence, appeals to reason, and appeals to science.

This is not a book of Christian apologetics, it is a book aimed at showing why the New Atheists are inconsistent and ineffectual in their arguments against Christianity, and even have trouble showing any purpose for their existence outside of the fight against religion.

In some ways the book seems late, as it is describing a movement that began in 2006 and is already waning in many ways. And it was ironic to find myself reading it so shortly after the death of Christopher Hitchens. But I found it useful to help make clear that there is a difference between moderate atheists who are tolerant and respectful of other world views and the New Atheists who are so dogmatically anti-theist. I have seen the effect of these people but did not have knowledge of the history of the structure of this movement to understand that it really was new and not mainstream in any way.

It appears there are more books, more in depth, than this one by Alister McGrath. But this was just enough to cover the topic and give me an idea of what some of these atheists were pushing.

Disclaimer – I received a copy of this book through the BookSneeze program in exchange for a review. It did not have to be a positive review.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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On Not Being Comfortable

15 Dec 2011 | By

I picked up a quick read this week. I had heard of Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher and put it on my list of “someday” reads. I finally decided this was the day. The book is short, a tad coarse, and very sad in a lot of ways. But she is also very funny and writes well and shares so much that you can relate to, remember seeing from the non-celebrity side, or that is just interesting to see in a life so unlike mine. I am not sure I really recommend the book, but I’m not sorry I read it.

She talks about her alcoholism, her drug addictions, and her bipolar issues. She also does a good job of talking about how the alcohol and drugs helped keep the bipolar symptoms under control. She wasn’t diagnosed until she managed to go dry and then got out of control.

On p 106 she talks about the AA meetings she has attended for 10 years and how finally at one of them someone said that you didn’t have to like meetings, you just had to go to them. What a revelation this was for her. She had always thought she should like everything, but now she was learning that she didn’t have to actually be comfortable all of the time. She could learn to experience some discomfort – which meant she could also exercise and write and be responsible.

She doesn’t do more deep digging right here in the book, but it is an interesting point that seems so obvious so some of us that I think we struggle to relate to people who don’t seem to see it this way. And I think we sometimes ‘get it’ in one area of our lives but not in another. Even when we ‘get it’, we don’t always live it out completely. We believe many things that we somehow don’t reconcile to all of our actions. This is one of the reasons believing God is so difficult. We do, right now, for this thing. But if something different comes along or our digestion is not right, we forget that we believe and trust God.

People seem to spend a lot of time trying to avoid being uncomfortable, or doing something unpleasant, being responsible. But usually all of that effort doesn’t really make us more comfortable. Whether it is drugs, alcohol, moping and refusing to participate in whatever is life at that moment (think teenager). There are always consequences to those actions or avoidance behaviors. And usually they are more uncomfortable than if we had just kept our head up, our integrity intact, and dealt with the original issue or task.

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Cheerful thoughts on depression

16 Nov 2011 | By

It has been 2 months since I have posted here. Amazing. I have been busy and things are going well, there just hasn’t been time to blog.

Back on Sept 5 (just 2 posts ago) I mentioned a new book I had gotten, Spiritual Depression by Martin Lloyd-Jones. After that great first chapter, I had trouble finding time to get back to it. I spent my quiet times in September and October in a couple of books focused on Ephesians chapter 1 and 2 by Richard Phillips. I highly recommend them and can’t wait for the next 4 books to come out. Ephesians may be my favorite book of the Bible anyway, and these two volumes were so rich and convicting and encouraging.

When I finished them, I picked up Spiritual Depression for my morning quiet time. I have made it through 12 of the 21 chapters and can’t wait to turn around and read it again. But it has been rough in spots.

I would love to describe every single chapter to you, but I’ll start with chapter X – Where is Your Faith. This was the chapter I read last Thursday morning and it was full of wonderful and convicting words. Much of the book is spent showing the causes of spiritual depression and why a believer who seeks God and the truth should not fall prey to most of the causes.

This chapter starts with this statement about Christians who get into difficulty and are unhappy from time to time.

…what makes one a Christian is that one is given the gift of faith. We are given the gift of faith by God through the Holy Spirit and we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that saves us; but that does not mean that we have fully understood the nature of faith. p135

The scripture he uses for this chapter is Luke 8:22-25 where Jesus fell asleep in the boat and a storm came up and the disciples panicked. Lloyd-Jones notes that Jesus rebuked them for being in such a state at all.

 He rebuked them for being in that state of agitation and terror and alarm while He was with them in the boat. That is the first great lesson we have to apply to ourselves and to one another. It is very wrong for a Christian ever to be in such a condition. I do not care what the circumstances may be, the Christian should never be agitated, the Christian should never be beside himself like this, the Christian should never be at his wit’s end, the Christian should never be in a condition in which he has lost control of himself.  p137.

What is so wrong about being in a state like this? “it implies a lack of trust and of confidence in Him.”  p138.

He then spends some time talking about the trials that God allows to come to us. Forewarned is forearmed as he says. Then he reminds us that “faith is an activity, it is something that has to be exercised.”  p143.

The first thing I must do when I find myself in a difficult position is to refuse to allow myself to be controlled by the situation.  p143.

Then he says this “Faith is a refusal to panic“. Do I believe this? Then he offers this definition. “Faith is unbelief kept quiet, kept down.”  Which reminds me of the response, I believe, help thou my unbelief.

Having reminded yourself that you will not be controlled by these circumstances, you then must “remind yourself of what you believe and what you know.”  p 144

He ends with a reminder that there is value in even the weakest or smallest faith. “Having been agitated and distressed and alarmed and exhausted, they went to Him. They still had some kind of feeling that He could do something about it”  p146.

What makes this chapter so powerful for me is that after spending time in that chapter and pondering that Scripture and praying, confessing that I do panic and get distraught but that I do want to trust Him more…I then panicked and had an absolutely horrible day. As soon as I logged in and started working I got upset and frustrated and angry and it went on all day. I got frustrated with friends, my husband, my todo list (that I wrote, so I guess I was angry with me). At the end of the workday, looking at all the other things I needed to do I finally wept out loud for a few minutes. But God is so gracious.

First, He brought to mind my chapter from the morning and reminded me to pick myself up and get back in control. Time to talk to my self, not listen to my wailing panic. Then he brought the UPS man to my truck with a book I bought on a whim – I had a B&N coupon and another blogger raved about a book. I opened it up and looked at the first chapter to find the words from the blogger’s comments that had intrigued me about the book. And there they were:

One thing leads to another. The more you believe that God’s grace to you is overflowing, the more you’ll be convinced that you will always have everything you need. And the more certain you are that you’ll never lack, the more willing and able you’ll be to give of yourself and your resources when called for because you’ll be certain God will always replenish your supply.  p20

The verse she bases that on is 2 Cor 9:8

God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.

The book is The Resolution for Women by Priscilla Shirer.

I had to face the fact that I didn’t trust God to get me through the day. I tried to do it in my own strength and my own way and when I felt thwarted or put-upon or drained I lashed out. I was also harboring a bad attitude about work and some personal issues that needed some serious correction. Quite unChristian of me.

Friday morning my prayer was to not have another day like Thursday. Then, I wrote out some Bible verses and kept them on my desk in plain view all day. I read them many times cementing for myself the truth that I must live by each day. Then this blog post crossed my reader. And a devotion I subscribe to by email based on Matthew Henry’s writings sent me an email Friday morning to thank God for the powerful influences of divine grace. He showered me with reminders of His truth so I was surrounded and enabled. Friday was such a better day.

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