Integrity - at what cost?

"Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it."
--Gordon R. Dickson, American author

I wonder how often Jesus has said the same thing?

Put plainly, if our study of God's Word is an intellectual journey void of real-world application, it's a false journey that does not please God. Time and again the Holy Spirit tells us that it is the "doing" of God's word that is important, not the hearing. Are you ever struck by situations in your life that cause you to come face-to-face with a principle, and you're put in a position of having to decide if you'll live out what you've claimed in theory? That happened to me today.

This last Sunday, my husband co-taught a Bible class based on Jesus' "sermon on the mount," and this particular lesson was all about deep integrity. Jesus calls us to be people of such integrity that there's no oath or swearing we can add to our words that would make them be any more meaningful. In class they read from Randy Harris' book, "Living Jesus" about a question Randy poses his students every year. We all like to say that we are honest people and wouldn't lie, but Randy challenges us to see if we would stick to that when the stakes are high. Here's his scenario (and I'm paraphrasing it here):

Imagine you are a college senior in the last semester before graduation. You are an accounting major and seemingly have everything lined up perfectly; you have a fiancé ready to marry you after graduation, you have a job offer with a reputable firm, and everything seems to be falling into place. The only problem is, you find out that you are short one class in Literature of all subjects! The registrar fits you in to the last class available on classic American literature. All semester long you plod through books like The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill a Mockingbird. You've read each one and done well on the tests. The final book assigned is Moby Dick -- all 800+ pages of it. And it's all about whaling. You are from a small farming town in Kansas, and the thought of reading about whaling - especially with the semester winding down and all of the graduation ducks lining up - is just more than you can bear ... so you read the Cliff's Notes and watch both Moby Dick movies. You feel confident that you can answer any question on the final regarding any question the professor could throw at you about Moby Dick. But to your shock, when the final is handed out there is only one question to the whole exam: Did you read "Moby Dick?" Your Literature grade - your credits necessary for college graduation - which are needed to land that good job and be able to marry your waiting fiancé -- that all rests on the back of one question. Did you read "Moby Dick?"

What would you answer?

According to Randy Harris, year after year 95% of his students say they would lie on the question. (He also wonders how many of the 5% lied about the fact that they would lie.)

Today I had an appointment with my rheumatologist - the specialist who coordinates the bulk of the care regarding my very rare autoimmune condition, Behçet's Disease (BD). Because my disease is so rare - the most common figure I hear is that there is somewhere between 10,000-15,000 people in the United States with that condition. (For comparison, the football stadium at my alma mater - Boise State University - currently holds 34,000 people.) Last spring I started receiving infusions of a chemotherapy drug called Remicade to treat my BD, but because Remicade is not labeled by the FDA for use with BD, my insurance company revoked the coverage and I had to discontinue my infusions - therefore losing the benefits I had already gained in just 3 treatments. In my appointment today my doctor talked to me about some of my options - but sadly, there aren't too many out there. (The next medication we're looking to start is Enbrel, which would be a weekly injection I would give myself in the muscles in my abdomen.) The same problem exists with every medication - there is no such thing as a medication labeled by the FDA for Behçet's. Most insurance companies will approve "lesser" medications in a situation like this, when valid use can be assumed for conditions similar to those on the label. However, the more expensive the medication gets the more incentive the insurance company has to deny the claim - and considering that each Remicade infusion costs around $20,000 (and I'd get an infusion every 6 weeks), they have a lot of incentive to deny me! To fully understand the benefit of these medications you'd have to fully understand the devastating effects of a chronic autoimmune disease like BD, which is not something I'll get into in this post. Suffice it to say it is a life-altering disease, which steals away much quality of life from those who have it and the loved ones around them. There is no cure, and few adequate treatments.

So here's where it gets sticky: my rheumatologist suggested that he simply write into my chart a diagnosis that I don't have (such as Rheumatoid Arthritis) - one that is already on the label for the medications we are considering - so that I could be approved, receive the medication, and better control my symptoms thus improving our quality of life.

  

What would you answer?

This reminds me all too much of the warning we find in the book of Job:

"Be careful, do not turn to evil, for you have preferred this to affliction."

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If You're Going to Steal, Steal BIG.

I used to be a total kleptomaniac. I can't count how many small items I have taken through the years, from jewelry to clothes to candy, etc.. In fact, I had such a reputation for it that when a friend of mine and I would go shopping, she would go around and slyly point out items that she wanted, and then I'd come around and swipe them for her.

How dumb of me. How selfish.

In recent years, that has turned around 180º. Not long ago in the checkout line at WalMart, I asked the cashier to ring up my Pepsi twice. When she asked why, I told her that the last time I came to WalMart I grabbed a Pepsi out of the cooler while waiting in line and drank it, intending to ring it up with my groceries ... but I forgot; it wasn't until I got home late that night I realized I hadn't included it in my purchase!! Basically, I stole it without meaning to!! So this time I would ring up the Pepsi twice and it would cover it. The cashier stared dumbfounded at me. She asked me three times if I was sure I wanted to ring it up twice. She'd never heard of anyone doing this. Why would I not want to pay now for a Pepsi I took home without paying for it before? Was my soul really worth so little??

So here's what I was thinking about recently: doesn't it make more sense to steal something REALLY BIG as opposed to stealing something worth a few bucks? I mean, think of it this way: What is the price of your soul? If Satan dangled in front of your nose an abandoned briefcase with 3 million dollars in it, would you take it? What about if you knew you could get away with it? What about stealing a car - would you ever consider committing Grand Theft Auto? Most of us would say no. What about slipping a Snickers bar in your pocket on the way out of the store? What about charging a customer a bit more than you know your product is worth, or doing dishonest business?

Before I go any farther let me clarify one thing: if I steal something, that doesn't mean I'm eternally condemned. What condemns me is being outside of Christ. Similarly, if I stop stealing, I'm not suddenly going to heaven. Only those "in Christ" are in the kingdom of God ... not those who do or don't do a certain checklist of actions. Yet we are told repeatedly that thieves have no place in the kingdom of God. Does it say only thieves who steal large amounts? Nope. Stealing a candy bar or supplies from your employer counts the same eternally as embezzling millions of dollars from Enron. Dishonest is dishonest; the size of the lie doesn't matter.

So the next time you're tempted to keep the few extra bucks that the cashier handed you by accident, or when you're tempted to use company time or resources for personal use, or to slip something in your pocket or purse without paying for it, ask yourself this: Are you really worth SO little? Is the price of your soul so cheap? Would you trade a trustworthy reputation for $5? Certainly you think more highly of yourself than that.

I believe wholeheartedly that Satan is active day and night, searching for souls to devour. He sees our weaknesses and sees what works to get us off track. Why would he bother leaving a briefcase with $3M in it in front of you, when he knows you've already sold out for a $8 pair of earrings? When you steal from your boss? By falling for those cheap tricks, you show Satan, the world, and God just how little you value your own soul.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that stealing ANYthing is worth it. In fact, I don't believe that there is anything on this earth worth your soul. Many have heard the questions, "What does it gain a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what would a man give in exchange for his soul?" So you could acquire this whole entire world and it still wouldn't be enough to justify the price of your soul. How much less, then, a candy bar or pirated music?

What is your soul worth?

Once again, I worried for no reason

Well, today is Day 1. Yesterday I received my first infusion of a medicine called Remicade. It is the next step up the ladder for me in immunosuppression in the fight to control my Behçet's Disease. [Quick dictionary entry: BD is an autoimmune (AI) disease, kind of like a cousin to the Lupus and Crohn's family that never shows up at the family reunions. Far more rare than its cousins, BD can be difficult to treat because so little is known about it. Only 13,000 people in the US have it ... for comparison, the football stadium for my alma matter, Boise State University, fits 33,500 people. As with most AI diseases, my immune system can't tell friend from foe. Imagine an army on a hill facing an opposing army. While all the soldiers start firing on the opposition, my immune system is the lone gunman that turns and starts shooting at his own men. So my healthy cells get attacked for no reason, causing all kinds of problems. In order to fix this problem, my doctors take away the M-16 from the rogue soldier - in other words, they suppress my immune system until it can no longer effectually fight friend OR foe.]

My hubby and I are so far thrilled to be able to say that I received the infusion very well and have had NO negative side effects. I pretty much slept all day yesterday because of the Benadryl I had to take to minimize side effects - and also, I believe, just as a let-down from all my anxiety. But why was I so anxious?? We have read about Remicade since practically the onset of my BD in 2004, and have been seriously tossing around the idea of starting it for almost 2 years. Last summer was when we made the decision with my rheumatologist to formally apply for insurance approval to start it (again, one of the drawbacks of BD being so rare is that no med is FDA-approved for BD, so I have to ride the coattails of similar diseases for approval.) After several months waiting, we finally received the approval and I started the infusions yesterday. So I guess on one hand I've had plenty of time to get the jitters about this - but on the other hand, I've had plenty of time to turn my worries over to God! Hmmmf. I hate it when I'm confronted with my own hypocrisy.

I knew in the days ahead of the infusion that I had some anxiety going on. After all, who can hear the word "chemo" and not get a little freaked out? (Remicade is and isn't chemo. I don't understand a lot of the details, but I know it's now classified as chemo, but isn't a conventional, make-your-hair-fall-out chemo. From what I understand, all immunosuppressants are a form of chemo.) While I've been on meds before that are also classified as chemo (like CellCept, which nurses in the hospital give the pills to me by a spoon so I don't have to touch it - which was always weird to me. Why is it important for my skin not to touch something I'm putting in my blood stream??) - there's just something different about infusions. My first three infusions will be given at the hospital center of my doctor's office, but thankfully from then on I'll be able to receive them at the local cancer center, trading a two hour round-trip drive for 15 minutes.

What I didn't know until the morning of my infusion was just how nervous I really was. By the time we got in the car and were headed to my appointment (with my trusty best friend and husband at my side, as always), I felt sick to my stomach. I kept thinking, 'How will I be able to tell the nurse if the infusion is making me sick or if I'm just a scaredy-pants??' So while Danny drove, I laid my seat back and had some quiet time. I just prayed to God that I knew I'd gotten myself all worked up over nothing - that not only did worrying not help anything, but we all know what stress does to the body - but even more so, my worrying proved that I was not trusting God. Didn't He already know how the treatment would affect me? Didn't He already have everything in control, whether or not the new med worked for me? So why worry? No matter what my body did, I knew Who held my future.

But here's my question: would I be sitting here this morning, confident in my God and feeling all silly about my worry if I would not have reacted so well to the infusion? What if I was losing my cookies all morning? How often is our faith and thankfulness based on things going smoothly? OK, I guess what I'm really asking is, is my faith too often based on things going smoothly? It's sure cause for me to stop & think. My goal is to have the faith of Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego. I read about them talking to the king who is about to throw them in a fiery furnace (heated 7 times hotter than normal!) because they refused to worship anything other than Jehovah. They told the king that they did not fear being thrown in the furnace because they knew Jehovah could save them - but even if He didn't, they would praise Him anyway!! Do I have that faith?? No. But I pray I'm on my way.

My Three Epiphanies - #3

I hope that before you read the rest of this post, you've read Epiphany #1 and Epiphany #2 first. Then this will make a lot more sense. Just to recap, what I am listing in these three posts are the three most important "revelations" in my life. I don't at all mean that these are anything special or unique to me - these truths have been around for thousands of years. Not exactly ground-breaking stuff. But to me, coming to understand these three things have changed everything about my life - and have become much of the foundation upon which everything else in my life is being built.

With my first post, I imagine much of the world agreed with me. The vast majority of this world believes that there is something higher than us - something supernatural going on in the universe. Most people, in fact, probably don't remember a time where they didn't believe that, or where they had to prove that to themselves. Most people have just taken it as a given that there is a god. With my second post I imagine that although many people would agree with me, the number is considerably less than the first post. While most people believe there is some sort of higher power or god, substantially less believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, with my third post, I imagine the audience will narrow even more. But here we go anyway.

#3. There is a big difference between a Christian and a Churchan.
As I write this, there is a video going virally around the internet in which a young man explains why he "loves Jesus but hates religion." Frankly, I don't really like the video or agree with it. According to the Bible, you cannot have Jesus without having true religion. That being said, I would wholeheartedly agree that much of what man has turned religion into - even Christianity - does not at all resemble the Christianity that Christ designed. Ironic, huh? So, how do we tell the difference? If it was up to my opinions vs. your opinions, there could and would be endless debate. Thank God we have a definitive source on the topic - the Bible. In the book of James we read, "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." We also read that is why Sodom was judged so harshly - because they did not do those things! But alas, I am getting sidetracked a bit. (I do that from time to time.) ;-)

So, what is the difference between a Christian and a Churchan, you ask? How can I tell the two apart? Let me give a couple of examples. Be honest as you answer the questions to yourself. If you, being a believer, are having a conversation with another person, which of the following questions are you more likely to ask?

• "What church do you go to?"  -or-
• "Do you know Jesus?"

If you were going to take the conversation to the next level, would you ask:

• "Would you like to come to church with me?" -or-
• "Can I tell you about how Jesus has changed my life?"

Which of the following have you used to 'advertise' your faith:

• "You should come to my church. We are a really loving group of people and have a very active youth group. Our preacher gives really encouraging sermons and we have good, upbeat music." -or-
• "Man, I sure made a mess out of my life and had really hit rock bottom. I can sure relate with where you're at. But thankfully God loves me so much that He sacrificed His own Son, Jesus, so that I could be reconciled to Him. My life has never been better! I sure don't mean that I don't have any problems - I still have all kinds of things I struggle with - but since I have His Spirit in me, I know that Jesus is helping me to change, and I have a promise of a home in heaven with Him."

Be honest. Which of these two options sounds like your conversations? By and large, Christians today preach the church and not Jesus. So why is that a big deal? Jesus said, "If I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself." Not only was Jesus talking about being lifted off the ground on a cross, He was talking about what the draw would be: Himself. Jesus is supposed to be who we flock to - not something He created. The church is something Jesus built -- it is a by-product of being in Him. What's an analogy I might use? Maybe marriage. Did you get married because you were in love with the idea of being married, or because you were in love with your spouse? Was being married your goal, or was spending the rest of your life with that special person your goal, and so you got married? The church is no different. Obviously I'm not against marriage - I am married. But that's not why I got married. Similarly, I am in the church [ie the kingdom, not a certain denomination] because I am in love with Jesus. Would I talk to a single person about the benefits of tax exemption and cheaper bills because you can split them with someone, therefore you should get married? Of course not. So why do we skip over Jesus and talk about the church? What has become the draw?

There are many scary consequences of lifting up the church instead of Jesus. For one, we would be guilty of worshiping the created thing instead of the Creator - and we know that doesn't go over well with God. We should be like the apostles and early followers of Christ - we should preach Jesus also. Think about Peter's famous sermon on the day of Pentecost after the ascension of Jesus: did Peter preach the church? Did he preach any of the benefits of the church? Did he ever even talk about the church? No. Through Peter, the Holy Spirit convicted the thousands of listening Jews of their sin and where they stood in relation to God because of it. Once their hearts had been cut because of that, it was the hearers that asked, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Can you hear the pleading in their voice? I can - I've been in the same place! It was only then that Peter told them to repent of their sinful life, be baptized for the forgiveness of their sin, and then he promised they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That's what should be our draw!! Only after we see the 3,000 people obeying the gospel that day is it mentioned that "God was adding daily to the church those who were being saved." Then we see what the church was busy doing.

Here's my final, probably most important thought on this. When we lift up the church instead of lifting up Jesus, we tend to forget who our Master is. We forget who was given ALL authority on heaven and on earth. We can easily start making spiritual decisions based on the will of the church, and not of the will of Jesus. "Well I would never do that," you think. "My allegiance is to Christ." Let me challenge you to really examine that. When faced with a decision of which path you will take, do you first think, "What about the congregation? - The elders would/n't want me to do that. - That decision might alienate some people. - If I do this, not everyone would understand and I'd be on my own."  To whom do we look for guidance? It is easy to start weighing spiritual decisions based on how many people agree and would also do, instead of simply asking, "Is this what Jesus wants me to do?" What if we see a conflict between what elders teach and what Jesus teaches? When elders, for example, teach that sharing our faith is only for a "select few that have a special calling" yet we hear Jesus saying that the entire reason we were saved is to proclaim Him to the world, with whom do we side? Even if the elders aren't corrupt, do you think the Son of God wants to share His glory and authority with another?? (I'm not trying to undermine the guidance of biblical elders - I'm simply trying to ask whether or not we've looked to them to legislate our spiritual decisions.) What if you're faced with the decision on whether or not you will pursue true, biblical worship instead of calling the traditions of man the doctrine of God, and you know that many (most?) will not agree or understand. Some will even dislike you for it. What do you do?

A true disciple of Jesus never considers the consequences before he/she decides whether or not they will obey Jesus.

Through the Spirit my senses are being trained to discern a Christian from a Churchan, and it has become amazingly easy to do so - it's as if a foreign language is interjected in conversations. Listen closely to the content of your spiritual discussions; do you speak of the immeasurable riches of the grace given to you by Jesus, or do you talk about the activities of your church?

More:

Epiphany #1

Epiphany #2

The Faith of an Atheist

Author's note: I sure pray that I can continually add epiphanies to my list. I by no means consider that I "have arrived" or have figured everything out. Far, far from it!! If you know anything about my life, or have even read a few of my posts, you see that the whole point of me listing these epiphanies is to show that I have - and will - change everything in my life if I become convinced I should do so. I am sure not afraid to admit I've been wrong and change course. I pray that God continues to show His truth to me, and that I grow in His wisdom. :-) 

The Morality of Murder

I would like to share a video that was posted in a group I am in on Facebook, and would love to hear feedback. The title of the video is, "The Morality of Murder", and it explores the differences in our principles based on the circumstances, our level of involvement, and the outcome. Thought-provoking stuff!!

Here is the link to the original blog post where I saw this clip. I have only watched the first 13 minutes (that is the length of the clip on that post), but on YouTube I could only find the full hour. So, feel free to only watch the first segment, or if you're interested you can watch the whole thing. I'm interested in hearing your feedback! What do you think about all this??

My Three Epiphanies - #2

Welcome back! First of all, I hope you've read Epiphany #1. If not, then #2 won't make as much sense. As I said in the intro to #1, in my life I have had three major epiphanies - major breakthroughs in my thinking and understanding that have changed everything in my life. And I really do mean everything. My first epiphany at the ripe ol' age of 24 was that there is a god. And then ......

Epiphany #2 - Jesus is the Son of God
For many people, they assume that #1 is the same as #2. But let me assure you, there is a wide chasm of understanding between knowing there is a god - some kind of higher power or something supernatural in the universe - and putting a name and character traits to that God. Billions of people in this world believe #1 without believing #2. Many people believe that there are just vague forces of good and evil, that Allah is their god, or they believe in Buddhism, etc etc etc. without that higher power being the man, Jesus Christ. So how did I get from #1 to #2? A lot of research. And an open, seeking heart.

I would say that one of the hardest things when doing any kind of research is to put aside our own preconceived ideas and preferences. At the point in my life where I was between #1 and #2, I was still in much of my old mindset - namely, that religious people had swallowed "the opiate of the masses" and that in order to believe anything as antiquated as the Bible, you had to check all intellect and critical thinking at the door. I mean, that book is a few thousand years old! How in the world could it possibly relate to my life today? And besides, I'd made quite a habit of printing off lists from the internet of "Contradictions in the Bible" and using them to debate people. So don't think for a minute that I had any slant towards the Bible or Christianity! In fact, I think at that point I had given more credence to eastern religions and mysticism. (Which, it's so funny to me what we call an "eastern" religion or a "western" religion. Christianity is seen as a western religion - but why, I have no idea. It was born in Iraq and fulfilled in Israel. Not really what I think of as western society.) Anyway - I at least decided to look into Christianity. While you might hear of people who denounce particular denominations, you very rarely hear of people who turned to Jehovah (the God of the Bible) and regretted it later.

So, I set out to study. I had studied the Book of Mormon (some people very close to me were Mormon). I looked into Buddhism, as well as the native American ideas, etc.. I also decided to read the Bible, just to see what all the fuss was about. While grocery shopping in a superstore, I grabbed a Bible. It was the "So That's Why! Bible" - one that's very textbook-like. I wanted my quest to be intellectual research, and I liked how this particular book tied biblical events and times into "the real world." But, while shopping, I was afraid that people would get the wrong impression of me if they saw me buying a Bible, so I hid it under a case of beer. Every night after work I would crack a beer and crack the Bible. That particular book is laid out chronologically. Soon I would really look forward to my reading time - it was fascinating to me. I would have all my old art history books out, and when I would read about things like the apostle Paul dealing with people who were making shrines to the goddess Artemis, I would flip open my art books and look at photos of the temple of Artemis. Since my background was in art, it helped me make "real-world" correlations, which validated what the Bible was saying. There are other books that claim to be from God that do not have any such validations. The people and places mentioned have never been verified - but not so with the Bible.

The only way I can describe my experience with slowly coming to believe the Bible is that you have to read it to believe it. There's nothing I can say to convince you. And when I say "read it", I mean READ IT. I don't mean to read commentaries on it or summaries of it, or to read bits and portions of it. I mean dedicate to sit down and read it. After all, if it's false, then by reading it you'll only have more ammo against believers, right? (But again, I wholeheartedly believe in "seek and ye shall find" - or in other words, you will find what you look for. If you are only looking for things that don't make sense or things you don't agree with, you'll find plenty. If you are looking objectively at it, you will find an objective truth.) Once I had been reading the Bible for a little while, I easily came to see that the vast majority of so-called contradictions of the Bible were simply misunderstandings or things taken out of context. For example, on many lists of contradictions, you'll see things like "in Genesis 1 it says God was pleased with creation, but in Gen 6 it says He was not pleased. That's a contradiction." Really? First of all, you have to notice that there is quite a difference in the point in time these two comments were made. Most people say over 1,600 years difference. God was pleased with what He had done, but was not pleased with what man had turned His creation into. Big difference. But you'd never get that by reading two verses out of context. When you study the explanations, the contradictions seem trivial at best.

So, now that I had come to believe the Bible, I had to believe what the Bible said about things like the afterlife, the purpose of my life now, what happens to those who follow Christ and those who don't, and whether or not we have an excuse for not believing. I remember as I read the Bible for the first time, I thought, "Well even if I died now I'd be ok, because surely God wouldn't hold me accountable for something I didn't know." Right? Wow, I still remember (almost 9 years later) exactly where I was sitting when I first read, "Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse." It goes on to talk about no person will ever be able to say that they didn't have enough evidence to believe in God, and we will all be held accountable for that. That's sobering stuff. No wonder I remember that moment 9 years later. We all understand these concepts in ordinary life, but for some reason we won't translate the logic to faith. If I was driving down the freeway doing 90mph and the cop pulled me over, could I get away with telling her that because I didn't read the speed limit sign, I shouldn't get a ticket? Of course not! Yet we act like ignorance of God's Word will somehow be a free pass on the day of judgment.

So where did this all leave me? I now believed there was a higher power at work in the universe. I now knew that higher power was Jehovah, and His Son was Jesus. Not only did Jesus come down from heaven, take the form of a man, live a perfect life to show us the will of God, but he was crucified because of *my* sin and then God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in heaven. So what? What does that mean for my life? Well, that means everything. Everything changes. My life is no longer under my own control. The only logical thing to do was to submit myself to the God that not only has the power to create everything that has ever been created, but who has the love for me to give His Son as a sacrifice for me. He loved me enough that He would provide a way for me to be forgiven of my sin, be reconciled into a right relationship with Him, and teach me day by day how to live for Him. He would give me His Spirit to dwell inside of me to help me! He knows I am incapable of living holy on my own!! The kindness of God led me to repent of my selfish lifestyle, be baptized for the forgiveness of my sins so that I could be born to a new life full of purpose and hope. Everything changed, and I would never, ever go back to the way things were. Praise God that He has the power - and the love - to change me one day at a time.

to be continued.....

Epiphany #1

Epiphany #3

The Faith of an Atheist

Author's note: I am not trying in one blog entry to convince you that there is a god and that He is Jesus. That's not my job. All I am trying to do is to tell a tiny bit of what happened in my life that led me from being an atheist to where I am now. While I can - and should - give you all the reasons for the hope within me, unless you are willing to seek Him (on His terms), dedicate yourself to the study of His Word and to live whatever is in it, then no little blog entry will change anything. 


Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Heb 11:6

Rewind #30: Just Go Ahead and Say "Thanks"

Original air date: 6Nov2010

Our “Roadtrip Extraordinaire” continues! We are having such an amazing time!! We have now been out for over a month ... and we are still several days and states away from being back home. (Wow - where would we be without the friends we have that are holding down the fort back home??) Danny and I are just without words to express how thankful we are for the opportunity of this trip. Right now we are at the heart of the trip - the Homecoming of Harding University ... especially the Jazz/Stage Band! It has been 30 years since this group played together, and the performance they put on today was worth the wait! Just stunning. Danny has been looking forward to this for so long, I can’t even count. Soooo great!!!

The weather has been ideal on the trip - the scenery has been amazing - the timing of everything is just more than we ever could have planned. When we got to Colorado, it was smack in the middle of the elk rutting season, so we got great pictures. We got to Tennessee at the height of all the autumn colors, and by the time we were leaving there the leaves had mostly fallen. We saw thunderstorms in Kansas like California has never seen! (Complete with a tornado siren.) :) And now here we are in Arkansas, and it is just amazing (am I over-using that word?? I can’t think of others more appropriate!) all the things we’ve been able to experience.

Yet in the middle of all these blessings tripping over each other to come in my front door, Satan still tries to cram his way in. Sometimes he almost wins - other times he wins. (But only temporarily!) A couple days ago I got a call from my surgeon’s office, and found out that there was a mistake in the scheduling of my operation. Instead of being November 30th, it will have to wait until December 15th. Needless to say, I was not a happy camper! I was quite bumped and even spent a tear or two on the deal - but then I just went on. This morning I was thinking about the fast pace we’ve been running and the few people we’ve been around that we know are or have recently been sick, and I couldn’t help but virtually start my count-down clock for when I’ll soon be sick. Then I thought, ‘Well, at least this is towards the end of my trip; I’ll have time to get a lot of rest at home now that my surgery is pushed back.’ Then it hit me - like a ton of shoulda-thought-of-that-before bricks. Remember last July when I was in the hospital and got the ‘horrible’ news that my laparoscopy had been cancelled due to my hospitalization? I was so crushed ... until I met with my surgeon a month later and found out that it was a good thing that it was cancelled! I didn’t see it coming, but God knew all along exactly what I needed and orchestrated things to work out perfectly! So, it wasn’t until this morning that I put all the pieces together. Whether or not I actually get sick from this trip, I *know* I will need time to recover from this trip. I kept thinking, and then one neuron met another (seemingly unrelated) neuron. The I-need-time-to-recover neuron met up with the my-surgery’s-been-rescheduled neuron, and they tied a bow together around the God-ALWAYS-knows-what-I-need neuron!! 

So I guess what I am saying is that even when things frustrate me, confuse me, and set me back, I should just go ahead and tell God “Thank You” - because I know that one way or another, visible short term or in the long run, He really IS working all things together for my good, because I love Him. That’s His promise .... yet how quickly I think my current circumstances must be exempt from that rule. Silly silly silly me. Satan may win a round here or there with me, but since I have the strength of Christ on my side, I know he will not win this war!!!

Rewind #27: Ups & Downs

Original air date: 2Sept2010

Have you ever heard the phrase, “The only thing constant is change”? Isn’t that an annoying phrase? I think what’s so annoying about it is its truth. Well life goes on, things are changing and we’ve got a new game plan. As far as my health goes, I’ve had some ups and downs this summer, (kinda like that roller coaster behind me in the picture), and sometimes what we define as an “up” or a “down” is in the eye of the beholder. For example, during mid-July my husband and I were on a two-week trip to TN to visit his family and take part in a spiritual retreat --- it was a GREAT time. However (as it often does), my Behçet’s decided to use that time to come out in full force and thus it ended up earning me an early flight home and 10 days in the hospital. My doctors were all very concerned and immediately started talking about what new (& stronger) meds to put me on, whether to double or triple my current meds (they opted for triple), and how slowly to taper me off some of my flare meds (they opted for the “turtle-out-for-a-Sunday-drive” kind of slow). For a little while we all consoled each other about how terrible it was that it was happening, but then I really tried to look at the situation differently. With eyes of faith. For one, it had been 27 months since I was last hospitalized. That is a RECORD! My average is 8-10 months! Over two years between major flares has been unheard of for me. Second, of the 6 times I have been hospitalized, it was the second most moderate. Not bad, relatively speaking. More blessings about it include: the flare was timed perfectly so that I was able to spend a few days visiting with family and be part of the entire retreat before I had to fly home; God had blessed us with the means to be able to purchase that short-notice plane ticket; I had somewhat of a spiritual breakthrough during the flare that I was able to share with others; and hopefully now my Behçet’s will be fairly quiet so that I can focus on treating my Endo. The biggest thing I was upset about was that the laparoscopy I had *finally* been able to schedule had to be cancelled. It was too close to that major flare for safety’s sake. However, later when I met with my GYN surgeon, she said that it was actually a good thing that surgery was cancelled, since it wouldn’t have been the most beneficial thing for me. The game plan we’ve decided on now is that in late November I will have a complete hysterectomy, and while they are in there they will do what the laparoscopy would have done (look around and cut out and Endo they find.) So, it all worked out! In fact, had I *not* been hospitalized, I almost certainly would have had the lap, and not pursued the better alternative for my treatment. God knew what he was doing all along!!! Ahhhh, don’t I doubt too often??????

When it all boils down, isn’t that where my assumptions usually go? Here’s typical life: (a) I have my heart set on something; (b) something gets altered from how I thought it should go; (c) I assume it’s all ruined. Only LATER do I find out that it really was the best plan after all .... in this case I was blessed to be able to put the pieces together concretely within a matter of weeks, but how many times do I not have the vision of hindsight until months or even years later? And I spent all that time disappointed or doubting, thinking God must not have heard my prayers. At what point will my knee-jerk reaction be to look forward to how God is going to work His blessings in a way even better than I imagined?? I can easily say I’m still smack in the middle of THAT learning curve. 

Rewind #22: Three of the Scariest Words

Original air date: 10Apr2010

I have come to recognize the power of words ... the Bible calls it the power of the tongue, and that it holds the power of life and death. (Proverbs 18:21) In short, words matter! In an earlier post I talked about the power of speaking the truth vs the consequences of being a liar. When people come to know that they cannot trust what you say, that your words ring hollow in the other person’s ear because they have known you to lie just too many times, then you cease to have any kind of influence with that person. Frankly, I stop taking such a person seriously at all. When I know a person is a liar, or is willing to say whatever they think I want to hear (I don’t know why people say that, when they assume that people want to hear anything other than the truth,) then when they do say anything of importance, at *best* I doubt them, at worst I discount them altogether. 

There used to be three words that scared me more than any other phrase to say. I still find myself battling this (more often than I’d like to admit,) because these three words tend to taste very bitter and uncomfortable in my mouth. The implications of these words are not typically the impression that we want to give others about ourselves. And the more I have noticed that the more I recognize this characteristic in myself and I work to grow out of this habit, the more I notice in others. Let me give you a recent example from my life:

Last Wednesday evening I went to the local home improvement store to get flowers to plant in little pots I have by my front door. These pots are up under the overhang and receive no direct sunlight, so I needed to find plants that grew well in all shade. Since all I really know about flowers is that they are all colorful and pretty, I am really not the best judge about which flowers need to be planted in different settings of soil or light or water, etc ... (which is why mot plants around me have an average lifespan of about a minute and a half. Except weeds.) So after I had wandered up and down every aisle in the Garden Department, reading the little tags on every plant on the shelf in hopes of finding a tag that said, “This plant is very hard to kill! It requires no direct sunlight, you don’t have to remember to water it regularly, and the soil condition doesn’t really matter either. It is guaranteed to bloom constantly and last for years.” *That* plant might survive a whole five minutes at my house. Still wandering around aimlessly, an employee came up to me and asked if I needed help finding something. Evidently I was wearing my ignorance on my forehead. I told her about what I was trying to find - flowers that would do well in all-shade pots under an overhang. After a lot of huhing and hawing, she proceeded to lead me up and down all the aisles I just wandered thru, randomly picking flower tags to read to see if they matched my description. After recommending a few flowers that asked for “at least 6 hours of sun,” I think she was catching on to my frustration. I think that was on my forehead too. She assured me that those little flower tags can’t really be trusted, that they call annuals perennials, and say some need sun when they really need shade and vice versa. But then she’d grab a tag and read me the whole thing for info. At one point she read the planting instructions on a certain flower said 10”-18”. I asked her if that meant there has to be that distance between individual plants or if that’s the size planter they go in. She assured me it meant the size planter the needed. So I reaffirmed, “So it doesn’t mean that there needs to be 10”-18” between plants for them to grow?” She said, “Yes, it means they need that much space between them.” OK, now she was just making stuff up. I was not impressed. I asked if there was someone else that could help me.

So why was she so afraid to say those three dreaded words, that I have stumbled over and avoided at all costs countless times in my own life?? Why on earth can we just NOT admit, “I don’t know” ??? This is definitely an area that I have had a double-standard on for many years in my life, without really even knowing it. Whenever I was around someone (like that Home Depot garden rep) who would just make stuff up as they went along, obviously not having a clue what they were talking about, it would drive me nuts. Whenever a person actually admitting, “You know, I don’t really know the answer to that question, but let me go find out,” that was always so much more respectable! Yet I never had the courage to give that answer myself - I always had to feel like I knew the answer to every question ever asked. I couldn’t admit I didn’t know the best way to do everything -- I might look dumb (my worst fear) or people would think I wasn’t as smart as I wanted to be. What I’ve learned is that you actually look worse to the people around you! Who do you respect more, someone who willing admits they don’t know the answer to something and helps you find the answer, or the person that acts like a know-it-all and leaves you wondering if you can rely on anything they tell you? I personally respect the former! I have to admit that this is another area in which Danny has directly influenced my growth - even though I was pretty reluctant to grow at times, especially in our early marriage. I wanted so badly to be the perfect girl for him, that knew how to cook anything (that dream died quickly) and knew which socket to use. 

The bottom line of what I have learned is that people will actually respect you more and trust you more when you answer what you know and admit what you don’t. Have you ever gone shopping with a friend that says that everything you try on looks just great on you?? Well I don’t care who you are, not every piece of clothes is going to flatter your figure! After a little while, do you just quit asking for that friend’s opinion, because you know it’s always going to be the same answer and you can’t trust it? Although they are trying to be nice, I would rather have a friend be nice enough to tell me that if I buy those jeans I may as well be wearing a “Wide Load” sign. That’s a friend I can trust. I have learned that I feel more proud with myself when I can answer with confidence what I actually do know, and I feel more helpful as a friend when I help find the answer for them that I didn’t already know.