Bedspreads and Hair

I have two thoughts to share today. The first is I washed my bedspread today. It looked fine, but now that it has been done, I can tell it was dirty. In the past, it was washed more frequently. When my son's little dog was alive, he had an annoying habit of hiking his leg on the end of it if he got made at me. Sometimes, we would go entire visits without him getting mad at me. Other times, I washed the spread several times during his stay.

But since he's gone, I don't even think about it very often. That's how sin in your life can be. If you don't think about it, and nothing drastic happens to draw your attention to it, you can ignore it and not dwell on it.

As part of the incomplete forgiveness project I am working on at the moment, I find I am harboring some resentment and anger. Hmmm. Sin that doesn't show to anyone else, but it is there. Like the dirt on my bedspread, it isn't obvious to anyone but me, but it is just as deadly to my walk with Christ as the worst sin I can think of being carried out in public.

The second thought is the result of getting a haircut today. My hair is basically curly, though I can tame it a great deal when my hair is short (not so much when it is long). My stylist put a little gel in my hair after cutting it and did a mildly spiky "do". She added hairspray to keep everything in place, and I came on home. Four hours later, I trekked past a mirror and noticed that despite her best efforts, my hair is back into its usual style. What she attempted lasted a very short time, and I had done nothing to change the spiked look.

Old habits die hard. Just as I have battled negativity all of my life and continue to battle daily, the habits we form are like fetters. Good habits are fine, but the bad habits we all practice imprison us in some way that stunts our walk with the Lord and our growth as believers. It will take extreme effort to break the habits that bind my faith and working out my faith.

I challenge you to "wash your bedspread" today and take a long look at the habits you practice. Keep the good ones and begin working today to eliminate the bad ones. I hope your walk with God grows stronger as a result.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the key word around our house this week. My pastor preached on the topic from Philemon Sunday. The previous week, my daughter's Sunday School lesson was on that topic, though she was visiting her brother in another state. But the lesson was put up on podcast and she has since listened to it.

The person who most recently offended her in such a major way is unlikely to ever ask for forgiveness, and in that case, it is easy to just not offer it. However, that is not good for her (or for her mother who tends to take up her battles, too). As my pastor observed, "Forgiveness is for intentional, deep, personal hurts inflicted."

All of us have suffered those hurts and we need to forgive those who hurt us. Not doing so hurts us and affects us. The inflictor may never suffer those effects, but not forgiving a hurt poisons us and spreads like a contagious disease through future events.

As we have talked, I have seen that some of my daughter's insecurities are rooted in previous events that have never been fully resolved and harboring those resentments has led to her tainting current events and even steering those events into inevitable failures.

Her Sunday School teacher pointed out the difference between living by the Law (and Hebrews 7:19 says in part, "that the Law made nothing perfect") and living by grace. In other words, there is no way to be perfect according to the law, so we must depend on grace.

In Philemon, Paul appeals to this master, Philemon, to extend forgiveness to his runaway slave, Onesimus. This was a capital offense, not to mention that Onesimus apparently stole from the master before his flight to Rome where he met up with Paul and Paul led him to the grace of Jesus Christ.

When faced with questions regarding forgiveness, Jesus shared a story about a man who owed an unfathomable amount to his master, but when he begged for understanding from the master, it was granted to him and his entire debt was forgiven.

However, the forgiven man immediately left the presence of the master and encountered another man who owed him a sum of money and demanded instant payment. When that man could not pay the debt immediately, the first servant had him imprisoned. Once the first master learned of this, he had that first servant tortured and imprisoned also. (Matthew 18:21-35)

Even though we have been the recipients of the greatest forgiveness of all, we hesitate to forgive others. And we want to keep a record of how magnanimous we have been by lowering ourselves to forgive others. We overlook this one fact pointed out by my pastor: I will never forgive an offense greater than the one God has forgiven me.

Finally, since we tend to cling to things like pride, anger, resentment, and entitlement in our quest to justify not forgiving an offense, I was also quite touched by the way Paul began his letter to Philemon. "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus...." Though Paul was imprisoned by the Roman Empire, he didn't credit them with that imprisonment. Nor did he see it as a victory for Satan that he was held there and unable to make his missionary journeys. He recognized that he was exactly where God wanted him to be and in the circumstances God wanted him to experience for His ultimate glory. Sometimes, we need to offer forgiveness so that we recognize when we offend someone else and will truly appreciate their forgiveness.

And in so doing, we also can appreciate the amazing gift of grace and forgiveness offered to us by a loving Heavenly Father. I hope you have accepted that gift. If not, I urge you to contact someone who can help you understand and experience that gift.

A Prisoner of Christ

I have choir rehearsal tonight. If you know me well, you know that I like to eat supper early and do nothing the rest of the evening. I have to drag myself out to that rehearsal each week. It is even harder once "winter" arrives (I know, this is Texas, winter is relative) and it is cold and dark when I have to go.

Today, our director issued a challenge. We are to read Philemon and come with a word for the choir. The first verse begins:

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus...

Immediately, I had my "word". Paul did not see himself as a prisoner of the Roman Empire. He saw himself as a prisoner of Christ. What does that mean?

In the simplest of terms, Paul realized his circumstances (under house arrest in Rome) were designed by God. He was exactly where God wanted him to be. All of his circumstances were permitted by God and in some way would eventually glorify God.

I think back on recent events and I am comforted by the knowledge that I (and my loved ones) am a prisoner of Christ. Whatever I may have to endure is at the hand of a loving God whose glory will be known one day. Maybe I won't see it. Maybe my loved ones won't know for sure how that is, but one day, God will be glorified if we seek His will and abide in Him through the tough times.

I Am Second is an online campaign giving real-life examples of how God is at work even in the darkest times. He has the benefit of seeing the bigger picture. He knows that the hurts we are enduring right now will strengthen our faith and our ability to serve Him. Perhaps, we will be able to minister to His glory because we have survived our current trials.

Thank you, Lord, for making me your prisoner. I serve my time willingly and joyfully because You are just and in control of all things that touch my life.

And Unhappy Endings

Not all endings are happy. I've watched someone very close to me struggle with a difficult situation for about three weeks now, and yesterday, the bitter end came. It is painful and I grieve, too, at the loss of something precious. I am confused because I thought I'd received God's assurance that it was going to work out. Have I misread His message?

Once again, I guess He is seeing a bigger picture than I can see, and by working out, He means something different than I'd hoped and prayed for. And right now, that hurts. However, I do know that also means His plan is even greater than I'd allowed myself to imagine. Though I am disappointed for this one I care about, I believe completely in the faithfulness of our Lord and that He loves her even more than I do and will "work all things for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His promise" (Romans 8:28). So I will cling to that promise today and watch for His Hand today and each day that follows for the revealing of His plan. It will be different than we'd thought, but it will be the best plan for her.

Yesterday, I had to remind myself "If this is the worst thing that happens today, it is still a pretty good day". Despite this emotional set-back, my loved one is healthy and alive. I can praise God for the ending of weeks of riding an emotional roller-coaster. Sometimes, knowing the worst is not as bad as not knowing. While it hurts, I think she is better off for having a final answer than trying to guess the meaning of every sentence. And soon, she will see that, too.

Today is a new day. But the same God is still in it and in control of it. "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. On Christ, the solid Rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand." Sounds good to me.

Happy Endings

My story actually begins a couple of weeks ago when my brother-in-law saw a local doctor about what he thought were a couple of bug bites that were getting infected. By last Saturday afternoon, his elbow and arm were red, swollen, painful and he was running a fever. My sister-in-law finally stepped in and said, "Get your shoes on. We're going to the emergency room now."

He was admitted that evening and the next night as he got progressively worse, surgery was performed to open his arm and drain the discharge (that's the clean version) and relieve the pressure on the skin which was stretched taut. In addition, antibiotics were being given intravenously and initially, they seemed to be helping.

My sister-in-law mentioned in passing on Monday that he had a rash on his back. But on Tuesday, she told me the rash now also had pustules. I knew that was a bad sign, and I was somewhat miffed because neither the first doctor we told about it, nor the nurse even bothered to look at it. I struggled to temper my reaction to all of that because I am certain my grandmother's heart failed as a result of an anaphylactic reaction to an antibiotic. No one thought to mention to me that she had hives on her legs and her doctor had not returned their call. Had I known, I might have persuaded my aunt to take her to the hospital to be treated. However, even in that, I do recognize the omniscience of God. Still, I am hyper-sensitive to prospective allergic reactions.

When I left after a short visit on Tuesday, I was still concerned. The lab results came back that day and we learned that the infection was indeed MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus). A visit from the infectious disease specialist that afternoon led to a change in the antibiotics and the identification of the one causing the allergic reaction. I felt much better after that was taken care of. He did not. In fact, after a day and a half of his arm's swelling going down and redness going down, he started having problems again. By Wednesday afternoon, he was looking and feeling pretty badly though he was trying to get paperwork done for his job. It was something to see as he was quite organized and has some impressive equipment enabling him to work quite efficiently in a small space.

Late Thursday afternoon, another surgery was performed to repeat the procedures done on Sunday. He finally got to go home yesterday afternoon, but he has a drain in place in his arm which will be there for about two weeks. He has a PICC line in place and my sister-in-law administers antibiotics through it once a day and will do so for at least four weeks. He is hoping to go back to work next week, but only time will tell if that will really be possible. My husband is feeling his absence at work, but overall, we are so grateful that he has survived that we will do without him as long as necessary to know that he is recovering and will be back sometime.

This horrible infection is not a blood infection. There is no "red streaking" as we've been warned to watch for all our lives. This was localized, but the effects were just as intense and just as dangerous. He literally came close to death on Sunday. One doctor told us over 30% of the population are carriers of MRSA. It is literally all around us. But if an infection begins, seek treatment. If it persists, get back to the doctor again. Don't wait. But for my sister-in-law finally putting her foot down and forcing my brother-in-law to go back to the ER, we might have lost him altogether.

So after a week they spent in the hospital completely, a week in which I made long journeys to be there so my sister-in-law could go home for a little while each day, a week of intense prayer and supplication in his behalf, we finally have our happy ending. And we are so very grateful!

Now, I continue to pray about another situation and ask for God to resolve it clinging to the verse from the Gospel of Mark which says, "I do believe. Help my unbelief." I know what I want to be God's will in the situation, but I am almost afraid to believe He will do it. Why is that, I wonder?