Monday, December 23, 2013

Merry Christmas Everyone!

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them: and they were sore afraid.  

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David ad Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.  

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.  And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger.  

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.  And all they that heard it wondered at these things which were told them by the shepherds.  But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.  And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

Luke 2:8-20

Thursday, December 5, 2013

A Post Thanksgiving Post

I said in my last post about seeing God work in our lives this past year.  I feel like maybe I should have expounded on that a little.  As you know if you've been following this blog, my dad died this summer.  

Last year he had surgery that was really a miracle.  We didn't think it would be able to happen, and it did, and although he wasn't as cured as we first thought, we did get an extra year with him, which I am thankful for.  Also, I've really seen God in the way dad died.  He wasn't in pain.  He was home on hospice, and he lasted several weeks longer than the doctors predicted, so we were able to truly say goodbye.  He knew he was on his way to Heaven, so it was a very peaceful passing.  We had a lot of visitors and did a lot of singing.  I still have a little trouble singing sometimes now, but not in a bad way. 

Before all this I had been going through a spiritual dry spell.  I have a brother who developed some health issues a few years ago and (I know this doesn't make sense) I blamed myself for that.  I'd had some problems a number of years before that had similar symptoms but a really different cause, and I felt like that kept my parents from getting him the right help as quickly as they might otherwise have done.  It's hard to trust God when you're blaming yourself for things that you can't do anything about.  Seeing God at work while dad was dying helped me accept that first off, there honestly are things I can't control so I need to not hold myself accountable for them, and second -God could have healed my dad.  I realized that after the surgery.  It was such a miracle that Dad was able to have it.  God chose to take dad home instead, but he could have healed him.  So he could have healed my brother, too.  He just chose not to.  And that means I can't blame myself that my brother has health issues.  

I'm not saying I've suddenly become a fatalist and think all I ever have to do is sit around twiddling my thumbs while God works around me (though that would be nice.  Thumb Twiddling: new favorite sport!)  I just believe that the things outside my control are not outside of His.