The Path

"Your road led through the sea,

Your pathway throught the mighty waters -

a pathway no one knew was there."
Psalm 77:19 NLT

The part that grabbed me about this is that
God already had a path in place

for the Israelites before they ever got to the Red Sea.

(If you're not familiar with this story,
check it out in Exodus chapters14 and 15.)

He does the same for us.

He will not keep His path a secret from us.

He will show it to us at the right time.

The waters may be up to our neck,

But He already has a path in place!

Psalm 16:11 NKJV says,
"You will show me the path of life:
in Your presence is fullness of joy."

This week has been a challenging week to me emotionally.
I need the reassurance
that God already has a path in place
 for me and for my family,
...even if it doesn't feel like it,
or if I can't see it right away.

Psalm 23 reaffirms that thought,
especially verse 3 which states that
our Good Shepherd guides us in the right paths.

We may feel like Job who experienced
problems and challenges gallore;
but no matter what, we can know
that God "knows the way that I take."
He already has a path in place!


Thanks to Charlotte and Ginger for allowing me
to link with their inspirational posts
at Spiritual Sundays!

Who AM I?

I just posted an "I AM" for the name of God on my Rock4Today blog, with a little description of Who He is.  There is absolutely no way I could cover all His "I AM's" in one post, but it got me thinking about who I am.

I guess most importantly, "I am" a Christ follower.

"I am" also a wife and help-mate to my sweet man, a mom, a nana (grandparent), an aunt, a writer, a registered nurse, a Sunday School teacher, a friend, a good cookie baker, a sister, ...and a person who loves to take excursions on the Buffalo National River.

To me the Buffalo National River is one of God's very special places of beauty.  With each twist and turn of the river, there are new views with matchless and unparalleled beauty.  I am so thankful to live close to this majestic river.



My granddaughter and I visited this spot on the Buffalo yesterday.



My two younger sisters and I visited this spot on the Buffalo last fall.





I introduced my grandson to this Buffalo River spot last spring.
When I need to de-stress, I often close my eyes and visualize this view of serenity.
I can literally drop my blood pressure twenty points when I do this!


Down stream from the last area that I have pictured, the river bed seems to change with every season.  It reminds me of an encouraging Bible verse from Proverbs 21:1 that says,  "The king's heart is like a stream of water directed by the LORD;  He guides it wherever He pleases." (The Living Bible)

The reason this verse is encouraging to me is because it reminds me of the sovereignty of God.  No problem and no person is too big or too powerful for Him to handle.  And no problem is too small for Him to care about.  In 1 Peter 5:7 He says, "Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you. (The Living Bible)

Getting away to the river seems to help remove my cares...  the warm sun, the sand, the beautiful blue green waters, the lush vegetation, the song of the birds, and the gentle current of the river all help to soothe and renew my soul.  It is one of God's gifts to make me a better person - no matter which hat of the "I am's" I am wearing!


For more on the letter "I" try Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday,
or try some Inspiration from Charlotte and Ginger at Spiritual Sundays!

To see the latest God Rock go to "I AM"

Thanks for your visit!  What's your favorite place to de-stress?

CanULive2Long,orCanUDie2Soon?

After my recent post in Rock4Today highlighting God as My Healer, my sister-in-law and I were having a conversation about the connection of faith with healing.  We both felt that faith is an action word that involves committment.  She commented that to her it involves attitude, fortitude, and endurance, quoting from James 2:26 that says "faith without works is dead."  Being a survivor of the accident that took three of my siblings, she said she had to apply this principle in order to bring about the healing of her broken bones which enabled her to walk again.

As we were discussing the sudden loss of lives from that accident, she told me about one of my brother's sermons entitled "Can you live too long, or can you die too soon?"  

My brother Bill who was killed in the accident, and my survivor sister-in-law

That question has been burning in my mind ever since she asked it.

I posted the question to my FaceBook friends,

and here are some of the responses:

"I believe I am here as long as the Lord wants me to be,

...not a day or second, more or less."

 "Don't want to be here if my mind or my body goes...

'To live is Christ, and to die is gain,' and

'My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.'"

 "Does God ever take a person sooner than he planned,

or does he leave someone longer than he planned...

....maybe because of his/her or others desires???"

"The Bible says our days are numbered,

so I am going to let God answer this question for me!"

"I like Psalm 139 verse 16

'And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,when as yet there were none of them' 

- though it doesn't settle that question

of whether we're fitting into God's plan for us."

And finally, one from my niece:

"Okay, I think that everyone leaves this earth before they're ready. We should live forever. But then this "world" is so fraught with problems; who would want to. I think when all your friends and family are dead and you are lonely and crippled and suffering, its time to go. Did my dad go too early???? Did he have more to do here??? Of Course. My dad's job seemed far from done. There were people who still needed him (not just me). He was such a good minister! He truly knew how to "bind up the broken hearted". His love for people was doing great things in the prison and on the outside.. But a genetic and biological mishap took him from us. God still had work for him to do. Sometimes I think if dad had gone to the doc earlier or eaten different or listened to my constant nagging he would still be here. I don't have that guarantee...  After I lost my spiritual anchor I lost my way and felt I didn't want to be in "this world" anymore and came very close to leaving it. I was in constant pain, constant fever, constant grief. The only thing that kept me going was wanting to see my son graduate. So I held on and despite grim diagnosis from doc just kept hanging on.     So I tried a second opinion. In five minutes my pain had a solution. I fired my old doc, stopped all medication and had a bit of surgery on my shoulder. I got my life back. I'm better than ever. I still have work to do. I was convinced in the pain of my illness that I was done. Now I have so much to do "in the work of the Lord" that I may never have time to die!   ...I will just keep working through to "the end of the world" and beyond.  ...So while I think we were meant to live forever as God's original purpose, I do think that people who are suffering need relief. If that relief comes in the form of physical death from illness, then its okay..."

 

 

What do you think? 

      Can you live too long? 

           ...Or can you die too soon?

 

 

For inspiring posts or to leave a prayer request, try Charlotte and Ginger's Spiritual Sundays.

From Lyme's to Lemonade!!!

In my Rock4Today that I posted yesterday, I mentioned that I was struggling with some health issues.  In case you were curious, today's blog will be a bit of an explanation.

Almost three weeks ago, my husband removed a tick from my right side that was out of my peripheral vision and my reach.  We were getting ready for a trip to Georgia to visit my baby sis for her birthday.  Along the way I also wanted to see first hand the devastation from the Mississippi flooding and the Alabama tornadoes.

We were somewhat overwhelmed with all the damage we saw, but had a good visit with my sis.  Thoughts of the tick bite did not enter my mind.

On the way home, I started getting headaches and a stiff neck.  My side felt a bit sore, like I had overdone exercising or pulled a muscle.  I didn't think anything of it - just thought I was stiff and sore from travelling and being in the truck so much.

When we got home almost a week later, the soreness on my side seemed worse.  I still had the headaches with the pain beginning to progress into my ear and the left side of my face.  Still, I did not associate it with the tick bite.  A few days later when the pain was getting to be a bit unbearable, I looked at my right side and was shocked to find a red ring of rash (petechiae) around the tick bite area. 

The tick had been small and did not look like the one in the picture at this slide show link, but I did have a rashy looking ring about 3 inches in diameter that encircled the bite, and compared to the one in  slide 6 of this same link.  It had  a hard lump under it, was painful, and was very warm to the touch.  Being a registered nurse, I went straight to my text books as well as the Web, and found the tale-tale evidence that appeared to point to Lyme's Disease, then called my doctor's office.

Since my regular doctor was unavailable, I went to see my nurse practitioner friend.  She concurred with me that it did look like Lyme's.  She placed me on the proper med treatment for Lyme's, and had blood tests drawn to confirm it.

I ASKED PEOPLE TO PRAY to the God of Heaven for me!  I had seen the results of Lyme's Disease first hand, and I wanted no part of it!

The anti-infective medicine began to clear the tick bite symptoms gradually, but the facial pain worsened with each day causing excrutiating pain.  Room temperature food was all I could handle, and even that seemed to set off worsening bursts of extreme discomfort.  I began to wonder if I had something else going on as well.

Then the test came back NEGATIVE for Lyme's Disease!  I was very perplexed.  After praying to The God of Heaven for wisdom, I called my dentist for an appointment.  An abscessed tooth,  now ruptured and draining, appeared to be the cause of the extreme facial pain and headaches. 

An added strong antibiotic to the medication regimen is already making a difference, and I am beginning to feel like my old self.  Tomorrow I have a follow up appointment for my dentist to try to fix and preserve my tooth.

Many thanks to The God of Heaven for revealing the mystery and the secret for relief!  I thank and praise Him that I didn't go into septic shock from the releasing of the poison from the abscess into my system.  I also praise Him that the pressure on my trigeminal facial nerve did not cause the paralysis of Bells Palsy.  So much to be thankful for!!!

Very soon I hope to be able to enjoy a glass of cold lemonade without grimacing in pain!  Not too sure I want to try any limeade for awhile...

For prevention of Lyme's Disease or other tick related illnesses, visit this site.


To blog hop, check out the interesting sites of Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday, and Charlotte and Ginger's Spiritual Sundays!

Everybody Can Do Something!

Last week my husband and I made a trip to Georgia

to be with my youngest sis on her birthday. 

On the way there we encountered some of the damage that was done

by the F4 tornado that had wound its way through several Southern States. 

  

Our 6th grade Sunday School class had been studying the story of the Good Samaritan from Luke chapter 10 in the Bible.  After studying the lesson, I showed them some of the pictures that I had taken of the disaster area that my husband and I had encountered.  

 We called their attention to the poster on the bulletin board that said,

"What Can I Do?"

 

After brainstorming, they came up with several ideas of ways they could help.

 One of their ideas was to have a car wash.   

We have had a cold, rainy spring,

so although they probably would have enjoyed doing this,

for the sake of the teachers involved

the idea was put on hold until warmer days arrived to stay!  

They all agreed that

EVERYBODY CAN DO SOMETHING! 

 The artists in the class got to work and made this poster.

The idea that got the most enthusiastic response was a Toy Drive,

which we hoped could help bring comfort to the children who had lost their toys due to the tornado.  Our class quickly got to work to cover collection boxes with colored paper.

 We used the pictures that I had brought to decorate the boxes 

to call attention to why we were doing this.

We enlisted the help of our church's technical staff to produce a short video

to make others aware of our project. 

This video is to be aired in "Big Church" next Sunday

 and we hope to post it on YouTube. 

We are filled with anticipation and excitement as we begin the collection and distribution process.  With the recent horrific devastating F4 tornado in Joplin,

 we have an area closer to home that can benefit from our efforts.

So, as a Sunday School class, we challenge you:

What Can You Do?

EVERYBODY CAN DO SOMETHING!

This post is linked with Spiritual Sundays

and Jenny Matlock's "Alphabet Thursdays"

Thanks for stopping by!

Visit my companion blog at The Rock4Today

Living up to your name

It all started with an email that my younger sis sent me of the Hebrew names for God.  I couldn't help but notice that the first four names all started with the syllable "EL" - El Shaddai (The All-Sufficient One), El Elyon (The Most High God), El Olam (The Everlasting God), and Elohim (Creator).

This got me curious.  I got out my Bible Dictionary to find out what "EL" meant.  This is what it said: "God, the primitive, generic word for God in the Semitic languages." (The New Compact Bible Dictionary by Zondervan)

I couldn't help but think of human names that began with "El".  So, using my little dictionary again, I looked up some of them.  Here are a few of them:

ELiezer - means "God is help".  God certainly helped him as he picked out a wife for Abraham's son, Isaac.  (Eliezer is first mentioned in Genesis 15:2, and I am assuming this is the same man in Genesis 24.)

ELkanah - means "God has possessed me".  He was the father of the prophet Samuel, who was given to the LORD's service at a very young age. (1 Samuel chapters 1&2)

ELijah - means "Jehovah is God".  This brings to mind the contest between Jezebel's priests of the god Baal and Elijah's God, Jehovah.  (1 Kings 18)   By the way, Jehovah God won hands down!

ELisha - means "God is my salvation".  He was a prophet who definitely lived up to his name, with twice as many miracles recorded as his predecessor Elijah. 

There were more names that began with "El" than this - all of them interesting to me, but I'll not make this post that long.  This little study made  me wonder how much the name that we are given at birth affects the outcome of our lives.  My name is Esther, which means "a star".  .....Hmmm - am I shining as brightly as God intended?

What is your name?  And what does it mean?   Are you living up to it?

If you don't know the meaning of your name, you can find it on this link: ThinkBabyNames.


Sharing this link with Spiritual Sundays and Jenny @ Alphabet Thursdays.

To see my companion blog on this, go to The Rock 4 Today.

The Wilderness

This past week my husband and I decided to go for a short adventure hike.  For months we had been looking over a book which listed waterfalls within our area. We had high expectations of finding a spot that had four waterfalls.  What we didn't count on was the difficulty we would encounter in trying to follow the directions to get there.  Could the landscape have changed since the author wrote the book?  Or were we just that bad at following directions?

  We never found the waterfalls. At one point, we thought we heard the rush of water, but when no waterfalls were found, we decided it must have been just the noise of the wind in the trees.  After three attempts of following what might have been faint trails, we gave up.  Instead of finding waterfalls, we felt like we only found jungle!

We turned around, this time having to climb up hill while fighting vines, and straddling over fallen logs.  With relief, we finally saw our Jeep.  Instead of completely giving up, we took a small road marked "Wilderness Trail," ...this time going by vehicle instead of on foot.   After about 8 miles of rough dirt road with little change in scenery, we decided the road was going nowhere.  With a few tries, my husband managed to turn the Jeep around on that narrow one lane road, and we viewed the same repetitive scenery on the way back. 

We became a little frustrated with the outcome of our little trip, and began to see why the trail was marked "Wilderness Trail."  I thought of the Israelites wandering in their wilderness for 40 years.  We got frustrated after a couple of hours of feeling like we were going nowhere, ...and we think they were bad for grumbling! 

After "wandering in the wilderness," we did a "mountain top experience."   We didn't see "the promised land,"  but we viewed the swollen river from the recent deluge of rainfall. 

A little bit of Gatorade to our tired bodies, and we were set to go back home. 

We are so blessed.  We didn't even have to wait for "water from a rock" - just opened a bottle of Gatorade and quenched our thirst.  God is so good!