Month: October 2020

FUTURE DOORS

August 4, 1973. That is the day my husband and I said I do. We would have been married 47 years this last August. We were so full of excitement for the future and what it would bring. Our future brought us so much happiness. We had three children and were busy being parents and all that brought. My husband preached at small churches in the area who did not have a full-time preacher. He was such a good speaker, who spoke from his faith filled heart. This ability spread to his love of boy scouts, being a scout leader and even teaching leaders how to lead the boys. He spent summers at scout camp. He loved the boys and gave them comfort when they were first year campers and wanted to go home. He led our two boys to become Eagle Scouts. He was a chaplain at camp for many years until camp told him to not come anymore, because of his health and fear of him falling. We dreamed of a time we could retire and buy a camper. He wanted to go throughout the US preaching God’s word. I wanted to follow him with that dream. What a great dream for the future! But the year 1999, started the spiral of knowing that future was not to be.

My husband and I started down a sometimes-scary-worrisome path, not having any idea what the future would bring, not even knowing what the next day might bring. His 10-year illness kept him captive to the reality that his future was crashing down around him. He had a debilitating depression caused by his illness, that swallowed him whole and became his focus. In the middle of those years, our active daughter was busy with her life and her future dreams. During those years, we were blessed to have five grandchildren. There was much joy but also sorrow at the lost future that was not to come. My husband became focused on the lost future instead of making the best of each day he was given, which in turn caused his past to become darkened by regret.

There is so much I can say about those years, but that is not the focus of this particular blog. I told you those things about my husband, because I want you to realize that sometimes our hopes and dreams of our life here on this earth, do not happen and they turn into a future that we never imagined. Have you ever had dreams of a future that did not come about? Those of you who are older, think back to the time when you were full of dreams. Those of you who are younger, middle aged, what about your future dreams? What do you think the future holds for you? I want to stress here that it is good to have hopes and dreams for a future here on this earth. That is one thing that gets us all out of bed in the morning and keeps us going to work or school or whatever our particular future hopes might be. How we spend our days will affect our future. Also, how we look at the past will define our future. God created us for a particular purpose. But when our hopes and dreams do not come about, some of us just get stuck there and do not move ahead. We are so overwhelmed by the dark future ahead that we cannot remember that God is our light towards a better path of life. He is that glimmer of hope. In the darkness, we can always find the light-that glimmer of hope that is waiting for us to find and reach out towards.

Sometimes I weep about the lost past that did not work out like I thought it should. But when I do that, I am wasting so much of my time and draining the very energy out of me that I need to have for today that leads to my future. If something does not happen the way that we think it should (like the effects of this pandemic), we need to remember that God is still in control. He is still on the throne. There are so many prayers that I felt were not answered during those years, I just referred to. But then when I take a look back now, I see that God was working for my good, for my future without my husband. God has plans for your future and He is helping you work through what has happened in your past, to become who He has planned, all along, for you to become. Let’s look at some verses in the Bible. Let them guide you through tomorrow.

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Ephesians 3:20-21 “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, Amen.”

James 4:13-14 “Come now you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit. Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven; A time to be born and a time to die.” (we will look at all of these “times” listed in this chapter, in future blogs-in the meantime, take a look at all those times listed in this chapter.)

We are not assured another day on this earth. If you need to forgive, if you need to tell someone you love them, if you need to put those things that are holding you hostage to your past truly behind you, do not delay. We are not promised tomorrow or a future that we have dreamed of. If you have not accomplished something that you have dreamed of for years, maybe it is time to set that aside and strive for something else. I feel strongly that if I am not able to accomplish a dream I have in the past or right now, that maybe it is not the right time for that dream to come true. Maybe God has a better timing for me in my future! Don’t stay in your comfort zone, step into your faith zone! If something does not work out, we have to have faith that God has a better plan for you. If God wants us to do something or have a dream, it is going to happen. But if He does not-it is not going to happen. God is leading us into our destiny and our future. If we become so stuck in our past, how are we going to be able to go into our future and fulfill what God has planned for us. Sometimes, we are waiting for things to change but God is waiting for us to make a decision to put that in the past and go into the future that He has planned for us.

I have plans to fly to Virginia, to visit my grandbabies, that I have not seen in a year because of this pandemic, over the Thanksgiving holiday. What is in my future? Will I be able to go visit them? I do not know what this earth is going to give me in my future. But I know one thing for sure. God is all knowing. He is all loving. He is my father and only wants the best for me. If it is safe for me to fly to Virginia, I will have those babies in my arms.

Forty-seven years ago, when I said those marriage vows before God, did I even have a thought that my words “thru sickness and in health,” would be tested. I realize now that was part of my past that has made me the person I am today. The good and yes, even the bad!

Yes, we have to make plans for the future! We have to “pack our bags” for our trip into the future. We have to go thru that open future door with the assurance that God is there with us. Guiding our steps and holding our hand when the path gets too rough and full of “mud puddles” that this life can leave for us. Don’t stay in that door of the past, which is like a weight holding us back. We must stand in the present door and make the most of our day. We have to have faith to step through that future door with the full assurance that God is waiting for us to come live with Him in heaven one day. We have to learn from our mistakes in the past, live today for the Lord and step into that future door, with faith, love and conviction that I am looking forward to my home in heaven! Jesus died on the cross with His arms wide open for us. God is waiting for you to go thru that future door, with His arms wide open for us to come into our forever home! What does your future door, that is standing wide open for you, look like? There are only two future doors for us to go thru: heaven or hell! What does your life, right now, show the door you are going thru? Don’t be afraid of the door that leads us to eternity, but rather realize that door is actually your birthday into eternity with our Lord!

I have, within the last few months, had blogs about our past doors, our present doors and now, our future doors. If you have not had a chance to read those blogs, I ask you to now, so they can all be pieced together. The past reaches into the present and programs the future, through your recollections and your internal rhetoric about what you perceive to have happened in your life. That future door stands open, waiting for you. Reach for it, even if it is not what we had planned for our future!

Till next time!                                           Keela

EVEN IF

Walking into the church building, the morning after my husband’s funeral was hard. The night before, there had been over 500 people at his funeral. At the back of the auditorium, chairs had to be placed because of all the family and friends who had come to honor this man who was a great man of God and loved by so many. I remember being surrounded by my children and grandkids, going to the last pew and sitting down. We got there right before communion and services started. After communion, I remember the song leader getting up. The song he chose was “It Is Well With My Soul.” I remember I could not sing that song because it was NOT well with my soul that my husband was not on this earth. I was not angry with God by any means. It was just too raw and painful to sing something I was not feeling at that moment! Losing my husband was one of the hardest times in my life. Those of you who are widows or widowers know exactly what I was feeling and the feeling of just being able to put one foot in front of the other.

The song “It Is Well With My Soul,” was written in the 1800’s by Horatio Spafford. He was a prominent lawyer and property owner in Chicago. Very wealthy and a Christian. He had four daughters and one son. He went through many loses. His only son died. The great Chicago fire destroyed almost every real estate he owned. In 1873, he and his wife wanted to “get away” for a while to Europe. (I understand that feeling of just needing to get away for a bit, to rejuvenate myself and just breath.) He had some business to attend to in Chicago, so he sent his wife and four daughters ahead in one of his ships. Shortly after, he got a telegram from his wife. The ship had shipwrecked, killing all four of his daughters. Back then, they could not get on an airplane and fly. He had to get on a ship and cross the same sea that had swallowed up his daughters. On his way to his grief-stricken wife, he wrote “It Is Well With My Soul.”

This song was borne out of unimaginable grief and heartache. But how could that be? How could someone write a song, almost 150 years ago, that has touched so many hearts and is sung today? The answer to that is, he was a man of great faith and had hope in his Father, God! You know, hope is hard for us to see in this pandemic, fires, hurricanes and loss of so many lives. Sometimes we have to dig deep to get back that hope that God is with us and cares for us. Hebrews 6:17-20 tell us, “Thus, God determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”  These verses are full of promise and hope, because God does not lie in the fact that He has promised through His word, that we will have salvation and promise of heaven, if we are followers of Him. Hope is like an anchor in the fact that it is secure. When a boat lowers its anchor, it stays put. Even the huge waves cannot cause that security to fail. It does not mean the waves are gone, but there is an anchor holding that ship firm. Just like in our lives, those “huge waves” can seem overwhelming at times. But when we have Jesus as our anchor, we can turn to Him and be anchored in His promises. That makes me feel safe, secure, held and loved by Him.

A popular singing group, Mercy Me, has an amazing song out right now, called “Even If.” As we all know, sometimes things are going well in our world. We feel like singing and cannot keep that smile off our faces. But then we have times when that smile “is upside down.” When that frown feels like it is going into the very morrow of our bones because of happenings in our lives. There are times when our prayers are answered and times, they are not according to how WE want them to be answered. This song tells us even if, things do not go the way we think they should, that we need to lean on this hope and the promises that God is taking care of us, working through us and is with us, even when we do not feel that He is. We need to remember that God is with us no matter what. Even the times, when we are doing wrong or even when we are faithful and are reaching out to Him in prayer, we need to remember His promises and keep them an anchor for our souls.

That statement goes back to me walking into the church building, which a few hours earlier, held my husband’s physical body. A time when I felt that heart wrenching pain. That first song I heard, did not hold the comfort that I felt I needed at that time. But since then, when I hear this song, it holds memories and also deep love and respect for our Father God. Sometimes we just have to go through a lot of huge, scary waves to get to the true meaning of having hope anchored within our hearts. Titus 1:1-3 reads, “Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior…”   That hope of an eternal life when we leave this world, is what sustains us when we are fearful of what the future holds, when we fall in the “mud” of life and when everyone else is against us. Our hope is imbedded in the fact that Jesus died for us so many years ago to save us from sin and one day we will live forever with Him.

When we sing that song at church now, tears come to my eyes not because of me not feeling it is well with my soul, but because I see the hope that God has given us through the death of His only Son, Jesus Christ. I see that no matter what I am going through-EVEN IF it is good or bad-EVEN IF I do not know what is in the future-EVEN IF I have grief so overwhelming that I can hardly breath-EVEN IF our lives are a mess-EVEN IF my home has burned to the ground and there is nothing left-EVEN IF a hurricane has destroyed, with water, everything in its path-EVEN IF this silent virus has brought death to several family members-EVEN IF the answer to prayer is not what I wanted-EVEN IF I have lost my job and business-EVEN IF my family is going hungry and I have to sit in a line of cars to get free food-EVEN IF sickness and pain is ravaging my body; I need to have faith and trust in my God who is with me helping me take one more step at a time-one more breath at a time, with the realization that there is hope in a better place when we leave this earth!

EVEN IF is something to think about and pray about, isn’t it? Hold onto that anchor of the soul-hope. Sometime in the future, maybe in the next minute we or someone we love, will leave this earth or we might lose everything on this earth. Realize, even in the tough times, God is right by our side. We just need to reach out to Him! I will leave you with a verse in Psalm, that I hold onto. Psalm 37:23-24 reads “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.” There is no better hand I want to hold on to,how about you?

It is not easy, but “EVEN IF” we feel hope is far from us, we need to learn to say “IT IS WELL, WITH MY SOUL.”

Till next time!                                           Keela

(Just a side note. One of our technicians, at work, fell yesterday. She will be ok but is in pain right now. Pray for her healing and peace.)