In the Valley of Baca Journal #25

January 3, 2020: Some days the Lord sends a special message to me in the Secret Place of prayer—which can happen anytime, anywhere for me—Amy Carmichael’s poem about prayer comes to mind (the title evades me), “There is a quiet, cloistered place/ As high as heaven, as fair as day/ Where though my foot may join the throng/ My soul can enter in and pray./ One harkening even cannot know/ When I have crossed the threshold o’er,/ For only He Who hears my prayer/ Has heard the shutting of the door.”

Here are some of the Spirit’s whispers to me:

“Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”  ~Psalm 90:10

 “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” ~1 Corinthians 2:9, NKJV

 “The Creator Who created all the earthly beauty we have grown to love . . .

the majestic snowcapped peaks of the Alps,

the rushing mountain streams,

the carpets of wildflowers,

the whir of a humming bird’s wings . . .

this is the same Creator who has prepared our heavenly home for us! If God could make the heavens and earth as beautiful as we think they are today – which includes thousands of years of wear and tear, corruption and pollution, sin and selfishness – can you imagine what the new Heaven and the new earth will look like? It will be much more glorious than any eyes have seen, any ears have heard, or any minds have ever conceived.” ~Anne Graham Lotz

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart…” ~Eccl.3:11

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him” (John Piper).

January 26, 2020

Psalm 37:4-7

 Take delight in the Lord,
and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in Him and He will do this:
 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.

 Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for Him;

Feb 24, 2020: Bill and I flew back to Florida yesterday—3 days after my 5^th chemo treatment in this second round of 6 cycles. As the plane was taking off from the Grand Rapids airport, the sun was just rising in the east—golden red. Its brightness reflected on the plane’s wing, and lit the passenger cabin brightly as it rolled across the inner walls and ceiling of the plane. A beautiful song came to mind as we lifted off and up—“And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings/Bear you on the breath of dawn/ Make you to shine like the sun/ And hold you in the palm of His hand.” The song ministered hope and comfort to me. The song is called (I believe) “On Eagle’s Wings.”

March 5, 2020: I have come to realize lately how dependent I am on the Holy Spirit to maintain my sense of connection with the Lord. Total dependence. Sometimes I feel so weak in my spirit that if He does not support me, there is nothing I can do.

At dinner a couple nights ago, conversation drifted toward what it is like to know that one’s days are numbered—like for me to have a death sentence hanging over my head with this cancer diagnosis.  Of course, everyone who was ever born has a death sentence hanging over them, but we tend not to think about it, especially when we are young.

But for me, I think about my mortality every day. The cancer diagnosis has caused me to go deeper into my hope of everlasting life. I am looking forward to the next phase in life—life after the death of this body. Since my diagnosis, three acquaintances of mine have died unexpectedly—younger, healthier until very recently for two of them, and an accident for the third.

The question at dinner arose: do I think it is better to know, as I do, and have time to prepare, or, would I prefer to not know ahead of time that my days are numbered? I feel that for me it has been good to have time to process—both personally and for my family. I appreciate having time to put my things in order; to think about my legacy to the family and especially the grandkids. And this knowing gives me opportunity to glorify the Lord each day that He gives me—how can I praise Him for His goodness to me?

March 14,2020: The Corona Virus has become a plague, so it seems. People, even here in the USA, are panicking and clearing out the grocery shelves of food and health products. Fear of quarantine. Today Psalm 91 comes to mind: “There shall no plague come nigh thy dwelling…”

I have to fly home to Michigan tomorrow, amid all the dire warnings about air travel, and how it is dangerous for older folks, like me, and especially if we have an underlying health problem—like me. But I am going to take precautions—and trust Him. My times are in His hands.

March 26, 2020: Psalm 91: “He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide beneath the shadow of the Almighty (v.1)…you shall not be afraid for the  pestilence that stalks in darkness (v.6),…there shall no plague come nigh thy dwelling (v.10)…”

God’s promises await the faith of believers—in the light of what is currently going on in the world with the Covid 19 virus threatening and taking lives, I feel comforted by the promises of Psalm 91. Abiding in the “shadow of the Almighty” is the most safe place anyone could ever be—in life or in death. Having had my most recent chemo treatment last week, combined with my age being over 65, I realize I am in the high risk category. So I am taking the precautions recommended (handwashing, social distancing, sheltering at home) but will not live in fear of this disease. God’s promise covers me.

In the Valley of Baca Journal #24

In the Valley of Baca Journal #24

Nov. 25, 2019: “To every thing there is a season…a time to be born and a time to die…He has made everything beautiful in its time…

(Eccl.3:2,11)

My recent health issues have caused me to think a lot about life and death. Just as a time to be born comes to each of us—when we emerge from the womb and metaphorically a “mist,” before we can remember anything—just so there comes to each of us a “time to die.”  How we live our lives between those two times is critical for what comes next—how we respond to the Savior when He calls to us to come to Him and yield up our lives to Him.

But when the time comes to die—does the statement of verse 11 apply? “He has made everything beautiful in its time…”? Does this apply to “a time to die”? I want to think that that is a promise I can cling to.

 December 30, 2019: “The rough-looking diamond is put upon the wheel of the gem-smith. He cuts it on all sides. It loses much–much that seemed costly to itself. The king is crowned; the diadem is put upon the monarch’s head accompanied by the trumpet’s joyful sound. A glittering ray flashes from that coronet, and it beams from that same diamond that was so recently fashioned at the wheel.

You may venture to compare yourself to such a diamond, for you are one of God’s people; and this is the time of the cutting process. Let faith and patience have their perfect work, for in the day when the crown is set upon the head of the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, one ray of glory shall stream from you. “They shall be mine, says the LORD of Hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession.”² “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning.’ “

~Alistair Begg

I saw this embroidered verse at the chemo treatment center where I go to receive my treatments. I would only add to one of the phases—“It cannot steal the peace that Jesus gives.”

I’m treasuring the time that I have left. Only God knows how long. In the meantime, I’m thinking about how much there is to do and how I’m hoping to be able to do it—unfinished projects; prayers for my family and friends; so much of life yet to live.

When people hear that I am undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, I see pity in their eyes—chemo is rough, but so much better than it used to be. I feel thankful for it, for it is buying me precious time with my family, and especially the grandchildren whom I adore, and for whom I pray.

Physically I am doing okay, though feeling the effects of the medicine that is saving my life. I have been able to make the trip to Florida for a time this month, and hope to do the same through April, coming home for treatments every 4 weeks .

Life is good. God is good! I’m thankful!

Moment of Truth

“Because I live, you will live also…”

“I WANT TO TALK TO MY DOCTOR!”Mr. P. demanded when I arrived at his bed in the men’s ward that day.  I was the nurse on duty, and was responding to his call light.  Pacing about his small unit, he appeared distressed, but when I asked him what was wrong, he avoided answering—just repeated his demand in a loud voice.  I knew the doctor who was in surgery that day would want to know the reason, but Mr. P. didn’t want to say.

The ward in this hospital was for patients who had had radical neck surgery for cancer, and Mr. P. had received multiple surgeries for that condition.  There was essentially no privacy other than a curtain around one’s bed in that 20 bed ward, so by now one could hear the proverbial pin drop.

I seemed to be running into a wall trying to find out the problem, but I knew better than to disturb his doctor in surgery without more details.

“Mr. P., I can’t call the doctor without knowing what the problem is. Can’t you please tell me?”  Near tears now, and in the agony of his realization, through clenched teeth he yelled at me, “I’M DYING!!!”

In retrospect, I wonder if there would have been anything that I could have said or done to ease the poor man’s pain. But, at a loss for words, I quietly retreated to the nurses’ station and put in a page for his doctor.

When the doctor answered his page, as I expected he wanted to know what the reason was that Mr. P. wanted to talk to him.  When I told him, the doctor muttered something under his breath that Mr. P. must have figured it out, but to me said that he couldn’t come right now, he was in surgery. I delivered the message to Mr. P with sorrow and sympathy for his distress. When the doctors made their rounds later that day, my shift had ended, so I never was privy to the conversation between Mr. P and his doctor.

It is a sobering and even terrifying thought to realize one’s own mortality, and that each of us are moving toward that inevitable moment of physical death. What waits beyond? Volumes have been written, with speculation running wild between faith—or no faith—in a future life beyond death.

It is, perhaps, the ultimate test of faith to face death—do we really believe what God’s Word tells us about life and death, about how believing in the Savior transports us to a better world when we die? The moment of truth arrives when we look down the gun barrel of our own failing health and bodies.

C.S. Lewis wrote :

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?”

As Christians, we believe this life, by comparison, is only a shadow of the greater Reality.  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ offers inexpressible hope for eternal life, and prepares us to accept death with peaceful confidence that Jesus Himself and a better world await us.

“Death opens a door out of a little, dark room (that’s all the life we have known before it) into a great, real place where the true sun shines and we shall meet.” ~ C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

The Choice

 

 

How many stars are there in the Milky Way? Estimates are, in our galaxy alone, approximately one hundred million! One hundred million is also the number of neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain of a newborn baby. In addition, approximately one trillion glial cells (from the Greek word for “glue”) nourish and protect the neurons with a honeycomb-like formation.

If we could listen in on the electrical activity of these developing brain cells as, during the 9 months in the womb, they are laying out the circuits for vision, language, and all the future activities of the baby’s brain, we would hear an amazing cacophony of “rat-a-tat-tats.” Not a random static like that heard on a untuned radio, but staccato bursts of electricity stimulated by coordinated waves of neural activity.

Cells in one neighborhood of the brain communicating with cells in other areas of the brain, laying down the electrical grid work for future use in life outside the womb. This activity is purposeful and deliberate, beginning as early as 10-12 weeks in the pre-born child.*

But what is it again that women are told in abortion counseling about their 10-12 week old fetus**? “Why, it is nothing more than a piece of tissue—kind of like your fingernail!” For over 40 years lies such as this have been told to vulnerable, troubled women to promote the practice of legal abortion in America.

Masquerading as compassion for women, a $500 million per year abortion industry thrives on this deceit. Most of the over 50 million American abortions since 1973 have been performed on 10-12 week old fetuses, although an unknown number are now done chemically with the abortion pill RU486, used to abort pregnancies of less than 8 weeks.

But an appalling number of abortions are also executed on older unborn babies (up to full-term) by the torturous methods of saline poisoning and partial-birth abortion.

In the early years of legal abortion, the argument was made that since it was unknown when life began, terminating an early pregnancy wouldn’t matter. However, with modern technology we now know that life clearly begins at the moment of conception.

Unfortunately it no longer seems to matter, for something has happened to our respect for human life. At what point did it become acceptable to end the life of the innocent and helpless unborn? Was it in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that the unborn babies are not really persons?

More likely it crept unawares into our thinking long before that. For at the root of this loss of respect lies the assumption of atheistic evolution that there is no God and that life just somehow made itself. Therefore, it stands to reason that we can make our own rules about life and death issues.

This teaching, which has infiltrated our education system and claims to be the scientific truth, asserts that all creatures, including humans, are merely animals—no more, no less—accidents of time and space. The life of an unborn child, since it is then considered no different than a chicken embryo, is expendable for it has no intrinsic value.

This worldview, seeds of which were sown long ago, has turned our culture into one that accepts death as a solution for some of society’s difficult problems, such as the expense of caring for the sick, the elderly, and children born out of wedlock.

Think of the decisions now being considered by law makers:

• Should the barbarous practice of partial-birth abortion on viable fetuses, already allowed in some states, be banned or allowed?

• Should doctors be empowered to euthanize the sick and elderly?

• Should born-alive abortion babies be saved or thrown out with the rubbish?

• Should we experiment on human embryos for stem-cell research, sacrificing one life to help another?

• Should human embryos be grown, or cloned, then harvested for body parts?

• Should human DNA be intermingled with that of animals?

But taking a closer look at the miracle of an unborn child’s developing brain, we see evidence of what the Bible proclaims—that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:13-16).

Stop and consider Psalm 100:3: “It is He Who has made us, and not we ourselves.” Each human being is, in the eyes of God, a valuable treasure worth the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made of His Own life—for any person who will believe in Him.

This same God, Who with infinite power created the uncountable number of stars, has planted within the hearts of men, women, children and yes, even the unborn, the gift of His own divine image. And with that gift comes a breath-taking responsibility: “I have set before you life and death…, says the Lord, therefore, choose life!” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Choosing life means deciding to honor and obey God  and the rules He has given us to guide and protect us from evil. To choose death means to disregard, disrespect and disobey what He has said-and suffer the consequences. When we embrace the theories of atheistic evolution as truth, which is it that we are really choosing—life or death?

Which is it that you are choosing?

*J. Madeleine Nash, “Fertile Minds,” Time, February 3, 1997
**”Fetus” is the Latin word for “little one.”
 

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

“I sit o’ercanopied with Beauty’s tent…” Words penned by 19th century poet, pastor and novelist, George MacDonald, express wonder at the majesty and loveliness we find everywhere in this world. Observe awe-inspiring mountain peaks, the vast splendor of the nighttime sky, smell the sweet scent of rain, of lilacs or exotic blooms of rare form, hear musical strains that sweep us to heights of ecstasy and rapture, feel the gentle touch of a loved one. It seems that we humans are designed for the enjoyment of beauty in the world about us.

And yet there is a paradox. Alongside our capacity to appreciate the exquisite resides something repulsive, hideous and evil: Pain, disease and suffering, violent weather, animal killing animal, the devastation of war, death and decay, man’s inhumanity to man—plundering, raping, torturing, murdering. Each day’s news gives evidence of it. How can such ugliness coexist with such loveliness?

This paradox found expression in recent years in a beautiful little girl from India, born with a headless twin attached to her own body at the pelvis, giving her eight appendages and a somewhat “spider-like” appearance. Named Lakshmi for the Hindu goddess of beauty and wealth that she supposedly resembled, the toddler was worshipped by neighbors in her village as an incarnation of that goddess. The parasitic twin, however, threatened the child’s life with infections, permanent disabilities and probable early death.

In the face of such dangers, her parents had to make an agonizing choice either to leave her to suffer the fate she was born with, or to attempt to save her life with extensive, complicated surgery to remove the attached twin that was poisoning her (and thus risk the anger of the Hindus who would consider that an act of sacrilege). The parents opted for the surgery, and eight months later, although still facing a future of reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation, Lakshmi is doing well. *

From the standpoint of the secular evolutionist, a birth defect such as Lakshmi’s, and all disease as well, is the brutal process by which nature selects the strongest and fittest for survival. Taking this viewpoint to its logical conclusion, compassion for the weak involving expensive, lifesaving surgery would be a foolish choice. Furthermore, in this interpretation of life, experiences such as breathlessly beholding “gold sunsets o’er a rose and purple sea” (MacDonald), or emotionally soaring with the magnificent chords of the Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” do not make sense. Would our capacity for the enjoyment of beauty somehow provide an advantage for survival? Not likely.

The Bible offers a different understanding of life’s enigmas, explaining that mankind was made in the image of God and placed in a perfect world. With an eternal spirit, we were designed to love and enjoy the same beauty that God Himself loves and enjoys. Even more wonderful, the first man and woman were able to openly commune with God, unhindered and unencumbered by guilt or fear. In a Paradise without pain, suffering or death, love and loveliness reigned.

Although a measure of the original beauty remains, now we find that the world has been sullied and spoiled. In Scripture’s worldview, God cursed the earth because of man’s direct disobedience—weeds, thorns, disease (including mutations and birth defects), pain, suffering and death (both physical and spiritual) resulted. But though God cursed it, because He also loved His creation, He had a plan to one day redeem mankind and restore the universe to perfection through the self-sacrifice of His Own Son—a sacrifice accomplished 2,000 years ago. Each person now has a choice to make—be reconciled to God by repenting and accepting the Savior as one’s own, or refuse Him and perish. (Millions—myself included—testify to the reality of the relationship with God that is made possible when Jesus Christ is received.)

The promised restoration of creation to perfection has yet to happen: “Then I saw a new sky and a new earth, for the former sky and the former earth had passed away…And God will wipe away every tear…and death shall be no more, nor grief, nor pain, for the old conditions have passed away…” (Revelation 21:1,4). This promise holds out great hope for our sad and deeply troubled world.

So the next time you are thrilled by a flash of the exquisite such as a shimmering moonlight path on the sea or an infant’s first smile, pause and wonder why it is you can enjoy it. How we interpret the paradox of the good, the bad and the ugly depends on our worldview—and the Bible explanation is clearly the more coherent choice.

* “8 Limbs and Tough Choices for Indian Family in NGC Special” Posted on: Friday, 20 June 2008, 09:00 CDT By Joe Amarante, New Haven Register, Conn.