We are rebellious. We never stop trying to get around the rules. We want to get to where we want, with what we want with us. This is how we are taught to get ahead.

Everyone wants to be the best at what they do, no matter how humble they may want to appear. They may even want to be the most humble person alive.

It is that need to be top dog that is our undoing. We look at ourselves and see the world revolving around us. To each of us, we are the center of the universe.

You may want to put someone else before you, on occasion. But look at your motives for doing so. Is it because you want to look good to everyone else or are you really placing others ahead of yourself?

If the latter, that is unusual. That is how we are supposed to live but it doesn’t come naturally. It is something that we have to work at.

Jesus put everyone ahead of himself and it wasn’t work. It wasn’t unnatural for him. He truly loved others more than himself.

He loved us so much, he died to pay for the price of each of our sins. Would you be willing to do that for others?

Maybe for some but certainly not for others. Think of the most despicable people you can, and then, ask yourself if you would give your life to save them?

What if they were responsible for killing many people? Think of the despots that killed millions. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Lenin, and Castro are a few names that come quickly to mind. Keep in mind those are just a few of the mass killers of modern times. There were many others throughout history. They killed so many people with just a wave of their hand, a signed order or a simply spoken word.

Would you die to save even one of those people? Jesus died to save them all. All they had to do was accept his forgiveness, his salvation and his promise of eternal life in heaven. Even after all the death and destruction they wrought. He still loved them.

I find it hard, sometimes, to find something lovable about many people. I can’t wrap my head around the evil they embrace. When I see them hurting others, it makes me want to retaliate. I can stand the pain myself, but hurting someone helpless is what I cannot stand, let alone express love for those who are causing the pain.

Jesus wants us to learn to love as he did. He knows it is hard and that we will fail over and over. We can reach out to him and ask him to give us the love that he feels when we cannot find it on our own.

He will answer that prayer. He will fill us with love, he can show us what he saw in that person that was worth giving his life to save.

If you are disgusted, disappointed or hateful towards some one or some group of people, reach out to Jesus and ask him to turn your heart around. At the same time, start praying for that person or people.

Who knows? It may be the first time anyone has brought their name before God in prayer. You may be the individual whose prayer God answers.

Matthew 5: 43-46

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It’s easy to say that you are a Christian when you are around other Christians. Taking a stand for Christ amongst non-believers is a completely different thing.

In the past, it wasn’t all that difficult but, over time, it has become increasingly hard to state Christian beliefs.

At least, that is what many Christians believe. The truth is, it isn’t any more difficult; however, the fallout of stating that you have given your life to Jesus has increased.

Society, in general, either mocks Christians or thinks they are crazy or dangerous. Very few people are ambivalent. They are either for Jesus or against him.

That isn’t surprising. That is what Jesus warned us to expect. He didn’t come to heal relationships but to divide them. He didn’t want us to compromise with non-believers. He wanted us to take a stand no matter what the cost.

He told us that families would be split apart over belief in his saving power. He knew that would happen even before he went to the cross to save us.

God has put it even more plainly. You serve either god or you serve Satan. There is no gray area. There is no in between stand to take.

When you accept Jesus and all that he has for you, it may come at the cost of broken relationships. It may cause other people to walk away and shake their heads in disgust or dismay.

Still, what happens in this lifetime is simply a passing of a second in the time of eternity. Would having an easy life here on earth make up for an eternity in hell?

I don’t think so. I can face whatever this life has and look forward to heaven with my father, God and Jesus, my savior.

For those who compromise, Jesus will look at them on Judgement day and say “I never knew you”. That is because, truly, they will never have actually accepted the truth of what Jesus came to do.

I’ve been looking at a “translation” of the Bible which is not a translation at all. It is one man’s compromise of the Word of God to make money and gain acceptance.

The Passion Translation is not a translation. These set of books (masquerading as the Bible) are what this man has written. He says that Jesus took him to heaven and “downloaded” the translation into his brain. He also says that Jesus gave him the ability to translate originals texts in languages he doesn’t even know.

Even more disturbing, he says that Jesus will take him to heaven again someday soon and give him a new chapter to John. He is the one individual involved in this and he is reaping money hand over fist. He is an apostate and he is swaying people to things that are not true.

No matter how poetic and moving this TPT is, flee from it, Christians. It is not from God, therefore it is from Satan.

Take your stand on the Word of God. Other translations have many Biblical scholars and thousands of man-hours invested in them. They are peer written and peer reviewed. They can’t sneak their false doctrine into something that so many others are involved in.

If you know someone who thinks this is a good translation, set them straight. Let them know that it is a compromise and that it isn’t Christian. Let them know where you stand.

Stand for Christ and his true words, even if they are divisive to some. Just because non-believers are offended, it doesn’t make truth less true. Better you should lose some relationships, keep your spirit safe and, perhaps, point others away from a path that will lead them to hell.

Mark 8:34-38

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Accepting that you are a sinner is not that easy. You must look hard at yourself and stop comparing your failings to that of others.

Sin isn’t a matter of who is worse and who is better. Sin is failing to live up to the goodness and perfect standing of God.

We are all of us sinners. Not one is better than the other. Our sins may be different but our sin nature is not. In God’s eyes, all sin is abhorrent. All sin keeps mankind from communicating and having a relationship with our Father.

We were doomed to live eternally separated from God. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, it was our own choice. We had no way out, no do-over, no doing of good deeds to earn our forgiveness.

God wanted a way for us to be reunited with him. The sin of the world had to be paid and not one man, woman or child had the ability to do so. They could not do it for themselves, let alone for everyone.

God himself, in the person of his only son Jesus, had to come to the earth and be born just like everyone else.

Jesus came in humble fashion, born to low income and young parents. He was born in a manger because there was no room for him elsewhere.

That epitomizes the how the world first received him. There was no room for a savior in the life of man. No one wanted to be reminded that they had failed and could not fix it.

At that time, just like now, there were those who thought the way they lived was sufficient to make restitution with God.

That is a false theology. Mankind can never fix the damage they have done to themselves and to the entire creation. The universe is falling apart because of us and Jesus was the only individual born on this planet who could fix it.

Jesus is fully man and fully God. That concept is something that humans cannot understand. That is okay because we are only human and cannot fathom the existence and magnitude of God.

Jesus preached love and understanding. He showed people that their lives were entrenched in sin. At the same time, he told them how they could be saved from what they had done.

He then took the necessary step to pay for our sins. He was sinless and yet he accepted the punishment for all of the sins of man, past, present and future. He hung on a cross in disgrace. It was the most painful and humiliating of deaths.

He gave up his life and went to the grave. Then, as he was God, three days later he resurrected himself.

He had conquered sin by living sinlessly and accepting the price as death. By coming to life again, he conquered death. He had fixed the breach between God and man. He removed the curse of death from mankind forever.

He offered this forgiveness and restitution at no cost to everyone. He still does. It is free and you can be free of the consequences of sin by accepting Jesus, his forgiveness and his salvation.

Romans 8:1-4

Therefore there is now no condemnation [no guilty verdict, no punishment] for those who are in Christ Jesus [who believe in Him as personal Lord and Savior].

For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

For what the Law could not do [that is, overcome sin and remove its penalty, its power] being weakened by the flesh [man’s nature without the Holy Spirit], God did: He sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful man as an offering for sin.

And He condemned sin in the flesh [subdued it and overcame it in the person of His own Son], so that the [righteous and just] requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not live our lives in the ways of the flesh [guided by worldliness and our sinful nature], but [live our lives] in the ways of the Spirit [guided by His power]

More and more, I’ve noticed a tendency of Christians to try to blend into the world’s society. They are looking for ways to appeal to other people. They think that by changing their message or how it is presented will accomplish this.

It may bring more individuals to your church but, in the meantime, you will have strayed from the message that God has given to Christians to spread to the rest of the world. Your church may become more successful and you may be more popular, but at what cost?

This is something that more and more churches are doing as well. I’ve noticed it in my own church, which purports to preach a conservative theology while maintaining liberal love. To be honest, I don’t even understand that statement, but it is what the senior pastor has stated.

However, he is moving ever so slowly into a gray zone where what he is preaching is wrapped around what society calls social justice. As a pastor, he should know that the only true justice is from God.

We are to love one another and be kind to each other. What we are never supposed to do is to alter the words of God. We are never to interpret them to mean something more popular or to mean less than it actually says.

God’s world is eternal and it is the only real truth. He is the one to judge us. He has given us rules for society to live by and has given us the ability to mete earthly justice according to those rules. Adding more is to try to make his words less.

Who are we to do this to God?

He is watching and he knows what we do. He knows what we are thinking. He knows what is right and what is merely done for show.

None of us is immune to his judgement and each of us should be ready to face him. We are all filthy in his sight and we are guilty.

Christians who alter his words are treading a fine line. They say that they know Jesus and that they are following him. If they stray from the words and meanings of the Bible, it shows that they never really knew him at all.

The sad thing for those individuals is that they think something that is not true. They will face his judgement and he will tell them, “I never knew you.”

That doesn’t sound horrible, but it is the worst thing a so-called Christian can face. It means that you never truly accepted his gift of salvation and that you never followed in his footsteps.

Just calling yourself a Christian is not enough. Thinking that you grew up in a Christian home or a Christian society, is not enough.

You have to know Jesus, you have to have accepted him, you have to ask him into your heart and you need to learn to follow the example he has provided.

Turning away and, even worse, leading others astray is something that God condemns. It won’t matter on Judgement Day, if you try to say you knew Jesus. Even Satan and all his demons know Jesus as well.

If you believe that you are a Christian or that your church teaches correct theology, measure against the Bible and not against what society says is true. You can only serve one master, God or Satan. If you are not serving God, then you are following Satan and doing his bidding.

Think about that for a minute. No matter what good you think you are doing, it will only be used to serve your master. Goodness isn’t in the sight of the world, it is in the sight of God.

All your efforts will ultimately be futile. Look first at yourself and get right with God. Then you can look outwardly to help others.

If you are walking towards destruction, those that follow you will also be destroyed. If you are walking towards heaven, you can tells others about it and set them on path to meet God. He is the only one who can provide salvation through his son, Jesus.

That is the truth and justice we should tell others about.

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’

Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

I don’t deserve God’s favor. There is nothing that I have done in my life that rates so high that God would look at me and say, you deserve to live with me forever.

Even though I am a sinner, God still loved me. In all my mess of life, in all the horrible things that I have done and thought about doing, God still loved me.

He loved me enough to sacrifice his son for me. The only way I could come before God, in all of his glory, was to be cleaned. I couldn’t do it by myself.

Living a “good life” and being kind to others isn’t enough. We all know what goes through our minds. We all know how often we give in to temptation. It doesn’t matter if the temptation is small or large, we still know when we have done something that isn’t acceptable.

Society has come up with a new way of defining acceptable. Apparently, whatever you think is good, is good for you. It doesn’t seem to matter if that “good” is harmful to others, you have to think and fend for yourself.

This is a way of covering up sin. That is all that it is. It is making excuses and allowing people to think that they are not doing something that is evil to God.

Of course, those individuals either deny that God exists or allow each person to define God as they wish to do so. That way, no one is accountable to a set of pre-ordained rules, they are the ruler makers themselves.

If they want to do something that is against their own rules, well, they can just redefine their rules and go on their way. If you don’t see a problem with this, then look again.

This is the slope of sin. It can start out small and then snowball into horrific and evil deeds. That is why we are seeing so many awful things on the news. So many people are hurting and killing one another without remorse.

They used to call these people sociopaths but now it is more widespread. Evil is out in the open and is acceptable to most. After all, what you call evil, I can call good.

The sad thing is that the one true set of rules is reviled. God gave us ten commandments. There is nothing about these rules that people should object to. They are rules that make sense and provide safety and love for one another.

Of course, we none of us can keep those rules. We are sinners. Give us a set of rules and we will look for ways to break them and then, to justify what we did.

That is why we are in the position with God that we are in. He can’t have a relationship with us because he is good and we are evil. He is clean and righteous. We are filthy and loathsome.

He had to give us a way to be cleaned. He sent his only son to live among us. Jesus lived with the same temptations and withstood them. Then, although he was the only individual to live without sin, he willingly gave up his life so that his sinless blood could cover our sins and wash away our filth.

He then rose from the grave to defeat sin and death. He gave us a promise. If we believed in him and gave our lives to him and lived to his purpose, our sins would be covered and forgiven. If we did this, we would live in heaven with God forever.

The only thing I had to do was to accept him. Then, to turn from my sins and live life as he had shown us. While I don’t have to do good works to earn salvation, I have found that I have a desire to do good and not evil. I fail often, but Jesus picks me back up and puts me back on his path and forgives me.

This is the God that I serve. He doesn’t require sacrifices, he gave the greatest sacrifice imaginable. He wants us to love one another and live in harmony.

This is the beauty and the promise of heaven. Those who accept Jesus will eventually live in the most wonderful place. If you want to live there, too, the same promise is there for you. Just turn to Jesus, accept him as your God and savior and, with his help, turn your life around and live for him.

Romans 5:12

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.

There seems to be many people who are announcing that they are ashamed of how they were made. Whether it be the color of their skin or who their ancestors were, it doesn’t make a difference. By the same token, there are those who take pride in their lineage, as if they were personally responsible for it.

Shame and pride are two sides of the same coin. It focuses attention on the individual and not on God.

You see, God made us perfect in his sight and that is the only vision that is really important. Whether you are one color or another, regardless of where you were born and who your forefathers were, God made you just as you are.

There is no shame and there is no pride in this for an individual. It is what it is. It is the work of the hand of God and it is good.

I will not be ashamed of my background but I will not take pride in it, either. There was a point in my life when I let things of the world dictate who I was. I carved my niche in life based on what society thought of me.

Honestly, it didn’t think much of me. My parents were born in poverty and I and my family didn’t have money or live in the best parts of town. I was ashamed that I had so few clothes (one pair of pants, two shirts and a pair of sandals) to my name.

I was ashamed of so much of my life but at the same time, I took way too much pride in my intellect. I could run rings around most people and did so for the fun of it. Looking back, if there was shame to be had, it was based on my pride.

However, when life fell apart for me, it was not my background and intellect that brought me down. It was my spiritual debasement that led me into all kinds of problems and sorrows.

When I had come to the end of my line and, rather than falling into pieces completely, I reached out to the hand that was being held out to me. There was someone who told me that he would save me and all I had to do was grab his hand and accept his help.

His name is Jesus and he brought me up from the depths of despair. He looked at me in all of my sin and still thought I was beautiful. He gave me a way to have my sin washed away, so that my shame could leave me and I could stand before God, pure and whole, clean for the first time in my life.

The shame that I should have felt, prior to meeting Jesus, was about the inside me and not the outside. It was how I chose to spend my life and where I let my thoughts lead me that were the problem.

Anyone who is focusing on their outside or that of someone else, is avoiding their true failings. They will point here and there to keep from seeing the truth. The truth is that they are completely responsible for their own sin. No one else has made them a sinner. If someone forces sin upon you, it isn’t your sin, it is theirs. Even so, we all sin and we all know it.

To talk about shame or pride is not what God wants from us. He wants us to love each other as we are. He wants a relationship with us. There is only one way to get to that point and that is through the salvation that Jesus offers. He is the only truth and the only way to reconciliation with God.

Before pointing out shame of others, look at your own spiritual situation. If you are not saved by Jesus, then you are spiritually dead to God. Once you are saved and living the life that Jesus showed to us, you will look at others differently.

You will not shame people, you will love them. You can love them because Jesus loved you in the midst of your sin and he loves everyone equally.

Psalm 139:13-16

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just ask God to heal us each and every time we were sick? Even better, wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was no illness, no sorrow, no death?

Sadly, that isn’t the case right now. We have all sorts of grief and calamities to beset us throughout life.

Some people blame God when things aren’t going exactly as they wish. They never look to see that the root of the problem is in themselves and throughout mankind.

God made us perfect. He gave us a beautiful garden to live in. He gave us dominion over the entire planet. We were to be caretakers. We were to multiply and live in peace with ourselves and with all of God’s creation. He gave us just one rule. Don’t eat of the fruit of one tree. The rest of creation was available to us, but not that one tree.

Of course, it didn’t take long before mankind broke that rule. Since then, mankind has broken every single rule God has ever told us to follow.

There’s something about the human heart that wants what it does not have. It seems that we covet what is there for the taking even if we hurt everyone and everything to get it.

We see this happening every single day. People are banding together to hurt one another and to either take or destroy the things that belong to others.

They are deciding who is worthy to live, based on their own criteria. You may be deemed unworthy based on your political beliefs, your skin color, your economic status, or even your religious beliefs. It can even be as simple as being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It feels as if the creation is going crazy. They make excuses but, at the heart of it, it is evil. Hurting others and destroying are not things that God wants from his children. He wants us to love one another.

Satan is at the root of death and destruction. Those who are involved in what is going on are doing so at the behest of their heart’s master. Either God is your Lord or you have accepted Satan to serve. It is either one or the other.

It has gotten so bad and has such an effect on me, I have had to stop watching or reading the news. It has become a physical illness and I need to step back and know that God is in control.

Spending my time watching the evil unfold will not change anything. A better use of my time is to spend that time in prayer, asking God to save mankind from the evil that is all around us and within us.

I know, however, there is coming a day when mankind does attempt to destroy one another. If God doesn’t step in to stop it, we would do so.

I am beginning to wonder if this is the beginning of that time in mankind’s history.

While it is sad to see, I know that at the end of it, heaven awaits for those who follow Jesus and have accepted his sacrificial gift of forgiveness.

When that time arrives, the heavens and earth will be remade and, once again, it will be perfect. There will be no more sickness, no more death, no more pain, and no more sorrow.

Living through the terrible days that lead up to that time is a small price to pay. Having to make sacrifices and even give one’s life is something to glory in rather than to cry about. God sees us, he knows what we are going through. For those who have accepted Jesus, God is now their father.

He wants only good for us and, when we suffer for the sake of his name, the rewards we receive in heaven will be overwhelming. It is for us to look to the future, knowing the present is just a moment in time. The future is eternity and eternity will be beautiful.

I’m looking forward to that time and hope that more and more people will accept Jesus and join me in heaven for eternity.

Revelation 21: 1-4

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Talking to people or sharing information about your life is not always easy. In fact, for me, it has always been very difficult. I like to hear what others are doing but telling my own story isn’t something I want to do.

I’ve had a number of problems in my life and I would rather put them behind me and never think about them again. I don’t know if that is a healthy way to live but it is what I do. I put the past behind me and try to live in the present and plan for the future.

When God first told me to write about my life, I did not do so. I asked someone else to write about Christianity and linked his website to our needlework store.

I knew I was supposed to write but could never settle on what type of writing I was to do. It wasn’t until I became ill and asked God, once again, what I should write. It became clear to me during a sermon series at our church. I was to do what was difficult for me. I was to do something I really did not want to do.

I was to write about my failures, problems and heartbreaks of the past. By writing about them and sharing how God has helped me along the way, my writing could be of help to those going through similar things.

It was hard to begin and every single time I sit down to write, it is still hard. I am still compelled to do so. I know that it is what God wants me to do and so, I do it.

Sharing about Jesus is also difficult. We are always concerned that the person we are talking to may not be interested or may even be offended.

That is probably true much of the time but there will be those few instances where the person you are talking to needs to and/or wants to hear good news.

You can’t know what others are going through because you are not those people. All you can do is talk to others about yourself and about God and let God take control of the conversation and their situation.

You cannot force others to listen. You can’t force them to understand. All you can do, if you are led by God to do so, is to plant a small seed in their lives.

It is the great commission that Jesus left for us and all Christians, yes all and not just some, are asked to spread the good news of salvation to the entire world. That doesn’t just mean me. It also means you, too.

Mark 16:15

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

Picking up the pieces of life, after my son passed away, was the most difficult thing I have ever done. If it had only been me, I would have sat and cried the days and nights away.

However, it was not just me. My daughters and my husband still needed me to be strong. I can’t say that I was always successful but I did try to be there when they needed me.

Still, there was a big part of me that was stuck in grief. To be honest, there is still a part of me that exists in the moment my son passed away. It still hurts so much and will until I reach heaven when I know that I will see him once again.

While I did what I could, my outlook on life had changed. I had always been a person who looked forward and wanted challenges to overcome. Instead, I became a person who was waiting.

I was waiting to die. I didn’t actively want to die, I just had problems finding a real reason to continue to live. I loved my family, my husband, daughters, sisters, brother, mother and all the rest. I just had lost the will to live.

I ended up quitting my job because of the travel they insisted upon. I did not want to leave my daughters; I wanted to be a much more present mother than I had been the last several years.

If I had asked them, they probably would have preferred for me to not be quite so present but I wasn’t about to give them a choice. Good thing I didn’t ask them.

My husband helped me so much. I knew he could see that I had changed. I don’t know if he knew that I was as lost in grief as I was. I was very good at hiding my tears and cried only when I was alone or when I was in the shower. My true solace during those years was my faith that God was still working his plan in my life.

That went on for years. I did ask a doctor about what was going on. He told me that grief was natural and that he didn’t want to give me medications as it would prolong the period and cause many other issues.

I told him I would not have taken medication, in any case. I had already lost a brother and a nephew to addiction to drugs. I was not going to go down that road as well.

The years continued to roll on. I enjoyed my life, especially once we moved away from California. In moving, we left behind all the places that caused me so much pain. I thought often about my son and what he would be like if he had lived.

Still, I was living and just waiting to die. I looked to the past more than I did to the future.

It wasn’t until my grandson was born that my outlook on life began to change. I was going to have surgery and just wanted to see the sweet boy before I died if that was what God had for me. That was the first inkling of wanting to live that I had had for over fourteen years.

When my grandson was born, I told God I could happily die during the surgery but if he would spare me, I would be happy to live as well. I didn’t die.

Instead, a week after my surgery, at six weeks old, my grandson was diagnosed with an extremely dangerous heart condition which would have very quickly become fatal if he didn’t have life-saving surgery.

He was going to need extra care during his months of recovery. I volunteered to watch him while his parents worked.

Just like that, I needed to live. I wanted to live. I had a real purpose in life. This child needed me and I needed him even more.

I had the privilege to watch over him and to work with him to help him gain some of his physical goals. Those goals had been delayed because of the surgery and the recovery period.

I can’t explain how much this time meant to me. It wasn’t that I helped him. It was that he helped me. I wanted so much for him to recover and be strong.

He was such a brave little boy. Some of the things he went through were so painful. He seemed to have problems smiling for a while but as he grew stronger, he smiled more often.

A few years later, his sister was born and my reasons to live multiplied overnight. By that time, though, I was only watching them one day a week and it was more for fun than anything else.

I wanted to live but I was, once again, searching for a purpose in life. I was struggling, running this way and that, trying to find something to do that had meaning.

When I became ill and was told that I was going to die, I was ready to pass. However, I was a little sad that my two little ones would not remember their Nana. Still, if it was time to go, I had had a full and wonderful life. Once again, I didn’t die.

I’m thankful every day for my life. I look forward to each day as it arrives. If it is my last day, then I have nothing but praise for the God who has given me that day.

What he did was to give me more time and he gave me a true purpose, one that will last for the rest of my life. He wants me to share the word of the gift that Jesus gave to each of us. What could be a better purpose in life than to share the love of Jesus?

I didn’t deserve God’s favor. I treated the gift of life he had given me with little respect. Waiting to die is not what he wanted for me. It’s not what he wants for any of us.

He wants us to live, in his grace, and to live life abundantly. That doesn’t mean to have a life filled with things but, instead, it means to have a life full of hope and meaning. It means to live your life for God and to do the things that he has especially given to you to do.

Revelation 21:4

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

I recently read a book that took me back to the the time when my son fought valiantly against a terrible disease. He was seventeen when he was diagnosed with an acute and aggressive version of leukemia. His odds, at best, of recovering from it were only one in ten.

He went into remission following a terrible and debilitating form of chemotherapy. He spent six months doing everything he wanted to do. He started classes at our local community college. He went on a few dates. He was 18.

At the end of six months, the disease was back and the only treatment available was a bone marrow transplant. None of the family matched his DNA.

He was blessed that a donor was found and he was given the transplant. It took. His new marrow was that of the donor.

Sadly, just as we left the hospital after four months, his doctors gave him oral magnesium and potassium without checking to see how he tolerated them.

He did not tolerate them and the ensuing reaction caused him to go into graft versus host disease. That is when the transplanted marrow and the body of the transplant patient go into battle. In his case, it lowered his resistance to both bacteria and fungus.

He ended up contracted a fungal infection in his brain. It took two weeks to receive the diagnosis during which time he went downhill and started having seizures.

Then he died. He had not made it to age 19.

I stayed with him throughout and bullied him to do what he needed to do to get better. I fought for him. I also laughed and spent time with him and prayed constantly for him. I tried to force the disease out of his body by the strength of my will

It doesn’t work that way but, believe me, that is how a parent reacts when their child is desperately ill.

To have to talk to your child about the type of funeral he would like and which of his sisters would get his belongings was something I can never wish on my worst enemy. We did it in a joking manner just before his transplant.

We also talked about how far he wanted to go with his fight. He spoke the words that allowed me to know when to stop fighting and to let him go.

I probably would have still had problem doing so but just before he was diagnosed with the brain infection, I asked him if there was anything that he wanted. I meant that moment. But his answer was more than that.

He said, I just want for this all to be over.

It broke my heart to hear those words. Through my tears, I responded, Then that is what I want as well.

It really wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to fight but he was telling me that it was time. He had fought so hard and for so long and he was tired of fighting.

Those were the last words he ever spoke to me. He immediately went into a semi-comatose condition where he could not see or speak but could hear and feel pain.

I had to explain to my daughters, my husband and David’s father what his wishes were. David’s dad wanted to continue fighting but the doctors told us that it would only delay the inevitable.

I didn’t want to prolong his pain. He had given me the power of attorney and I made the decision to keep him hydrated and on pain medications but to withdraw all other forms of treatment.

It took three days for him to pass away. We had been warned that it would take weeks and he would progressively grow weaker and colder.

I was so thankful that God didn’t prolong his suffering. He lasted long enough for his sisters, friends and family to say good-bye. I suddenly realized he was waiting for his grandmother but that she was ill and could not travel to his bedside.

After I told him what was going on, I believe he stopped trying to wait. He passed away hours later without ever having the progressive symptoms the doctors warned us about.

Throughout his illness, I prayed for God to heal him. About three months into his transplant, I could no longer pray for healing. I would try and my prayer would change to asking God to use David for his glory.

I was so angry with myself because I could not pray as I wanted to. Then I thought that God had changed my prayer because David was well and needed a different prayer. With that thought in mind, I relaxed and allowed God to direct my prayers his way.

After David died, I realized that God had answered my prayers for healing up to the point when my prayers had to change. He answered those final prayers as well. David’s death was something that I ended up writing about and people came to Christ because of what had worked in his life and in his death.

At one point during David’s illness, when the chemotherapy had laid him very low, I asked him if he ever asked God why he had allowed him to get leukemia?

David said No. He told me that God was using his life as He needed to do and that David had dedicated his life to God and had asked him to use him. He accepted that this was what God had planned for his life.

That experience taught me so much about God. It taught me what true dedication really looked like. It taught me that God answers prayers even if the answers don’t look like what we want them to be.

1 John 5:14-15

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.