Why Will You Die?

We are on the verge of 2021, and I hear so many people holding out high hopes for the coming year.  Everyone seems glad to be rid of 2020, as though there is something magical about the turn of the calendar page.  That is, of course, pretty shallow thinking.  The division of our days into years is arbitrary.  There is nothing innately special about the change from December 31 to January 1.  It’s just another rotation on our axis, another revolution around the sun which is a continuous circle beginning and ending at any point.

People are so hopeful that with the new year and the possibility of getting a vaccine against covid, the pandemic will be over.  This makes the assumption that this pandemic will not be followed by another.  Or that the virus will not mutate in a way that makes the vaccine ineffective.  I’m watching people on television standing in line for the vaccine so excited that now life will get back to “normal,” and they will no longer have to isolate from family and friends.  I hope this optimism is warranted, both for their sakes and my own. 

And then there is the hope of the stimulus money…if only congress will pass that bill that gives everyone $2000 instead of $600.  Where do you suppose this money is coming from?  If the government needs money, it just prints it.  Here comes inflation which produces even more hardship.

Those who are left-leaning politically are so sure that the Biden administration is going to solve the problems of our society.  If we can just get rid of Trump, all will be well.  The right-leaning element is, of course, sure that disaster looms.  We will lose our freedoms.

None…well, maybe a few…of our problems are Trump’s fault, but Biden is not our savior.  There is only one Savior.  It doesn’t matter who sits in the oval office, God is on the throne of the universe.  I do not pretend to know the mind of God or be able to predict the future, but I can’t imagine how much longer He will tolerate the flaunting of His guidelines.

In spite of the crises we have faced, I do not see people in droves realizing the need to repent of their wicked ways and give God His rightful place in their hearts and in our society.  The threat of annihilation has been wasted on us.  That being the case, perhaps actual annihilation is coming. 

Here I am dressed (figuratively) in sackcloth holding a sign “Repent for the end is near.”  Perhaps this is influenced by my recent Bible reading in Ezekiel.  Last night I read, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.  Turn! Turn from your evil ways!  Why will you die…?”

I want the New Year to be a happy one.

I want us to be able to see one another’s faces without masks.

I want to travel to see my grandchildren.

I want hospitals to return to “busy” and leave “frantic” behind.

We all want “normal,” but what does that mean?

Are these things possible in a society that accepts immorality…promotes immorality…praises immorality…a society in which immorality has become the “norm?”

Wednesday, December 23, 1998.

December 23^rd fell on a Wednesday in 1998.  I remember the day vividly, because it was the day my mother left us and went to be with Jesus.

My sweet and beautiful mother had a series of health issues that year.  She and my Dad had lived with us for a few days during the ice storm at the beginning of the year, as they were without electricity and heat.  During that time, she passed out repeatedly due to irregular heartbeat.  As soon as the hospital was off generator power and again functioning normally, she had a pacemaker inserted.  But her troubles continued.  In June she had a heart attack and in July she had a stroke…a massive stroke.  Rather than put her in a nursing home, we cleared out our dining room and put in a hospital bed for her and a twin bed for my Dad.  And there she was as Christmas approached, unable to do anything for herself, and with a leg that was becoming increasingly black with gangrene due to terrible circulation.

Hospice came in daily for an hour to help with her care.  A few days before Christmas, they gave us an aide for an entire day so I could finish my Christmas shopping.  At the time, my first three grandchildren were very young, and I was trying to figure out how I could celebrate Christmas with them when my Mother was dying in the adjacent room.

The morning of December 23^rd was a gray and gloomy day.  There was no snow on the ground, and it was looking like it would not be a white Christmas.  Inside, things were as cheery as possible.  The tree in the living room was positioned so that my Mom could see it from her bed in the dining room.  The gifts were wrapped and under the tree.  The dining room table was in a small sitting room between the living room and kitchen, so I would be able to serve a family meal.  I had made a special gift for my Mom.  Since she always wore hospital gowns, I had made two of them out of lovely soft fabric and trimmed them with lace.  I had previously made a small green fleece blanket with reindeer on it to cover her.

The Hospice aide arrived and began to bathe Mom.  As a nurse, this is a job I could have and sometimes did, but having someone else do it, freed me up for other necessary things.  I was at the time home-schooling our son, who had just had his 12^th birthday, so I had a lot on my plate.  I was in the room and helping the Hospice aide turn Mom on her side, so her back could be washed and massaged.  I saw the color drain from Mom’s face, and I knew she was going.  My Dad was sitting at a card table working on his Christmas cards, so I called to him, “Dad, she’s going.”  He, trying to be strong, responded gruffly that she was already gone.

It was late morning.  I called my husband and suggested that he take our son to Rotary with him at noon.  I didn’t want our son to see his beloved grandmother removed from our home in a body bag.  I called other family members who needed to know.  A Hospice nurse arrived to actually pronounce her deceased and help in the disposal of medications and other necessary matters.

The undertaker came.  Instead of the stiff black plastic body bag I expected, he had a soft blue corduroy bag.  Blue was my Mom’s favorite color and seeing her wrapped in something that looked lovely was comforting to me.  As they carried her body down the steps, I realized it had started to snow…big, soft, beautiful flakes of snow were drifting down.  It was going to be a white Christmas after all.

We had a typical Christmas with family, and the memorial service for my Mom was held on the weekend.  The timing turned out perfectly.  My Dad handled the loss well through the holidays.  The weight of the loss didn’t settle in until later.  I was unable to grieve at first.  Initially, all I could feel was relief that my Mom was no longer suffering.  It was months later that I could grieve the loss of the person she had been before that last year of pain and difficulty.

Many times in the past 22 years, I have found myself thinking “Oh, I should tell Mom about that!”  or “I wonder what Mom would say about this situation.”  She was beautiful, kind, intelligent, sometimes funny, always wise, and not afraid to do what was right even when it wasn’t convenient.  In a quiet and gentle way, she was a force to be reckoned with.  I look forward to seeing her again in heaven someday.  We will have lots to talk about!

Incineration

Made from the dust

And to ashes returned,

All transpiring in between

Destined to be burned.

 

The glory of His presence

An all-consuming fire,

He burns away the dross

On a refining pyre.

 

All that is material

Drifting as a cloud

Leaves behind a pile of ash

Underneath death’s shroud.

 

And what becomes of all we’ve done,

Of wood, hay, and stubble?

Will there be anything to show,

For all our earthly trouble?

 

How can I stand before Him?

How could I be so bold?

Unless the blood and the fire

Refine me there to gold.

Christmas Cookies

I love to bake, and I especially like to bake Christmas cookies!

When we moved to the retirement community, I must have told myself I wouldn’t be doing as much baking, because I don’t seem to have my cookie press or the cake pan that can be used to make that adorable manger scene.  If I did bring them with me, I have no idea as to their whereabouts.  But that’s okay, because there aren’t any children around to enjoy the edible manger scene, and there are still so many cookies I can make.

There are some deterrents.  I have essential tremor and sometimes a cup or spoonful of an ingredient ends up on the countertop instead of in the mixing bowl.  I have back pain if I stand up working for more than about 45 minutes, so I have to take breaks and sit down.   But on the other side of the argument is this irresistible urge to bake cookies….lots of cookies.

I should not be eating these cookies.  All that sugar isn’t good for me, and now there is that darn A1C test, which measures the average glucose level over the past 3 months.  I’m due for that in February, so the 3 month period does include Christmas cookie season.  It is my intent to give most of these cookies away…but…many of the old folks here that I plan to give them to probably shouldn’t eat too many either.  My husband just succumbed to his fourth warm-out-of-the-oven cookie from the current batch.  He used to run so regularly that it didn’t matter, but he is slowing down, and his waist is expanding.

At this point, I have baked sugar cookie cutouts, date bars, snickerdoodles and white chocolate-cranberry cookies.  I am planning on peanut blossoms, cherry blossoms, Christmas jewels and brownies with mint M&Ms mixed in the batter.  Eight different kinds should satisfy me, but my head is spinning with cookies from Christmases past.  What about rosettes, spritz, gingerbread, thumbprints, coconut orange tartlets, bon bons, fudge melt-aways, Russian teacakes, lemon bars, molasses crinkles???  What about all the kinds I haven’t tried for which I have recipes clipped out of magazines or printed from the internet?

I guess I could blame this on having a degree in chemistry, because there are similarities between chemistry and baking, but it’s more likely that this is all my Mother’s fault.  I have been conditioned since childhood!

I loved my Mother's cookies and so did many other people, including Santa.

Am I Grieved?

 Chapter 9 of Ezekiel tells an interesting tale.  God can no longer put up with the awful things happening in the vicinity of his temple.  He orders a man with a writing kit to go through the city and place a mark on all of those who are grieving over the terrible things being done.  He then orders a group of men carrying weapons to follow the first man and kill without any pity or compassion all we do not have the identifying mark.  “’Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark.  Begin at my sanctuary.’  So they began with the old men who were in front of the temple.”

I realize this is Old Testament, and so there is perhaps valid reason to interpret this metaphorically.  But I’m not so sure this isn’t prophetic and looming in our future as a nation.  Horrible, wicked things are happening not only in the world, but in our own nation.  God’s commands are being openly defied.  Even “the old men in front of the temple” have abandoned the principles God has laid out.   Homosexuality among clergy is tolerated and even applauded.  Abortion up to birth is shrugged off.  Tolerance of anything and everything is preached from the pulpit.  If biblical directives are brought up, we are told that isn’t “loving,” and we are narrow-minded bigots.

Forgotten is the fact that God is a God of both love and justice.  Is He going to send his angels of death among us?

Interestingly in this story, his judgment falls not only on those who are doing the wickedness, but also on those who aren’t grieved by it.  Apathy is not to be tolerated.  How many of us are not sufficiently grieved by the evil being perpetrated all around us?  It is easy to become inured.  If we listen to the news, we hear daily of children being abused, of powerful men crushing those under them, of religious leaders with their hands in the till, of all types of sexual perversion, of cheating and dishonesty ignored.

If we focus on all of this, we could grieve constantly in a way that made us depressed and non-functional.  I don’t believe that is God’s intent.  If we turn into raving lunatics, no one will pay attention to what we say.  But, I do think as we hear of evil things, we can grieve along with God in prayer.  We can ask Him for wisdom.  We can speak up fearlessly.  We can plead with Him to “make the crooked straight.”

Please understand, I do NOT advocate shooting abortion doctors, or stoning homosexuals, or in any way becoming God’s avenging angels.  That is His and only His prerogative.  But, certainly God is grieved.  He is weeping for what we have made of His creation, and we can weep with Him.

Why is Truth so Illusive?

I woke up this morning thinking about truth and wondering why it is so hard to know it.

I believe the problem began in the Garden of Eden.  The serpent convinced Eve that God had not told her and Adam the truth.  How could he have accomplished that?  Didn’t Adam and Eve know God as their creator?  Didn’t He walk with them in the Garden?  Why would they believe the snake!?  Perhaps, because as human beings we are inclined to believe that what we want to be true is true.

Today we are in a terrible struggle for truth.  Those who desperately wanted Trump to win the election believe that he did win.  They genuinely believe there was fraud in the election, and that if they try hard enough to prove it, truth will win out.  But, those who could not stand the thought of another four years of Trump and, therefore, supported Biden believe that Trump and his supporters are crazy conspiracy theorists, and that the election was properly run and totally valid.  Meanwhile, we have the media telling us what to believe.  We end up buying into what fits our own world view and personal agenda.

But, how on earth, does one discover TRUTH?

I can think of three instances in my life, when someone has told me “truth” in a very private conversation, and then said if I ever quoted them, they would say I was crazy…that they never had said any such thing.  None of these situations were earth shattering, but they did confirm my belief that truth is hard to come by.  All three individuals were professionals in influential positions who had personal reasons for hiding truth.

I find it interesting that Pilate had in front of him ultimate TRUTH, and yet asked the question, “What is truth?”  Christ, because He was, in fact, God in the flesh defined Truth, but Pilate could not see that.  What if he had?  What if he had stopped the whole madness that led to the crucifixion?  Sometimes God allows people to be blind to truth in order to bring about His purposes.  Pilate needed to be blind, because Christ’s death was the means of the salvation of mankind.

I am not predicting outcome, but it is possible that God is allowing blindness on the part of some involved in today’s madness to bring about His purposes in human history.  Actually, I think it is more than possible; I think it is the truth.  So, I am not going to tie myself in knots over which side of the current argument is correct.  I’m just resting in the truth that God is in control. 

There is no other security than His sovereignty.

Come, Lord Jesus

 Earthquakes rumble, seas roar,

Tornadoes swirl and hurricanes rage,

Fires sweep across the forests,

As all Creation groans in pain.

 

Man in his ignorance and apathy

Ignores the fact that he himself

Lives and breathes and has consciousness.

That he is responsible to his Creator.

 

But at His coming, the angels sing

The trees clap their hands.

The stones though inanimate,

Will find their voice and cry out.

 

The crooked will be made straight,

The wrongs will be righted,

Tears will be dried and suffering cease.

There will be peace on earth.

 

Come, Lord Jesus.