Fear Not Tomorrow

Most of us fear the unknown. Tomorrow is the unknown and we do not know what is in store. The fear of not knowing causes us to worry. We worry about not only tomorrow, but next week, next month and next year. But why do we worry so about the time ahead? I was browsing some books today and I saw the title of one that made me stop and think, it said, Fear Not Tomorrow God is Already There.

The title of the book was such a relief. Why do I fear tomorrow or the next day when God is already there? Is that not the greatest comfort of all? We forget that God is not bound by time as we are. He is not under the laws of time. God is already there tomorrow, next week, next month, next year and so on.

I want to not fear what the future of each new day holds. I want to give that worry to God. I know He can handle it! And now I realize that I cannot fear tomorrow because God is already there.

This concept reminds of a prayer that was sent to my family after Addison's death. It is a prayer I hold onto dearly because it sums up worrying about tomorrow in perfect words.

"Be at Peace"

Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life. Rather, look to them with full hope that as they arise, God, whose very own you are, will lead you safely through all things. And when you cannot stand it, God will carry you in His arms. Do not fear what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you today and every day. He will either shield you from suffering or will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.

- St. Francis de Sales

The Simple Things

The way my family first heard of the YFEC or the boys home that we founded Give Soles to serve, was at Christmas time when I was in high school. My dad went out there with a group of men from our church to bring Christmas presents. Before they ate and opened gifts, one of the men asked this little boy called "Whitey" to say a prayer. Dad will admit he thought this little boy was about to really brag on the church group bringing them gifts or for what his gift might be that he was about to open when he began to pray. Instead Whitey prayed this prayer, "Lord thank you for the roof over my head, thank you for a bed to sleep in so I don't have to sleep on the ground and for food to eat so I don't have to go hungry anymore. Amen."

My Dad was stunned and moved by this prayer. He tells this story often. Whitey said this simple prayer of thanks while having no family to care for him and while living in a boys home. As my dad likes to say about him, "He was as thankful as a prince in a castle." And it still moves me when my dad tells me the story that a little boy in Whitey's unfortunate circumstance could be so thankful.

How many prayers do we say before we remember to thank God for all the simple things in our lives? A roof over our heads, water at the turn of a knob, a bed to sleep in, and our choice of may different foods to eat.

I like to remember and think about Whitey's prayer. It reminds me that I need to thank God for the same simple things in my life that I feel so fortunate for and sometimes take for granted.

Thinking

"A man is what he thinks about all day long." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Scary thought. You are what you think about all day long. Reading this quote made me more aware of what I think about all day. Maybe it will do the same for you.

I found this quote in a book by Charles Allen called God's Psychiatry. It was referred to me by my grandmother and I highly recommend it. It examines the pattern of thinking and the Twenty Third Psalm.

Allen comments that if you recite the Psalm 23 throughout the day to yourself and not just reciting the words from memory, but by really meditating on the words and thinking about each passage that you can develop a new way of thinking. Thus, creating a new life.

He says the "power of this Psalm lies in the fact that it represents a positive, hopeful, faith approach to life".

I think we could all use that approach to life. I want that approach to life. So I am up for the challenge or "prescription" that Allen gives. I want to make it a point each day, multiple times of day to recite in my head and really think about each word in the 23rd Psalm. And maybe this post will inspire you to do the same.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths

of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow

of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

thy rod and staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence

of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil;

my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of

the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house

of the Lord for ever.

Stuck in the Mud

I have currently been reading a daily devotional book called "Walking with the Celtic Saints". The other day, one of the devotionals was about St. Patrick. History tells that St. Patrick as a youth was captured from his father's estate in Britain and taken to Ireland to be a shepherd-slave. Being a captive in a foreign land, he was lonely therefore he grew close to God. He did make his way back to Britain but returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary years later.

The devotional above recounts the story of St. Patrick during his mission days in Ireland walking through an Irish field. During his walk he noticed a shepherd-slave repairing part of a stone wall that had fallen into the mud where a section of it had collapsed. This reminded St. Patrick of his days of being enslaved himself and doing that same work and the loneliness that came with it. He went to where the slave was working and bent down and picked up a heavy stone from the mud and put into place. The slave looked confused wondering who this stranger was helping him do a slave's job.

Saint Patrick introduced himself and started to recite Psalm 40 as they both continued working. "Patiently I waited from the Lord; he bent down to me and listened to my cry. He raised me out of the miry pit, out of the mud and clay; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm footing. - Psalm 40". St. Patrick then told the slave about a God who was always there in all of life's ups and downs. He told the slave. "I was like one of these stones, fallen into the mud". Then St. Patrick picked up the final stone and set it in place and told the slave, "There are no lose stones with God. Each of us has a place. And it isn't in the mud."

The devotional goes on to say that we also face times of loneliness, sadness, depression, and anxiety. In desperation, we call on the Lord for help. We discover, perhaps to our amazement, that he is very near to us. We realize that he has never left us, even in times when we have forgotten all about him and believed there was no one there to help us. Our experiences bind us together in common humanity.

The Celtic monks were so passionate about the book of Psalms they memorized after chapter of it. Memorizing and applying God's written word brought them closer to God, not in an abstract, theological sense, but where it mattered most: in our daily lives.

St. Patrick not only experienced the loneliness of being a stone stuck in the mud; he also experienced the strong sheltering of God and saw God as a strong shield who was always there for him whenever he faced fear, sadness and anxiety. God's word was a constant reminder of this.

Sometimes our life circumstances seem to be so unfair or unfortunate that we forget that God does in fact have a place for each of us. Not only a place, but a path for us to take. When we are "stuck in the mud" we must remember that He will pull us out and help us get back on that path only if we accept His help. And He wants to help us. We will all fall into the mud at some point but the most important thing to remember is that we don't have to be stuck in the mud.

Mistakes - Only One Doesn't Make Them

We all have said, "Wait, this must be some sort of mistake." I know I have and I know that this past year I have screamed it towards the sky at the top of my lungs. When you lose someone you truly love, the first two things you think are why and this must be a mistake. After months of soul searching and pondering it hit me one day like a ton of bricks - Addison's death was no mistake because God does not make mistakes.

When I realized this, I did feel more comforted, although I still asked why and sometimes still do. But when I came to the affirmative conclusion that God does not make mistakes I felt a sense of relief and it helped lift some of the resentment that I had been holding against God. The fact that He doesn't make mistakes sometimes can seem to be a hard pill to swallow, when we have so much disaster, worldly and personally, happening around us. But there are two things I know for certain, 1) we are not meant to understand everything in God's plans and 2) He does not make mistakes.

We are not in control of this world or this life and I am certain that He is and with that control He does not make mistakes. I found great words the other day written by William Cowper, "Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face."

Five Balls of Life

From the book "Suzanne's Diary to Nicholas" by James Patterson

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - Work - Family - Health - Friends - Spirit, and you're keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls -- family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered.

Personally I love this analogy and I don't think it could be more true. Work in our lives often can seem like the most important thing. But it is not. Our most cherished parts of live are and should be our Family, our Health, our Friends, and our Spirit. These aspects of our lives need more attention than work. To me, work is just a means to an end. The other parts are necessary for truly living.

Also I do truly believe that to find balance in life you must first have a unconditional close relationship with God. I find that when I cling closer to God, the other parts of my life like, worry, work, stress, etc. become smaller. As God grows larger in your life those other interferences become smaller. And you also begin to appreciate Family, Health, Friends and Spirit more because you realize all of those are gifts from Him.

The Tide

Probably the best book that I have read during my grief process is a book called All Things Are Possible Through Prayer by Charles Allen. Chapter 8 is called "The Tide Will Come In". I have read this particular chapter many times since Addison's death and have found great comfort in it.

A month after Addison's death, my family decided to take our annual trip to Destin, Florida. We needed the get away as a family and the normalcy of it. Most of that week I spent sitting on the beach gazing at the ocean. The ocean and all its mass. My grief was so new at that time and I found comfort by looking at something so enormous and something so much larger than my grief. The idea that you get while gazing at it is that God is larger than that ocean. He made that ocean and He can command it. When you are staring at something so large it is almost overwhelming to think about. But in my experience it was comforting.

Months after our beach trip, I found the book referenced above. In reading Chapter 8 of it I found much comfort and still do. It parallels low and high tides with times in our lives. When the tide is low we, like a large boat, cannot move forward nor back with ease. The low tide blocks us from moving on, like a boat stuck on a sandbar.

My very lowest tide has been grief. Grief makes you feel stuck because the tide is so low there is nowhere you can go. But what Allen writes is "If the tide is low, there are times when all we can do is wait for the tide to come in." I found that statement brilliant. Grief is eased by time, it is a healer, albeit a slow one. But if you watch the ocean you see that the tide always comes in. At our lowest points in life, whether it is death, job loss, or any situation you have to remember the high tide will eventually come in and your boat will have enough water to move off of that sandbar. We have to learn to wait with patience. Wait for the high tide to come in. And as Allen sums up Chapter 8, "But in the waiting, we are certain the tide will rise, and because of that certainty we have faith and hope."

Wait for the tide to come in. God will bring it. Time and God will bring the tide and you will be able to move forward and sail your ship wherever He points it. Psalm 55:22 Cast your cares on the Lord.

And I would like to add to verse 22 and wait for the tide.

Love - No Greater Commandment

For the past couple of days I have been sort of reeling over a church I heard about on the news. The church is Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Their primary goal is to picket. They picket everything from soldier's funerals to the anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Why you might ask? Personally, I am not sure. But I did google them and I encourage you do so yourself because their actual official website address is so vile I don't even want to put it in blog. From what I can tell this church uses the mantra of hate instead of love. It has really bothered me. That sort of church is what gives us christians a very bad wrap. It upsets me because people who are on the fence about believing in God might see things about this church and blanket all churches and christians in that category. With that being said, I started researching the word love in the Bible. The word love is mentioned 310 times in KJ version and 531 times in the NIV version. Searching the word also lead me to one of the most important verses in the Bible spoken by Jesus himself.

When a teacher of law asked Jesus what the most important commandment was Jesus replied, ""The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:29-31.

God is love. And as christians we are commanded to love Him and our neighbors. I admit the second one is hard sometimes. I get so mad or frustrated with people, for example like while driving on the road, that I forget I am to "Love your neighbor as yourself." That is my new personal challenge. Every time I feel the urge to rant and rave over someone on the road, at the grocery store, in the line at Starbucks, or anywhere I am going to pray for an open heart to love my neighbor as myself. Max Lucado put it best, "He loves each one of us like there is only one of us to love." And I want to try and do the same.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

At some point in our lives it is inevitable that we will have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. It is a long journey through a valley that can overwhelm anyone with various emotions. What is important and what I have learned on my journey is that you have to walk. Although you have an extreme urge to run through it as fast as you can, you have to walk. If you run through it you will find that you have to start from the beginning over and over again. Sort of like a hamster wheel. If you walk and allow the grief process to be slow and run its course you will hopefully make your peace with God and grief and come out of the valley a new person who has learned to live life again. It won't be the same life ever again as before the journey, but it will be one that can be good again.

There is one thing I tell myself everyday about my walk through the valley of the shadow of death. It is just a shadow, a partial and temporary darkness. And the best thing about shadows - they move.

Leap of Faith

I learned how to take a true leap of faith this year. After the passing of my brother Addison, in July 09, I wanted desperately to do something to honor his memory. I thought of many various ideas and none of them really seemed to be right.

Then one night after many months of pondering and prayer I came up with Give Soles. The whole idea was based off one great memory of my brother giving his brand new school shoes to his best friend who only had old worn out ones to wear.I took that memory and ran with it. Now a little over a month after getting started, we have raised $10,000 to purchase new school shoes in August for economically disadvantaged kids. Our goal was to raise $3,000 and our success has been incredible.

God has a sense of humor. How you might ask? Because I felt a calling from Him to start a nonprofit organization during one of the worst economic times in this country's history. I admit I was worried. I did not know if we could raise any money during these hard times. But I had to follow my calling and walk out on that limb. And I couldn't be happier that I did. I put all my trust in Him and saw donations pour in despite the economy's situation. God is funny in that way. He challenges us in challenging times and sometimes we just have to take a leap of of faith.