Category: Family

Blogs about Family

To Those Who Mourn

It seems that no matter where you sit on the fence of the 2020 pandemic, we are all touched in some way.

An actual fence marks a boundary that has been placed to either keep something in or, to keep something out.

As we put up our emotional boundaries, we keep at bay our ability to mourn with those who are mourning over a significant loss at the hands of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The illusion about what the capabilities of the pandemic are, seem to strike different cords depending on your faith, race, financial abilities, and age group.

The poverty and death being caused by the pandemic seem to be overshadowed by everyone’s inherent desire to self-persevere.

Unless people are touched first hand, the pandemic either becomes political, or non-existent to a good portion of the population.

This pattern seems to be holding the same for “The Church”, and we need to bridge this gap as soon as possible.

The Apostle Paul tells us to mourn with those who mourn, right after he told us to rejoice with those who rejoice.

Both rejoicing and mourning are part of what we are going to experience in a fallen world.

As people confessing to be Christians, we should be leaders in these areas, the areas of consoling people as well as shouting with them. Amen!

Christ-ians are ambassadors of “The Christ”.  As ambassadors, we have a duty to present the Kingdom of God to one another and those around us.

We have a duty to become intentional in prayer, calling prayer meetings, prayer vigils, and one on one prayer time, whatever is necessary to turn the spiritual tide.

We should stop fighting to keep the church open and start fighting for people, their lives, and livelihoods. Help the people with their finances, their hurts, and their losses. Mourning lasts way past the burial process and people need our support for the long haul.

We know that God hears the cries of His people, just look in the Psalms, where David cried out to God.  God heard, and God heeded David’s prayers. Amen!

We need to draw a parallel to the Word of God to help a struggling people, whether financially or emotionally. That drawn line traces a path to hope and healing, to strength and salvation.

After all, the greatest need in the world today is salvation! Amen!                                

We as Christians should turn our thoughts and the thoughts of those around us toward an eternal reality.

If we constantly remember others and look to assist in their lives, and their traumatic experiences, we will see a healing that starts spreading much quicker than a vaccine.

Joy will truly come in the morning as the scripture says, “weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning”. Psalm 30:5 NLT.

Let’s start acting like it’s morning! Amen! Let’s spread some joy!

Let’s reach out to people that are hurting, and first get them sustained whether it be financially or emotionally, then help them to be restored to a spiritual connection.

A connection that will cause them to have a future and a hope, and we by helping others will also help ourselves, increasing the totality of the spiritual connection.

God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus.  We should so love those around us and do the same. Amen!

Come out of isolation and let the light of the Gospel be seen anew.

Start now so that we enter 2021 full of true Christianity which is; genuine love, love for one another, rejoicing in hope, being patient, contributing to the needs of others, blessing those who may not be so lovely, have joy with the joyful, weep with those who weep, live in harmony with one another, don’t be haughty, be honorable in the sight of all, and live in peace. Romans 12:9-21 paraphrased.

I will close with a prayer for all of us. “May the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, guard our hearts and our minds through Christ Jesus. Amen! Philippians 4:7

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: Colossians 4:6, Galatians 6:2, Romans 12:15-16, Ephesians 1:13-14, John 3:16, and Luke 1:78-80, “Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace”. NLT translation.

Come All Ye Faithful!

What a beautiful Christmas song, calling us to joyful and triumphant faithfulness, and an adoration of our newborn King.

Not just any king, but the baby that was born King of kings!

I love the scripture in Revelations 19:16, “On His robe and on His thigh, He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords”.

When we talk about triumphant faithfulness we should first consider the faithfulness of Jesus. Then we can look at our challenge to be the kings He is King over. Amen!

To determine Jesus’ faithfulness, it all starts in Luke Chapter 2 of the Holy Bible, the scriptures about the birth of our newborn King. It goes as follows:  “At the time of His birth, an angel of the Lord came upon the shepherds who were out in the field, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them. And the angel said to them, “I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people”. This is the moment, the opportunity for us to walk in joyful expectation, and it started out with great joy!

Verse 11 of Luke Chapter 2 says, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord”.

Jesus was born to be our faithfulness; He was born the loyal and steadfast deliverer of a longing and lost people. Amen!

He fulfilled His faithfulness to His Father and to all mankind, by shedding His blood on a cross for our permanent atonement, as long as we call on Him out of a pure heart.

He was and is, “The Christ”, and all people are not only called to adore Him as in the Christmas song, but we are also implored to believe in Him, by Him. Selah!

Jesus wants us with Him so much that He shed His blood to allow us an opportunity to be faithful to Him. This opportunity requires a great faithfulness, not just a passing acknowledgment.

Jesus gave us an inner passion to follow Him, to take Him at His word. He left us the Holy Spirit to guide us and help us find our path and stay close to, “The Way”.

Jesus came as the Light from the beginning as we read in Luke Chapter 2 verse 32, “A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory to thy people Israel”.

As we look to Jesus as our light, our way is not difficult to find, but we must remain in the Light to stay on the path.

When we refuse the Light on any topic or decision we face in life, then the only thing left is darkness. This darkness leads us into fear, and fear will paralyze our faith and our ability to be faithful.

We must remain true to the light we know to remain in the faithfulness that is Jesus Christ, the faithful and true Lord and Savior; there is not even a shadow in Him let alone darkness. Amen!

James 1:16-18 says, “My dear brothers and sisters don’t let anyone fool you. Every good and perfect gift is from God. This kind of gift comes down from the Father who created the heavenly lights; these lights create shadows that move. But the Father does not change like these shadows. God chose to give us new birth through the message of truth. He wanted us to be the first harvest of His new creation”.  Amen!

Let’s ponder these verses for a minute… So God, the giver of every perfect gift, which was created in the heavenly light, gives us new birth through the message of truth so that we can be with Him as a new creation. Astounding!

In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Jesus made the way; glory to God, Jesus made our way!

We humans always want a roadmap before we go on a journey; I am exclaiming right now that, “The Bible is our roadmap to the heavenly Light, our roadmap to all the gifts and promises of God”.

MapQuest Jesus. He is the way!  Follow Jesus faithfully, and don’t waver from the truth about the Christ.  Jesus is the Way.

Our challenge from Jesus Christ is to remain faithful to our belief in Him, to trust in Him, to obey Him, and yes to adore Him.  O come all ye faithful, come and behold Him, come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you like this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: Luke chapter 2, Revelation 19: 11-16, 1Timothy 6:15-16, Revelation 1:5, and Hebrews 10:23, Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.

Crisp Sinus Rhythm

This week’s blog is going to be a little different, a more personal, recent experience.  It’s a real story in real-time that happened the day before Thanksgiving.

One thing I want to point out first and foremost is “God did it”, I told Him that I would tell everyone.

For the past few years, I have been periodically troubled with Arterial Fibrillation or AFIB. It is where your heart rate sometimes beats too fast, sometimes too slow, and sometimes just out of rhythm or skipping beats. It has been more troubling the last couple of months as it has been happening almost daily and disrupting my quality of life.

At times causes shortness of breath, fatigue, and most notably can cause blood clots that could possibly lead to a stroke.

I had a cardiologist that treated me a few years ago, and I was telling him of my new symptoms and how they were much more frequent. He would run an EKG at the office; my heart would be fine at this point, so he would send me on my way, no real response or care for the AFIB.

I also tried my regular doctor to no avail, both would tell me to stop drinking coffee, stop smoking, and stop drinking alcohol, all of which I had done some 20 plus years ago when I started serving God and trusting Him with my life.

A few weeks ago my wife started looking and found a new cardiologist.  He ran an EKG and noted that I was in AFIB at that moment and that by listening to my story it sounded like the AFIB had become persistent.

He quickly wanted to get my heart back into normal sinus rhythm, so he scheduled a TEE test along with Cardioversion. The first test is a sonogram of your heart from the inside, a tube is run down your esophagus, and pictures of your heart are taken from the inside. Sounds intrusive, right?   This test is to make sure that there are no blood clots in the heart before they do the Cardioversion, which is to shock your heart back into normal sinus rhythm.  Both procedures require sedation and a team of nurses with the doctor to man all the necessary equipment to complete both procedures.

Upon my arrival at the hospital, I had a COVID-19 test (negative) and then proceeded to be prepped for my two procedures.

An I.V. was placed in my forearm for fluids and sedation, machines were rolled into the room for various functions, and three nurses and the doctor arrived. Meanwhile, the doctor was looking for the anesthesiologist who finally came in the room.

With all the machines hooked up and humming, the anesthesiologist gets ready to administer the sedation, everyone takes their position (there wasn’t much room for me) and we were ready to roll.

Then all of the sudden I hear the doctor say “Wait a second – the one monitor looks like he has converted to normal sinus rhythm”! “The other one still looks like AFIB but that one looks like normal sinus rhythm”.

The nurses quickly return me to my back and hook up a twelve lead EKG that monitors your heart extra close. I will never forget the words of my doctor when the reading came on the screen, “Crisp Sinus Rhythm”.

God showed up at the last second to restore my heart, even the doctor said, “I have never seen anyone convert to normal sinus rhythm at this point”.  Usually, more stress causes more AFIB, not a conversion to normal sinus rhythm.

So now everyone is scurrying to unhook me from all the machines, a couple of the nurses asked the doctor if he wanted them to leave the machines hooked up in case I reverted. The doctor said, “No he has converted and all is good”!

I will pause here and tell you what I was thinking at this moment and it was, “you can’t make this stuff up”, “you can’t make this stuff up”!  As I was watching and listening to everything that was unfolding, I started thanking God for interceding on my behalf. Thanking Him for answering mine, my wife’s, and my family’s prayers. 

Then the doctor looked at me and said “you don’t have to have either test, just some medication to keep your heart in normal sinus rhythm”. I exclaimed “Hallelujah”!

The doctor and the team of nurses left the room with the instructions to run another twelve lead EKG in about an hour and if everything was ok, release me.

During that hour was when the fight of faith began. 

All alone, in a dark room, still hooked up to the heart monitor, hearing nothing but the beep, beep, beep, with every heartbeat.

The beeps would change occasionally and when I looked at the monitor it seemed that my heart was skipping a beat at times. Every time that would happen I would say, “God gave me this (my normal sinus rhythm) and I’m keepin’ it”! This was my statement of faith for the next sixty minutes.

After about fifteen minutes a nurse came in the room, and after checking the monitor she said, “Beautiful sinus rhythm”, relief came over me and I rested momentarily.

It wasn’t long after she left that the monitor started in… strange beeps and squiggly lines, and the thought came to me again, “you are out of sinus rhythm”.  Again, I fired back with my statement of faith, “God gave me this and I’m keepin’ it”, and my peace would return.

I fought this fight of faith many times during that 60 minute waiting period, and by thanking God and repeating my statement of faith, I held onto my “Crisp Sinus Rhythm”!

The nurse ran the final EKG and repeated her previous “beautiful” statement, and I was released from the hospital soon after. Praise the Lord!

My wife was out in the waiting room, because of COVID-19 she was not allowed back in the recovery area with me, although she was hearing bits and pieces of my God intervention from the doctor and intake nurses.

She was super excited to see me and hear how God had answered our prayers and to hear how He had orchestrated my miracle.

Even with masks on you could still see the joy in our eyes as they were lit up with excitement, and we praised God.  I looked at her and exclaimed “you can’t make this stuff up” as we headed out to the car.

Once in the car, my wife was so excited about the goodness of God that she wanted to hear every detail right there in the parking lot. We shouted and praised God, we thanked God over and over for His goodness, we laughed and we cried with joy and relief. Glory be to God!

My wife really took hold of my statement of faith “God gave me normal sinus rhythm and I’m keepin’ it”.  She reminds me of this whenever I have any symptoms that try to return. Amen!  We need faithful spouses and friends to help us hold onto our miracles and the workings of God in our lives!

As I look back I see how the outcome is directly related to the life my wife and I choose to live daily. By the grace of God, we put God first every day, we read our Bible first thing, and we do not compromise the word of faith when it comes to our beliefs. We do what the Word says as much as depends on us and that is much. Amen!

By the grace of God, we obey God’s teachings throughout the Bible and do our best to trust Him in every area of our life.  We endeavor to be Spirit-led and to heed the Word of God to the best of our daily abilities. Do we miss it at times, sure, but we repent and get right back in the right place with God because He is faithful.

God wants all of us to walk in; signs, wonders, and miracles.  Now in this time, today! Amen!

It’s easy to look at what’s happening around you and miss what’s happening inside you.  I will repeat that for affect, “we look so intently at what’s happening around us, that we miss what’s happening inside us”. Selah!

To be honest, leading up to the procedures I was only asking God to “guide the doctors’ hands”, “let me not have any adverse side effects from the medicine, etc.”.  I let the things that were happening to me, dictate my prayers.  But thanks be to God, He had much more available and in store for me.

I should have had the faith to ask God to intervene before I was lying on the table, but I was looking at everything around me, all of our fears stop at the point of our faith. My faith was in my doctor’s abilities and in modern medicine, which is okay…

But God being full of grace saw my heart and responded to the faith available for this situation and based the outcome on His abilities not my seemingly lack of faith. Oh, how thankful I am to have a loving, powerful, miracle-working God, who loves me and sees me through Jesus.

I am also thankful for a praying wife and praying children. God truly does listen and answer our prayers.

I will close with my opening, “God did it, and He’s marvelous in my eyes.”

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you like this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: Revelation 19:10, Romans 13:13, Jeremiah 8:22, Acts 3:16, Deuteronomy 10:21, and Psalm 116: 1-2, “I love the Lord because he heard my voice. He heard my cry for His help. Because He paid attention to me, I will call out to Him as long as I live”! Amen!

Cultivate a Lifestyle of Thanksgiving

It seems that this time of year and most assuredly into next week, we think on what we are thankful for.

Here at my house we have a thankful jar.  Leading up to Thanksgiving, when something comes to mind we’re thankful for, we add a thankful note to the jar.  Then on Thanksgiving Day we share with one another and give thanks to God.

Being thankful is actually therapeutic it increases dopamine in your brain (the stuff that makes you feel good) and encourages your brain to seek more of the same.

We were created to cultivate a lifestyle of thanksgiving; we have an inborn ability to benefit from being thankful.  With all that’s going on in the world around us, being thankful for something takes a diligent effort at times.

Let me take this time to remind you that “God is still on the Throne and in charge”, and He loves us.  When we give thanks to Him daily our lives take on a purpose that allows light to arise, even in a dark world.

Let’s remember Psalm 118:24 most have heard it, many quote it, but not quite as many live it; “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Amen!

Rejoicing and being glad that we have a purpose today, that God is still above all and over all, and that we are alive and have brightness of mind, allows our brain to release a substance that makes us feel good, let alone the spiritual happiness this type of rejoicing brings. 

The definition of thankful is pleased and relieved; this sounds like feelings of joy and being in the peace that only God can release to us through prayer, and thanksgiving.

Philippians 4:6 is a great way to enter into an attitude of thanksgiving it says, “Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life.” Amen! This verse is from The Passion Translation of the Holy Bible.

If you want to have a release of happy in your life, you must cultivate a lifestyle of thanksgiving.

Webster’s definition of happiness is a state of well-being and contentment and joy. In my estimation, the best way to cultivate a lifestyle of thanksgiving is to be “content.”

1 Timothy 6:6 in the AMPC translation says, “and it is, indeed, a source of immense profit, for godliness accompanied with contentment (that contentment which is a sense of inward sufficiency) is great and abundant gain” Amen!

Contentment shows God that our joy is found in Him, it shows Him we are fully thankful for His gift of Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. By being content we show God that we truly believe that He will never leave us nor forsake us, and we believe that in Him we are well kept.

God commands His angels concerning us and His angels will lift us up above anything that tries to block our path to Him. When we are on God’s path we release spiritual dopamine, and that spiritual dopamine supplies peace that surpasses all understanding, a faith that can move mountains, love that never fails, and a hope of Glory! Amen!

Cultivating a lifestyle of thanksgiving produces in us happiness and a contentment that overcomes all sadness and resentment. Never look at what you don’t have, what you can’t do, or what you think you’re missing out on. By not looking at these things you are immune to sad, unproductive, and unfulfilled days.

If this is truly “The day that the Lord has made”, then let us always rejoice and be glad in it!

Say, “I am thankful for all that God has brought me through, I am thankful for what God is doing for me today, and by faith, I am thankful for the vision He has given me for tomorrow, I will rest in Him”!

Touch someone with the joy of Thanksgiving this week, help someone that needs uplifting this week, feed on the spiritual goodness of God, and be ye Thankful!

I will leave you with a Thanksgiving Blessing, “May the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace! So be it. Numbers 6:24-26.

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content: 1 Thessalonians 5:18-19, Psalm 118:24, Colossians 3:15, Psalm 107:1, and 2 Corinthians 2:14, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere”. God bless each and every one of us this Thanksgiving and God bless our families, in Jesus’s name, Amen.