After returning home from Flagstaff on a Tuesday night, I attended my daughter, Kylee’s, volleyball match the very next evening. My wife and I usually sit in the corner of the gym where she sets up my fold out chair. After the match was over, I stood up by a doorway as I usually do but this time I had a coughing episode and began to lose my balance. My feet got caught up and my body went crashing down hard into the corner of a door jam. The back of my head hit the hardest and my upper right arm slammed onto the floor. My brace absorbed all the impact that my scull surely would have taken but my arm suffered a fracture. My wife and two other men helped me up and out to our car. Once home, my daughter Jessica wrapped my arm in ice to reduce swelling. I did up with swelling and bruising but did not go for an X-Ray until that Friday. We started light therapy soon after and within 4 weeks from the mishap, my arm felt totally healed.

 Earlier, that same Friday, my wife and I had gone to another appointment to my dermatologist. Their office had previously called with the results of a skin biopsy confirming I had basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer) on an area of my left shin. At my appointment, the dermatologist cut deeper around this area to remove all the cancerous cells, then cauterized the wound. My shin still has a thick scab, but it is slowly decreasing in size. PTL!

 My trials only continued to accelerate after that week. Most of October I fought a viral cold that increased my nasal drip secretions. Congestion increased in my lungs severely restricting my breathing. Again I found myself dependent on my bi-pap (ventilator) during the day as well as the night. My pulse rate had been racing to pump enough air into to my lungs, with my shallow breathing I was doing too much work and became extremely overheated. Glennis was repeatedly using the suction machine 4-5 times an hour to remove phlegm from my throat as well. My wife had to call 911 two times, and on the last occasion landing me in the hospital with pneumonia for five days in the middle of November. I was treated with IV antibiotics, since having been discharged I continue with 2 other oral antibiotics that are crushed and put through my feeding tube. I am continuing other therapies and treatments at home and my wife will schedule follow up appointments and tests.

It is in times like these that I struggle with faith for my healing. I said to my 21 year old daughter Ashley, “I wish to be totally healed right now or to go home and be with the Lord” she responded by saying, “Dad, you know why you’re here, you’re an example for the rest of us” she didn’t even blink an eye or even address my statement, she just confidently stated what was obvious to her; I’m supposed to be here as an example of trusting faith for my family and others.

 My agonies in the physical realm had blinded me from my purpose in the spiritual. I had become so occupied with my own bodily needs; my physical man was losing hope. When we become consumed with the needs and desires of the flesh we are always in a losing battle; Jesus said it is “the spirit that quickeneth the flesh profits nothing” Jn 6:63. My earthly man was on empty, out of gas, and out of answers; I was desperate to breathe independently on my own, let alone survive the onslaught of the accompanying challenges. What I needed was to tap into the inner resources of the Spirit

 Identifying with the Word of God that I have been crucified with Christ, my natural man is already dead (mystically), but my spirit lives because Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20). Christ causes me to live, sustains me and gives me breath. Jesus has already overcome the world and all of my trials and tribulations.  “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]” John 16:33 AMP.

Jesus does not pray that we might be removed from this world but that we should be of good cheer because He has overcome the world; that applies to any trial we face. My purpose on this earth is to allow Christ’s victorious life to live through me by faith; a faith that is not governed by sight but by belief. Jesus, our supreme example, lived in this world and finished the work his Father sent him to do (Jn 4:34). He Preached the Gospel of Good News, healed diseases and cast out devils. He went about doing good continually, with great delight (Mt 8:16-17). Jesus’ chief work was that of redemption and salvation for the lost, this was the work His Father called and sent him into this world to perform. The object of Christ’s life was to do the will of the Father.

 Most times, we find ourselves between the fulfillment of the promises of God and the life we live in this world. This doesn’t make our assurances untrue, rather “all the promises of God in him are yea and amen, unto the glory of God”  (2 Cor 1:20). There is much more to our lives than our physical reality. We hold fast believing in the manifestation of our faith desiring to receive all that God has purposed for us. By persevering in our trials and deepening our walk with Him, let each of us live out our mission on this earth, making an eternal difference by reaching the souls God has entrusted to our labors and prayers.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.