Where is our Superhero?

I don't blog often, and when I do, I try to keep it upbeat and about things I love and enjoy! I like to look back and smile at what I've written. This is not like those. This entry is going to be a downer, so be forewarned. 

We are currently in the middle of a terrible pandemic - COVID-19. 

Covid-19, or simply Covid, is a contagious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease has since spread worldwide, leading to an ongoing pandemic. Currently, nearly 2 billion deaths worldwide have been reported - and increasing every day. We just can't seem to get a handle...

Add to that, a nation so divided that many of us are becoming fearful, not only of our own government but of people we once shared friendship; days in which people are losing their very livelihood from massive shutdowns and numerous non-peaceful protests; days in which the number of suicides and drug overdoses is as great or greater than even the number of Covid deaths...

So, where is God right now, and how does all this fit into His Plan? 

Someone, answer me! I am struggling here!

My niece currently lays in a hospital bed suffering from Covid-19 - near death. Her husband struggles at home trying to hold things together with little news from hospital caregivers. His heart hurts because he can’t be at her bedside speaking soft, soothing words to her. He needs to work because due to the pandemic, he has only one of the three jobs it took pre-Covid to make ends meet.  The other two jobs are, hopefully, just shut down and will be there for him when and if we ever see the end to this madness. He could work his current job except that he has two young children at home and no one else to care for them. One set of grandparents are both hospitalized with Covid themselves, and the other, a grandmother, is not in good health herself.  He could possibly work some hours except the two children are on different school schedules due to the Covid. When one is physically in school, the other is at home in virtual school, and then they are both home together. What are working parents to do? 

And in this particular case, this family is God-loving and God-trusting, just as I have always been.

I hate the story of Job. I read it once and refuse to read it again. I don’t recognize the God in that story, and I don’t recognize the God in this story.

Let me make one thing clear. My struggle is not in God's existence. I know, without a doubt, He exists. I am just not sure I know who He is sometimes. He often grows silent at the very times we need to hear from Him the most. And I know the cliché answer here - that I am just not listening. But I am a seeker. I love God and I seek Him every day. He tells me in His Word that if I seek Him with all my heart, I will find him, and I do want to find Him. I want to know Him personally – to be in relationship with Him.

But faith is fragile. We are not all Jobs. We can’t all take hit after hit, after hit, and still climb up and not question His presence - His protection.

2020 has been a horrendous year. I think most will agree. But I can tell you without a doubt, that those of you reading this here on Facebook or on my blog don’t have an inkling of what many people have gone through and are still going through. It is not comprehensible to many of us. Those people are not likely on Facebook. They are too busy trying to deal with all the trials they are facing. They are too busy taking hit, after hit, after hit.

And to make things worse, these are not the worst of times. When you look back at history and see all the genocides and massacres and religious persecutions, and plagues, would any of us want to trade places with anybody during those times? I know I wouldn’t have the courage. And yet, I am becoming fearful of what I see happening in our own country today.

And I pray – every day, often several times a day. Does it matter? If what I pray for is not the will of God, does it make any difference?  I know that God has a plan for mankind, so is everything that’s happening now part of that plan? And if so, in all His great wisdom, why would He choose such a violent plan?

I often find myself thinking that the only thing that can help us now is a superhero – one like we see in the Marvel movies. One that fights evil and wins. One that comes to the rescue of everything good. Too bad Thor is not real – or the Hulk or the Iron Man.  But God is a superhero and He is real. That’s why we often look for Him in times like this and when we don't see Him, cry out “Where are you God?" 

I actually hurt for Judas Iscariot, the disciple every Christian hates because he betrayed Jesus by turning Him in to the Romans. I don’t really believe Judas was evil. I believe he just had faith that Jesus was a superhero, and a superhero was exactly what was needed at that time to liberate the people from Roman oppression. I think he believed that if Jesus was made to fear for His life, he would protect himself and the Romans would see wrath like none they’d ever seen before. Then when it didn’t happen as he’d hoped, he was so dismayed at what he had done that he hanged himself. I hurt for him because I know that Jesus would have forgiven him, had he only asked.

Anyway, so there is my struggle. Where is our Superhero? 

May 10,  2021

My struggle with faith continues. My niece died. Forty-two years old, two young children who needed their mother, and a husband who loved her dearly. All loved and trusted God.

The situation in the country still looks bad as our government remains divided without either side really making the effort to work together. Their fight has become personal without any real regard for the people. We are used only if it helps the cause. This pandemic continues to rage with new variants popping up faster than we can get everyone vaccinated. Most schools and many businesses remain closed, many of them will never see the light of day.

Still, no superhero. Where is our Superhero?

Another Year, Another Post!!

It's August already, and what a year!! Better than last year though!!

Last year, I spent the better part of the year with pretty bad back pain.  Well, not really back pain, but hip, thigh and knee pain, but the cause was back!  While I knew something was definitely wrong, three x-rays, two CT's, and two MRI's didn't spot it.  Five injections, a round of physical therapy, chiropractic manipulation, therapeutic massage, pain shots and opioids didn't help it, either. I did lose some weight though, which was a good thing, but I lost a lot of my hair too, which was not a good thing.

Thankfully, there was a doctor willing to play a hunch that I might have a bone fragment pressing into my spine and so he operated this January, and it turned out, he was right!!  I spent four months of this year in a back brace, but now I am playing pickleball again!! It feels like a miracle to me!!

Anyhow, I am posting this so I can look back and remember what was going on at this time in my life. Sort of like a journal. It is my first and only post so far for 2017. Hopefully, there will be more, but looking back at my post history, it is probably more likely that this is it for this year.

But I end this post free of pain and with a smile. These are great times we are living in.

How I hope to be remembered

I've often thought about how I'd like to be remembered after I leave this world to make my final journey home. It's half-joke, half-serious, although I certainly wouldn't mind if both turned out to be true. It's what I'd like for people to be able to say about me after I'm gone... 

First and foremost, I hope people can say, "she was one of the kindest, most giving people we've ever known," and second, which would certainly make the giving part in the first more memorable, "she won the biggest lottery there ever was."

Hopefully, you smiled a little, although I mean every word about the kind and giving part. That is truly what I hope people will be able to say about me. To me there are no sweeter words in the human language than kind and kindness, and, of course, giving goes right along with kind.

It's been four years since we lost our beautiful daughter-in-law Jennifer to cancer.  She was 44 at the time. She fought a long hard fight for almost exactly one year.  In that year, she never once gave up the desire to live and we never once gave up praying for a miracle. We prayed for Jennifer to be healed and that prayer was finally answered on a Saturday morning when God took her home. I would have loved to have seen that beautiful face and that beautiful smile when God told her she was finally cancer-free.

A week after she died on a Sunday morning, we had a memorial service. The church was packed and several of her friends got up to talk about what Jennifer meant to them. I can't begin to tell you how often the words kind and giving were used to describe her. "There was never a kinder person... she never said anything bad about anybody...she treated everyone with kindness and respect...she would give you anything she had, if you needed it..."

It went on and on, and I couldn't help but smile through my tears. Those two sweet words were being used over and over to describe my beautiful sweet daughter-in-law. I knew she was a kind and loving person but to hear story after story of some of the kind deeds, like paying for former classmates to attend their recent class reunion who otherwise couldn't have come due to cost; like buying and donating toys and clothes every year so that some less fortunate family might have Christmas; like helping friends financially during hard times. She cherished animals of all kinds and not only was a dog rescuer but also volunteered her time at the local Horse Protection Society caring for abused horses. She treated every living creature with kindness. It was only fitting that she was a nurse by profession.

Jennifer touched a lot of lives in her short lifetime. What an inspiration. I'd like to be remembered like that, so that when I'm no longer of this world, my friends might say, "She was one of the kindest, most giving people we've ever known. She was a lot like Jennifer."

The View Around Me

It's fall, my favorite season.  The leaves are dropping, tons at a time, and several of my friends are talking about driving to the mountains to see all the beautiful fall colors.  

This is the view I see from my bedroom window...

and from my deck...

and from my front door...

and from my side door...

and this is what I saw yesterday from my car as I drove through the parking lot of the old Salisbury Mall...

Do I really need to drive to the mountains to see the beautiful fall colors?

The Glory of the Moments

Well, today is a new day – the start of a new week. Bob asked me, just before he left out for work this morning if I had any special plans for the day. My answer was, “No, nothing out of the usual.”

So far today I got up, made my bed, drank two cups of coffee while browsing the newspaper, checked my emails and then Facebook to see what my family and friends were up to, spent an hour in the Psalms, and then read a couple of favorite blog posts.
 
Not much so far, but it’s still early...

I’ll likely do a load of laundry, straighten the house, hopefully, walk a couple of miles on the treadmill while watching an episode of
Once Upon a Time, and then have my usual Monday night dinner out with four of my best friends. I’ll come home, spend a little time with my husband and then go to bed.

Tomorrow…I’ll likely get up, make my bed, drink a cup of coffee or two while browsing the newspaper, check my emails and then Facebook to see what my family and friends are up to, spend some time in the Word, read my favorite blog posts, do a load of laundry, straighten the house, and yada, yada, yada.

I’m retired, so that’s pretty much what the majority of my days look like. Oh, there are a lot of “special” things scattered throughout my days—guitar and fly fishing classes, lunches with friends, family things, church things, etc. but the majority of my days are filled with the usual, mundane activities that I do over and over, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year…

Sounds boring. Might make a person wonder the purpose. But you know, there is a glory in these days that seem to repeat one after another. Each moment that occurs leads to another moment, and then another, and then another, until, finally, we reach the end of the day.

Isn't that the goal when we get up in the morning--to reach the end of the day? 

Well, we needn't worry.  The end of the day will come no matter what we do. God has the end handled.

Our job is simply to handle the moments of one day, one moment at a time, one day at a time--and hey, we can do that well if we just look for the glory in the moments.

A Message to My Church

I am retired now, almost 2 1/2 years. Like many retired people, I started out with a bucket list. Still have it. Hopefully, I will be around long enough to mark most of those items off.  So far, I've tried guitar, piano, volunteer work at the homeless shelter and at the horse sanctuary, fly fishing, and this past week I completed a mission trip.

I've always wanted to be part of a mission trip - to be the hands and feet of Jesus somewhere in this world, but I was always thinking about some far off place like Guatemala, South Africa, or Cambodia, and then a mission trip opportunity came up at my church, Christ United Methodist, to go to WV,  So I thought, well, why not. It's a place to start. And yes, I know, that we have plenty of people in our own country who need our help, and so I anticipated going to WV and building ramps and doing home repairs. And then the floods came, and the place that our mission was to take us became an emergency disaster area with its own death and destruction and devastation:

And so I found out pretty quickly that I didn't need to go to Cambodia or South Africa to see loss and devastation and need.  It was right here, just four hours from my own back door, and so last week we had an opportunity to show the people of WV that we here at Christ United Methodist Church in Salisbury, North Carolina, cared about what was happening to them and would not let them face it alone. And you, Church, sent this wonderful team of seven adults and ten youths to this battlefield in WV to represent you and to represent Christ.  And I will tell you, I have never seen anything like it. We slept in the gym at an elementary school on the floor, on sleeping bags, cots, and on air mattresses, all together, in the dark. The entire week there were no lights in the gym. We crept around in the dark with our little flashlights, and every day of the week at lunchtime, we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  It is my recommendation that if you are ever in WV, find yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I don't know what it is, but those West Virginians know something about peanut butter and jelly that we don't know here. I have never had a better peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my life.  I looked forward to lunch every day. 

And that team - that team!  You, Church, have every reason to be proud of your mission team.  I was there, and I'm very proud. Those adults and those kids (no offense kids, anyone under thirty is a kid to me) - they all worked their hearts out.  They worked under terrible conditions, it was hot and dusty and dirty. They pulled up floors and tore down walls and sometimes the stench would make you gag, but they all did it without complaint and with encouragement for one another. I never heard a crossword, there was no pouting, there was no competing with one another, no one trying to outdo the other. It was all simply amazing.  They all worked hard, were respectful of one another, and every evening they provided beautiful and very thoughtful devotions.

I can't say enough about this team.  At the end of the day, every day, this team had left its mark. The difference between morning when we arrive on-site, to evening when we left, was absolutely astonishing. I will never forget it.  For me, this was not a stepping stone to the big mission trip I had always dreamt of, this was THE mission trip.  And so, if I never go on another, which I certainly hope is not the case, but, if I never go on another, I can certainly say that this mission trip, without a doubt, met the criteria that I was thinking about when I added "mission trip" to my bucket list, 

And I'll say one last thing,  If anyone here had any doubts or concerns about this mission trip, that it was not the right time, that it was not necessary, or it was too far away, please know that you can lay those concerns to rest.  You, Church, met a vital need last week. You represented Christ very well in Clendenin, WV.  

A Poem for Christmas 2016 ~ Author Unknown

    

A Poem for Christmas
         2016

        

I have a list of folks I know all written in a book,

And every year when Christmas comes, I go and take a look.

And that is when I realize that these names are a part

Not of the book they are written in, but of my very heart.

For each name stands for someone who has crossed my path sometime

And in that meeting they’ve become the rhythm in each rhyme.

And while it sounds fantastic for me to make this claim,

I really feel that I’m composed of each remembered name.

And while you may not be aware of any special link,

Just meeting you has shaped my life a lot more than you think.

For once I’ve met somebody, the years cannot erase,

The memory of a pleasant word or a friendly face.

So never think my Christmas cards are just a mere routine

Of names upon a Christmas list, forgotten in between.

For when I send a Christmas card that is addressed to you,

It’s because you are on that list of folks whom I’m indebted to.

For I am but the total of many folks I’ve met,

And you happen to be one of those I prefer not to forget.

For if I’ve known you many years, or only just a few,

In some way, be it large or small, I owe myself to you.

And every year when Christmas comes, I realize anew

The best gift life can offer is meeting folks like you!

                                                    
Warmest wishes!

                                       Judy