I want any of you out there to know that I plan to use John’s blog here as a sort of journaling place for myself. I was John’s wife for 42 years and I know he wouldn’t mind my taking it over. My name is Ella.

9-3-13 2:22p.m.
Don’t know if this will get through or not. It is just about the most “normal” day I have had since Johnny’s death. I am in my own place today doing normal things in a new home – like hanging pictures and curtains.  All these things are things Johnny always did. Then to top if all off K-Love keeps playing the worship songs we shared like “I Can Only Imagine” and “Bless the Lord O My Soul”. I think it is the hardest day I have had since he died. 
God, please help me through this part of my life. It is not something that I really want to do by myself. I know you are here but I am so lonely.

Just to let any of you out there know who do not know. Brother John passed away on May 2, 2013. I am sorry that his last blog was so negative, but those of you who know him know how much pain he was in there at the end of his life. Thanks to all of you who have read his blog through the years.
--Sister Ella

daily java: gripe

Daily Java: 

My heart is in anguish within me;
    the terrors of death have fallen on me.
Fear and trembling have beset me;
    horror has overwhelmed me.
I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
    I would fly away and be at rest.
I would flee far away
    and stay in the desert;
I would hurry to my place of shelter,
    far from the tempest and storm.” (Psalm 55:5-8)

This post is a gripe and has no answer. Yet I feel I have to write something. And this blog is my release.

Yesterday marks the fifth or sixth time to fall. I am now in the situation that my right arm is seriously hurt and I find I have a broken collarbone. I have hit my head three times seriously, twice on the back and once of the front (yesterday). I have fallen in public three times making it rather humiliating. and I am at the point that I can barely move. I am faced with Easter services as the only musician in our church and the peripheral neuropathy in my hands is so bad I do not know if I am going to be able to play. My church is scared for me and have gotten to harping on me to carry around a walker and all kinds of other stuff.

I am in constant pain from all this and the side-effects of the chemo. I fear they will get tired of all this and begin to move away from me. I am totally discouraged. I am in a good work that I could do something with but can do nothing. I have approached this whole thing with as positive an attitude as I can but am coming to a point of being tired and wanting nothing but to sleep.

Today I would welcome death. I know where I am going and there is no pain. But of course Ella needs me. However, today, she almost fell at her doctor's office and I could do nothing but watch while everybody else helped her. i walk slowly and carefully and have found myself, for the first time in my life, afraid. I am afraid of falling. At my height, it is a long way to the ground and I just do not know how to fall. So I walk carefully and slowly and Ella says I have added 15 years to my apparent age just looking at me walking.

God does not send bad things, but he does allow them. And is the strong man watching the bully beat up a smaller man without interfering any different that the bully himself? I know You and I have discussed this in the past, but it is a very real thing in my life right now. There is no week that goes by without at least four or five things bad happening to me. And these are not small things. I have hit both shoulders numerous times with painful results. I have hit my head causing painful contusions three times. I have damaged my right knee and my right hip pretty badly.

Add to this the cancer and the drastic weight loss and inability to eat and the chemo-therapy, the peripheral neuropathy - all the other junk.

I don't know, but I feel I am at the end. I know that God is not always fair. But he is supposed to be always good. I saw good things coming from this when I came and was full of buoyant hope in the knowledge that I was supposed to do something great here so the devil was going to do his best to stop me. But now? I cannot stop, but I feel I have trouble going on. My life is a shambles.

I know there is no answer. But something has to give. It hurts my fingers even to type this letter.

I will have to admit, if it were not for the relationship I have with my wife, I do not know what I would do. However, even tat is showing strain. She is afraid and was from the beginning. She doesn't know what to do and many of her encouragements turn out to be the wrong direction or the like. She does what she can yet she is so limited too. So we are stuck. Every trip to the VA is 100 miles round trip. I just hope my resources hold up. and that Ella and I hold up.

daily java: back from the dead

Daily Java:

Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out — the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.” Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country. (Luke 7:11-35)

The young man seemed like he could never make it over into death. There had been the funeral and all of the accompanying things that went with the funeral, yet he could never make it over.

Then he heard a voice coming from all over and nowhere at the same time: Young man, I say to you, get up! And – BAM! – his eyes were open and he was looking around. There was this man that everybody seemed to be looking at, along with him, of course. The townspeople were kind of looking at both of them in a mixture of shock, horror, amazement – there were several things, several looks they had in their eyes.

He realized that he was on a moving platform that some people were carrying, like he was sick or – or dead or something.

Wait. He was dead. He remembered dying. He fell off the scaffolding and hit his head on the rocks and died.

No, how could he have died? He was sitting up, wasn’t he? But his mother was looking at him with a look he had never seen the like of: shock, amazement, some – no, a lot of relief. He had died, hadn’t he?

He started talking and it soon became clear that it was going to be hard for him to stop talking. “Where am I? What am I doing here? Why am I on this big bench thing? Who are you? Tell me something, somebody.”

But it was almost as if it was too much to even hardly look at him, much less talk to him. The people around him – were all in black, so it must be a funeral. “Tell me something,” he screamed. “What is happening?”

The man looked at him and said, “It’s okay. Here is your mother.” And he handed the young man over to his mother. His mother grabbed him and hugged harder than he had felt her hug him ever. “Oh, Ezra, oh, Ezra” she said over and over again.

Then, to top it all off, everybody started hollering. They were praising God and in general making a lot of noise. This was not the funeral noise he had usually heard growing up. This was different. This was praise from a group of people who obviously had seen a miracle.

And the miracle was – him. Him. He had been dead and now he wasn’t anymore.

This man (and he found out real quick) was named Jesus. He had heard of him. He went around doing amazing things. Well, for sure, this was an amazing thing. If he raised him from the dead, that was an amazing thing, and that is the truth.

But you know, everybody had another feature obvious on their faces. Fear. Just plain fear. They had seen someone reach over and pull someone else over the edge of death back into life.

And you have to admit that doing something like that is scary. It isn’t something you can look at and just pass off as interesting or entertaining. It mean that this man, this Jesus, had power over life and death.

He wanted to know more. He could take care of his mother and still find out about Jesus. He figured one of the reasons Jesus brought him back from the dead was to take care of his widowed mother. And he would. But he also wanted to find out more about this seemingly ordinary-looking fountain of life.

When Jesus left town, Ezra was with him, as was his mother, Miriam. That young man wanted to know something good. And he would find out if he could.

daily java: falling down

Daily Java:

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. (Ecclesiastes 4:10)

I fell again today. It seems that I am going along fine then boom! I fall.

This time I almost took out the little bookcase where we store our natural grain cereals and such, along with sugar and flour. I didn’t break it, but did a good job anyway.

I felt myself going and went over kind of sideways backwards and landed with my head on two plastic storage containers, both of which I broke.

It didn’t hurt me, but it certainly hurts my pride. It is one of those things that makes you feel stupid. And as tall as I am, my fall is slow and majestic and I hit hard. Again, it was fortunate that I hit the strorage containers because they gave easily under the imacvt of my head.

Pain is limited to my left lower back. I wrenched my back, so I just am probably going to have trouble moving tomorrow morning.

The worst part is the weakness I have right now. I guess it is the rapid weight loss combined with the inabililty to get any real nourishment from food (I have trouble eating), but whatever it is, I could not get my arms and legs under me. It was almost impossible to get up. I finally butt-walked over to the bed that is on carpet and with Ella’s help, got everything together and got up.

All told, it was probably five minutes before I could get up off the floor.

And I hated every minute of it. I hated the fact that Ella saw me in such a tremendous state of weakness, I hate the fact that I am that weak. I have always been the strong one. But not now.

I have thought about it all evening. If it happened when I was by myselff, I am not sure what I would do. I certainly am not going to call someone to pick me up. I am not that big anymore, but still. And to say that I have my pride sounds shallow, but it is true, I guess.

However, now that the pride is going, I am going to have to replace it with something else, something that will get me off the floor.

daily java: each of us has a demon

Daily Java:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. (Hebrews 12:1-3)

Each of us has a demon of some kind. It may be a small, nagging one that constantly hits on us. It may be massive and major and is visible to all who see us, even in the middle of the day.

But whatever it is, each of us has one. The writer of Hebrews calls it a sin that so easily trips us up. He may have been talking about sin in general and how it is always so ready to get us. Or  and I think this is it – he may have been talking about some particular sin that is always ready to rear its ugly head.

It may be pornography, something no one but you would know. Computers have made that sin so prevalent that it is in danger of destroying our young men.

It may be pride, getting carried away with praise and adulation. This is common among preachers if they are good at what they do. Any time someone compliments them in any way, no matter how small, BOOM!, there sits the demon ready to chew on you.

It may be greed, it may be power, it may be overeating, it may be drugs or alcohol – any of these things.

But whatever it is, if left unchecked, it may very well send you to hell, overwhelming your positive God-given power and chewing the insides out of you until you become nothing more than a external shadow of what you used to be.

And it will kill you. We have to recognize it, we have to see it and know what it is. Someone once said that recognizing your problem is half the battle. That can be true, although it isn’t all the time. But one thing for sure, you have to know your demon.

I know mine and I hate them because they stand between God and me, between the spirituality and holiness I want to achieve and what I am left with.

However, there is one difference between what we know and what is real. The difference is that the power of God will help you, even when you are too weak to do much yourself. You are caught up in that sin, you hate it and find yourself engaging in it more and more. But you have that power, that grace of God, that strength that is only available from the Lord Almighty himself.

He will help you deal with it and he will help you overcome it, if you want. It may require major surgery to get it done. Jesus himself said that sometimes dealing with this is like plucking out an eye or lopping off a hand.

But sometimes it has to be done. He will give you that strength and he will overcome. The apostle Paul said:

No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. (Romans 8:37-38).

He said that Jesus was greater than any of these things. There is no demon that is able to destroy us as long as we have our eyes on Jesus, our hands fixed firmly on him, our hearts centered on his, our affections set on things above. We will overcome.

The next time the demon comes up, and it will probably be tomorrow or even tonight (they are tireless little creeps), remember that Jesus will carry you through. He overcomes and he saves.

And he delivers us from the powers of sin if we but let him.

daily java

Daily Java:

Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. They said, “Sir, we want to meet Jesus.” Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus. (John 12:20-22)

Next week is Palm Sunday, the Sunday Jesus makes his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. People just do not know what to do with him. He is phenomenally popular, so the religious leaders can’t figure him out. The others, the regular people, want to see him and meet with him and to talk with him. His popularity is growing.

But there is a problem. He is a volatile figure. Those who consider themselves to be in charge are always having confrontations with him. And those confrontations are getting worse the more popular he gets.

Jesus calls them dishonest, unethical, murderers – since they stand in the line of the people who killed all the prophets who came before him. He is out of control in their eyes and they have to do something. They just do not know what.

Even people who are not supposed to care about what the Jews are doing are coming to talk with him. Everybody (but them) likes him and his firebrand style of preaching and theology. He brings a fresh new way of looking at things and it scares them.

They have to do something. But what? They cannot quite outright kill him. The crowds love him and that would turn them away from them. And they have no real charges against him. So what do they do?

They bide their time. They wait. Waiting is the best thing anyone can do anyway.

And it works. In their minds, Jesus goes just a bit too far. In Mark 14, Jesus said that they could destroy this temple and he would raise it up in three days. Even though he was talking about his body and that he would rise again, they took it another way, and they had what they wanted.

They set the stage for his arrest (quietly with Judas) and for his subsequent trial and execution. In just a week, he comes into Jerusalem in a publicly popular procession and then adds to their anger by clearing out the temple of all the money changers.

Of course, the waiting worked two ways. They got what they wanted, but it turned out to be exactly what God wanted too. It was time for Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. That was the part they didn’t mean, but it was perfect.

Next week, Palm Sunday, and the plan of God begins to be revealed.

daily java - there is no God

Daily Java:

Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”  (Psalm 53)

This verse is misused too many times. We use it to say that those who deny God are fools. And when we do, we are usually thinking about some of the classical atheists who come along and deny the very existence of God.

But it speaks to more than just that. It also speaks to all those who claim that God cannot work in certain ways, or that God will not like what it is you are doing, or that God will not be with you in something you are doing.

In fact, usually when they do this, they have weighed what it is you are doing in judgment and have decided that God will not like it.

In other words, they have put themselves in the place of God and are judging what you are doing.

You start a new program and someone says, there is not way that will work and God will not be glorified. So they do everything they can to stop that program.

It may also be someone who has decided that the Lord only likes one kind of music and that he cannot or will not work through any other kind.

It may be someone who has decided that God only likes one translation of the Bible and will not allow himself or his nature to be shown in any other.

The God-denier may be one who looks at you and says that there is no way God could ever use someone as worthless and no-account as you, that you are useless in his kingdom.

The God-denier only likes one style of worship, he only likes one style of literature, he only wants on kind of anything. And when he does that, he denies God’s presence in whatever it is that you are doing. He says, in essence and very much so in reality, “There is no God in that.”

It is a curious arrogance that goes so far as to remove all that you do not agree with under the guise of doctrine, or teachings, or tradition, in order to get whatever it is that you want.

Any time you look at something and immediately judge it as being wrong in God’s sight, make sure that it is not your own ideas that you have substituted for the will of God.

It is hard to part with old ideas, that is for sure. And much of what we complain about not being in the will of God is pure jealousy or nostalgia gone bad.

There are certain kinds of music I do not like, yet I have seen young people brought to Jesus by that very music. It is hard to imagine trying to bring someone to the grace of God by using a version of the Bible that quite frankly is not that good. Yet, you see people who are touched by the simplicity of the version and are brought to Jesus.

After all, we are all imperfect translations of the will of God, yet we bring people to him through our foolish preaching to save those who believe (1 Corinthians 1:21).

When it comes down to it, how do we measure up? Someone may look at us and say, “That person will never be able to bring some to Jesus.” And they may really and truly think so. Yet, so many are brought to God by those who otherwise were cast-offs in this world.

Whatever you use to preach the gospel, no matter what it is, if it is true to the teachings of Jesus, it is God in the process doing it.

And it doesn’t matter a bit what others may think. Jesus was the perfect example of this. Can anything good come from Nazareth?, they said. Can anything good come from someone so obviously unqualified as Jesus is? Yet it was he, the apostle Peter said, who was that chief Cornerstone that brings humanity into the presence of The Lord God Almighty. And it was Jesus who mandated that we go and do the same, as unqualified as we are.

People who say that there is no God in what you are doing are wrong. If you are in the will of God and live in him and serve him, God is in you.

And others will see it.

Psalm 55

Psalm 55

For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be accompanied by stringed instruments.

¹ Listen to my prayer, O God.
    Do not ignore my cry for help!
² Please listen and answer me,
    for I am overwhelmed by my troubles.
³ My enemies shout at me,
    making loud and wicked threats.
They bring trouble on me
    and angrily hunt me down.

⁴ My heart pounds in my chest.
    The terror of death assaults me.
⁵ Fear and trembling overwhelm me,
    and I can’t stop shaking.
⁶ Oh, that I had wings like a dove;
    then I would fly away and rest!
⁷ I would fly far away
    to the quiet of the wilderness. Interlude
⁸ How quickly I would escape—
    far from this wild storm of hatred.

⁹ Confuse them, Lord, and frustrate their plans,
    for I see violence and conflict in the city.
¹⁰ Its walls are patrolled day and night against invaders,
    but the real danger is wickedness within the city.
¹¹ Everything is falling apart;
    threats and cheating are rampant in the streets.

¹² It is not an enemy who taunts me—
    I could bear that.
It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me—
    I could have hidden from them.
¹³ Instead, it is you—my equal,
    my companion and close friend.
¹⁴ What good fellowship we once enjoyed
    as we walked together to the house of God.

¹⁵ Let death stalk my enemies;
    let the grave swallow them alive,
    for evil makes its home within them.

¹⁶ But I will call on God,
    and the Lord will rescue me.
¹⁷ Morning, noon, and night
    I cry out in my distress,
    and the Lord hears my voice.
¹⁸ He ransoms me and keeps me safe
    from the battle waged against me,
    though many still oppose me.
¹⁹ God, who has ruled forever,
    will hear me and humble them. Interlude
For my enemies refuse to change their ways;
    they do not fear God.

²⁰ As for my companion, he betrayed his friends;
    he broke his promises.
²¹ His words are as smooth as butter,
    but in his heart is war.
His words are as soothing as lotion,
    but underneath are daggers!

²² Give your burdens to the Lord,
    and he will take care of you.
    He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

²³ But you, O God, will send the wicked
    down to the pit of destruction.
Murderers and liars will die young,
    but I am trusting you to save me.