Pastor Bob, Hope Profession PhD

Our church will be celebrating Pastor Bob's life this Sunday, September 5th. You can tune in on our Youtube channel Crossroads Bible Church, 8 am in Spanish and 11 am in English. 

For the past 4 years of my life I've had the wonderful privilege of sitting on Pastor Bob's Sunday school. You know what this Sunday school has meant to me and what it has done for my faith, for I have written Pastor Bob's name on my blog several times as you can read here, here, here, and here. My dearest Pastor Bob went to his eternal home last Tuesday, August 24, 2021 the very day he was celebrating his 59th wedding anniversary with his much beloved Mary. 

Can a man depart from this earth having only positive things said about him from everyone that surrounded him? My Pastor Bob has proven you can. But what do these positive things being said about him do? Point to Jesus. 

If I had to use only two words to describe Pastor Bob, I would use the words DUTY and LOVE. 

Let's start with the first word, Duty. 

I met Pastor Bob during a time when I was heavily struggling with my physical health still recovering from the blast of chemo and radio and all the surgeries that stripped my body from normal function. But, I was very comfortable letting all that be "justification" for my lack of service or my lack of character. Who can blame me? Who can ask more of me after all I had suffered? At first, my heart was hardened by the "no one understands me" thought that also comfortably allowed me to be cynical with others. And then I met Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob not only could understand me; he could rebuke me. And rebuke me he did. He had been living with cancer for the past 9 years when I met him. He knew all about the pain of chemo (constant chemo in his case), the pain of neuropathy (which in his case was so severe compared to mine that he described the sensation in his feet as walking on stumps.). He understood alright! And that gave me an instant connection to him. In those first years, he and Mary would check up on me constantly which made me feel so absolutely loved. There was something about both of them that just drew you in, something in their smile, in the way they talked to you, in the way they looked at you. My mentor Diane said it perfectly on our remembrance meeting last Sunday. She said, "Bob had the special ability of making you feel like you were his favorite... And then you realized he made everyone feel that too." It was exactly like I would have described it. I felt his favorite. And then I learned others felt that too, which was kind of heartbreaking, hehe. Can you imagine having that ability of making those who surround you feel like you are their favorite person? It was Pastor Bob's super power. When I started at church, I signed up for a Sunday school class in Spanish that was taught in the main hall. I liked it, but it wasn't what I was looking for. There was this one time when I had just started serving in the music ministry that I was feeling very sleepy, and I wanted to take a nap between church meetings (which is when Sunday school takes place.) I found a dark corner in a room next to the main hall, and there I heard it for the first time: Pastor Bob's Sunday school.  My dear Diane, who I still didn't know closely, was attending it, which drew my attention further because I also wanted to find a way to get close to her. Everyone was participating and talking, which didn't happen in my other class. I knew in my heart that was the place for me to be. It had been a long time since I had desired Biblical instruction and had received it more in the obligated sense. I longed for my Sunday school classes where Pastor Bob would break down verse by verse of the book we were reading and sometimes only cover 5 verses per class. And there I learned about his duty, which he made it clear was my duty. Pastor Bob didn't believe in wasting your time, wasting your emotions, wasting your resources. "Your duty is to the Kingdom, to God, and the gospel," he would teach. He certainly had lived that way during his entire life as a missionary to various tribes in Panama and in his service as main pastor to our church. But his duty had not ended with cancer or a "more mature age". He kept on his work with "Juntos Podemos Curundu" which he presided over. He kept on his small group and his Sunday school. Very few understood what his health struggles were because he never once showed them, complained about them, or allowed that to stop him from his duty of living everyday for Christ. But I knew. I knew the chronic pain he must have endured for almost a decade. I knew the fatigue of chemo, the impotence of a body that you no longer count on or know, the stubbornness of wanting to be normal when your body is broken. Pastor Bob was nicknamed "Bob the builder" rightfully so, but his family would have wanted him to stop his building prowess for the sake of his body. Watching his unbreakable peace, undeniable joy, and his unrelenting trust in his Savior were a constant slap in my faith to "snap out of it." 

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Pastor Bob certainly lived this verse. My struggles were all that were before me back then. Pastor Bob would call me over and over again to put Jesus before me. And if I was complacent in my sin because "I'm in pain", Pastor Bob would not let that slide. He would call me to fulfill the duty I was called on to do: live as for the Lord. 

1 Corinthians 13 1If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

This chapter in the Word is very well-known. The love chapter. But I feel it perfectly described my dearest Pastor Bob too. Here are other things said about him during our remembrance meeting last Sunday: "Bob was a rescuer. He lived what he believed, and believed in what he lived. He loved to be a fisherman, but was also a fisher of man. A chocolate lover." That last one made me happy, because he once told me my chocolate cake was his favorite chocolate cake in the world. I'll be making that cake for my birthday celebration this weekend. Some tears will most certainly fall after making it, for I always sought to save a piece for my dear Pastor Bob. "My doctor says I shouldn't eat that, but your cake really tempts me," is what he said the last time I brought a piece to our Sunday school for him. I knew what that meant. This was pre-pandemic. Bob's love for people was very on the nose. He couldn't hide it. My dear Tia Mercedes would tell me stories of discussions she would have with Bob about Juntos Podemos. "He needs to be tougher," she would say, "but he loves too much." Tia Mercedes would never miss a day of Sunday school and would make me accountable if I missed it. The Lord certainly has surrounded me with the most amazing people that I needed to be surrounded by. I wish I would have taken up my tia´s invitation to go to Bob's small group. I missed the past two months of Bob's Sunday school because I had volunteered to serve in the kid's combined Sunday school for those months. I had felt in my heart my time was running out and asked Miss Zuly if I could miss my last day of combined Sunday school to be on Bob's class. That class was taught by Selwyn, Diane's husband. I had indeed missed my chance. I thought I had more time. I really did. Bob made you believe it. Even to the end, he wouldn't let out how bad it was and what it meant that he kept on teaching us. I take solace that the last months we had been recording the Sunday school, and I can still watch him. I wished I had had more years with him like most of our Sunday class did. I got four years. I could have had 30 years, and it would not have been enough. I love Pastor Bob and his wife Mary with all my heart. Please pray for Mary. I can't fathom what it's like to lose my life's partner of 59 years. Pray for her health that has also been in decline the past two years. I am overjoyed to know Bob is finally home pain-free, cancer-free, with his new body ready to build again. 

I titled this post: Pastor Bob, Hope Profession PhD because I think that is what Bob's profession was: hope. I had lived without hope after cancer for a long time. Bob showed me it was possible to live with cancer and have a PhD in hope. He lived what he believed indeed! Here are more verse that describe how Pastor Bob lived:

 Romans 5 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 15 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

18 Proverbs 23 17 For surely there is a hereafter,
And your hope will not be cut off.

Romans 12 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Pictures by @ruthysworld

Selwyn ended our meeting with this verse and I want to end on it too:

Revelations 1 1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Deliverance from Death

       I am not one to read the Bible where it opened. I'm systematic. I know what I am reading, or I know what I want to read when I want to read something other than what I am systematically reading. But today I read my Bible where it opened. I don't like being the superstitious kind that thinks everything is a sign and when things align it's "God talking to me." But I guess this kind of thinking is prideful and closing me up to look beyond what the eye can see. After reading my friend Diane's book God in the Meantime, I am trying to seek more God's voice like she often did. And I have to say, today I heard His voice so loudly I want to share it with you. 

    My Bible opened to Psalm 116. As a systematic reader that often reads something in the Old Testament and something in the New with some Proverbs and Psalms sprinkled in there most days, I have read Psalms many times in my lifetime. I often overlook them as profound chapters until I study how many times Jesus and other men in the Bible quotes them. After today's reading, I have to take a closer look at Psalms. Before I go into the Psalm, let me tell you what's been going on with me. 

    I have shared how I am taking antidepressants because I suffer from clinical depression. Clinical depression, which has a very physical component due to chemical imbalances in my brain exacerbated by normal everyday problems, is a mental and emotional disorder that is a recognized illness and takes just as many lives as cancer does. This has been the longest I've been on antidepressants taking them since October of last year. I usually take antidepressants when my depression is getting into the "heightened desire or thoughts of suicide" stage that you always hear on antidepressant medication commercials. I always wait until it gets really bad before I seek medical and pharmaceutical help. I've been fighting the stigma on my disease by being timelier in getting the help I need so that I don't let things go too far. But! I don't let myself be on the medication for too long for fear of creating dependency. And so, I am weaning off my antidepressant. I've been steadily feeling better and getting a better grip on my mental and emotional health, so I felt the time to go off the meds was now. The problem with this is that weaning off of these types of medication is dangerous and hard. The doctors warn you that weaning off of them will bring about suicidal thoughts. "This seems crazy. How can me not taking a medication make me think of killing myself?" Well, they're not lying. It's insane. The thoughts come out of nowhere and for absolutely no reason. This begs the question: Should I wean myself from them? Let's answer that question after going into the Psalms. The Psalms was titled "Thanksgiving for Deliverance from Death."

Psalm 116

Verse 1 and 2: 

I love the Lord, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.
2 Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

    This first verse gripped my attention. It doesn't say "He answered my supplications. He gave me what I asked." It says, "He heard me," and this was reason enough for the psalmist to decide to call upon Him as long as he lived. I wrote in my previous post how unanswered prayer has really tested my faith. And here the psalmist is telling me he loves Him for the mere fact that He listens to his supplications... 

6 

Verse 6 - 9: 

The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.
7 Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. 

For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
9 I will walk before the Lord.

    I often battle with my feelings about my cancer because I wish it had never happened and I am eternally grateful it did. It changed me. It brought me low, real low. My friends laugh when I share with them, I am a "reformed pharisee", but I am. I grew up in a church that created division and classes according to "maturity" and "sanctity." It looked down on the "lukewarm Christians" and I was taught to be and act this way. I wondered what the Bible commentary on "simple" had to say. 

“The simple; sincere and plain-hearted persons, who dare not use those frauds and crafty and wicked artifices in saving themselves or destroying their enemies but wait upon God with honest hearts in his way and for his time of deliverance. Such persons he calls simple or foolish, as this word is commonly rendered, not because they are really so, but because the world esteems them so.” (Poole) 

“Not only is God gracious, but he is also gracious to the little people, to the plain, to commoners, to the everyday person on the bus or in the shop – to people like the psalmist. That is one of the great glories of our God. When Jesus called his disciples, he called fishermen and tax collectors. When the angels announced the birth of Jesus, they appeared to shepherds.” (Boice)

    When I consider Jesus, He would have sat with the other group in my church and not with the "mature group" I belonged to. Cancer stripped me of any pride about myself, about my body, about my mental capacities, about my Christian maturity, about my youth or physical abilities. It broke me completely where I could not depend on anything I could do and solely cry out to the Lord in my need with absolutely nowhere else to go. Do you know what a gift that is? As I got better and better, I tried with all my might to hold on to that feeling and total dependance, but my humanity came back!  

    The psalmist was delivered from death. I was delivered from death. If you have been here, you know I struggle with survivor's guilt. "Of course, he can sing to the Lord! He was spared. But what about the others?" is usually my first thought. Let's see what the psalm keeps saying:

Verse 12 and 13: 

12 What shall I render to the Lord
For all His benefits toward me?
13 I will take up the cup of salvation,

And call upon the name of the Lord. 

 

    Pastor Bob said something that has been replaying over and over in my head these past weeks of weaning: "Jesus paid it all for us. There is nothing that can take our Salvation away from us. We are saved. We have the gift of eternal life. With that alone, we should live the most joyful lives ever. We have nothing to worry about anymore ever again!" I believe this is what it means to "take up the cup of salvation." What else can I do for all the benefits God has bestowed upon me than to live in gratitude!  

Verse 15: 

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord

Is the death of His saints. 

 

    I thought long and hard on this verse. How had I not studied it before? What does it mean? I prayed God to speak to me like I haven't in a long time. "He loves my children far more than I could ever love them," is one of the most comforting thoughts I have when I consider the lives of my girls don't rest solely on what I do. He is at work in their lives far beyond than I. If they were to die, it would hurt Him more than it would hurt me. God's saints (His children adopted through the blood of Jesus Christ) are precious to Him. Here the psalmist recognizes he was spared from death, but knows death is a reality to many of God's saints. Their death doesn’t go over God's head. He knows. He is there. He holds them. This is why I have been learning to stop "putting things in perspective." You often do this when you want to lessen your feelings about something. "I am in chronic pain but at least I am not a quadriplegic." "I lost my job due to Covid but at least I haven't lost a loved one." Putting things in perspective to lessen your pain doesn't work and only hurts. They come from lies from Satan. For me, the lies were "How could you be spared, and Kara Tippets wasn't?" And these lies become worse when you try to view your personal relationship with God from what happens to others. This is often the case I see in those who profess to be atheist. "How can you say God is loving with all the hurt, killing, illness, poverty, and injustice you see around the world?" These atheists usually come from a good background and have not personally experienced what they profess to be the reasons not to believe in God. And the people who have actually experienced them are usually the first to cry out and cling to God. It goes back to the point of being simple. I can only view God from His personal dealing with me, and His personally dealing with me was deliverance. And to those that wasn't, precious is to Him. I will only know how precious is to Him when I myself walk through the doorstep of death and feel His love and comfort and being held in that moment by Him. This takes me back to the time I was on my cancer treatment, and I suffered from unshakable joy and trust and faith. I'm telling you the best thing that ever happened to me!

 

    I am weaning off my meds. I was having the most wonderful girls' night with the best friends the body of Christ could have gifted me with here in Panama, Jackie and Tita, and I couldn't stop knitting while sharing with them the Friends' Reunion because I was scared that if I stopped knitting anxiety would take over me. Anxiety that I am experiencing for the mere fact of weaning. I was having the most wonderful family trip eating at a lovely seaside restaurant and thoughts of "you should kill yourself" came to my mind for the mere fact of weaning. It's insane. The difference between me before treatment and me now is that before I would desire these thoughts and fully embrace them. Now, I strike them back with the words of Pastor Bob; I take up the cup of salvation. I fully reject those thoughts! And, slowly the thoughts come less and less, and I open my Bible more and more! 

I accept my deliverance from death and praise God for it instead of questioning Him on why me. 

I open my eyes to see how bountifully the Lord has dealt with me.

 

We found this wild beach close to the San Lorenzo fort in Colon. It was such a great trip with mom out for the first time since her surgery last October.

Family pic at the fort!

My mom was finally able to walk since breaking her pinkie toe three months ago!

Friends Reunion girls' night with Tita and Jackie. We loved having Francia over too!

Second trip to Colon!

I love this man!

Alyla, as my daughters call my mom, is so happy to come with us again. Emmalee said she had been waiting for family trips to come back and spent the night telling her grandparents in Honduras every detail of the trip.

Finally went to the Canal expansion visitor center!

He had been waiting long to finally visit. He was the happiest!

    Oh, how bountiful the Lord is with me!

Is Your Faith Shattered from Unanswered Prayer?

I would be lying if I said my faith hasn't been tested from time to time to the point of almost shattering. Curiously though, when I was sick I had no faith issues. I remember being in the hallway waiting to see the doctor with my carcinoma positive test on my hand about to hear what my fate was going to be. I got a call from my sister who was in great distress over my positive result. "I'm going to be OK. This has not escaped My Father's control. Be confident and do not be afraid." A lady was listening to my conversation because even though my words were calm, sweet, and encouraging to my sister miles away fearing for her sister's life, streams of tears were flowing down my cheeks. She came over and said how stunned she was by my words even though she could see that I was in pain. This continued pretty much during my whole time in chemo and surgeries. I was the one comforting family and friends at the hospital on every surgery and at the doctor's appointments. 

It was easy to have faith. It was the only choice I had. My mortality was so real that my faith in an immortal God was my only hope. I turned to Him in great hope because it was the only hope I had. If I was to die at the age of 30, at least there was something more waiting for me.  

After a year of treatment when all the dust settled, doubt and anxiety took over. Why? C.S. Lewis explains it best in his book "The Problem of Pain"

“At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over--I shake myself dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed." 

This quote especifically "I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days" hits hard. I spent so much time in prayer asking for Kinsley to be spared from her cancer while my chances were looking better and hers were looking grimmer that afterward prayer triggered my PTSD hard. 

I expressed my unbelief to my Bible study group in tears last Sunday. I told them how a brother from my church in Honduras was in the hospital for Covid and how the church asked us to join them in prayer. I had seen so many people in his situation die of Covid in spite of thousand prayers that I did not pray. I didn't want to. He died anyways. My faith had been shattered. I told them how I knew that the power of my prayers was not in me saying the prayer but on the One I pray to. Yet my heart was struggling. It had been struggling since I saw many friends lose a mom or dad, or when I lost a friend in his early 30s about to get married. A brother in my Bible study group recently lost his wife to cancer. He wrote the pastor concerning my comments and struggles. "What would happen if God answered all our prayers for healing? We would have thousands of new believers. We would have thousands of prayer requests." Faith would be dependent on what God can do for us, not on Who God is. Pastor Bob followed this with "Faith has to have an object of our belief. Our faith is not on what He can do for us. It is faith in what He already did for us. Faith is in Who He is and what He has planned for us, which is our hope."

Pastor Bob said that someone once suggested that if you were struggling to know Who God is you should read the book of Colossians. (That is definitely on my TO DO list next. I've read it plenty of times before, but I want to read it again to see what Pastor Bob meant.) Focusing on the person instead of the actions is what keeps marriages and relationships alive and well. If you focus on what they do instead of who they are, it is easy to stop loving them, especially when you feel they have failed you. Today, in our very first church meeting since Covid hit 59 weeks ago, we were singing a song that said "He is my confidence for great is His faithfulness, and He has never failed me yet." A thought pops into my hand: "He didn't fail you. You were spared and you survived." But I would lie if I didn't say the thought that He did fail the others I prayed for that weren't spared. 

My favorite songwritter in the world, Jon Foreman, recently wrote a song called "Jesus, I have my doubts." Everyone in our fan Facebook group was posting that it meant he had abandoned his faith. Expressing your unbelief is a bit of taboo on our Christian circles.  I wish it wasn't because how are you going to get support with your struggles and the lies Satan is feeding you if you don't open up about them? Opening up my bottled up struggles with faith have done so much in helping me get out of the valley of unbelief and take me closer to the mountain of confidence.

After voicing these thoughts to my Bible study group, we read these verses together: 

Hebrew 4

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Isn't it refreshing that God tells us He understands us because He walked in our shoes? We can approach confidently in our time of need, which includes our times of unbelief. How else will I return to a state of belief otherwise?

Hebrews 10
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

People leave the church because they no longer believe. They never spoke of this and never got the proper encouragement. His great faithfulness is not in Him giving us all we ask. It's in Him always being by our side, even when we move far from Him. He is faithful even when we hurt Him. He has never failed a single one of His children!

Hebrews 10

35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. 37 For,
“In just a little while,
He Who is coming will come
and will not delay.”
38 And,
“But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

It's not just trust. It's CONFIDENT trust. It says DO NOT THROW AWAY! How will my thoughts be corrected if I do not seek for the truths in His Word? But when a person is struggling with his or her faith, he or she need the body to encourage them. I was directed to put my eyes away from the pain and death and back to Jesus. My heart was encouraged. My mind was filled with Scripture. My faith was strengthened. The lies were brought to the light. 

Do not shrink back and be destroyed. The richly reward is Jesus. Do not miss out on Jesus because you have been silent about your strugges with faith. 

Open up and let the enemy be pushed back.

Do not leave the church. 

He is our great reward, the only reward!

Dear Father,

Thank you, Lord, for my study group. Thank you for the truth they brought to my heart. Thank you that they encouraged me to pray always when someone asks for prayer. They told me that I may not see the healing I was praying for, but I don't what my prayers do to prepare the person who is about to depart or to comfort the bereft. I don't know what praying does, but it's never in vain. It is never in vain turning to Him. Thank you for spurring me to be in the group of those who hold unservingly to the hope we profess and belong to the those who do not shrink back. Thank you for letting me know you are not unaware of my weakness, and you understand me. Help me trust and see and hear you. 

Amen

The art of mindfulness

I've told you before how I use to be an avid pray-er. I had been taught by the Lord that an intentional grateful heart was the key to happiness. Pastor Bob says "Happiness has to do with happenings. Joy has to do with Jesus." So I think what I mean by happiness is actually joy, but it felt like happiness too when pairing my life situations with gratitude.

I was living in a single-bedroom home with two kids under two and a husband who worked in another town seeing him only twice a month but practicing prayer and gratitude like crazy. So, I was  happy! It was during these circumstances and time in my life that I got cancer.

Laying in bed became terrifying with my mind constantly fabricating images of chemo not working, cancer scans showing metastasis, and little girls growing up not remembering their mom. I would pray and ask the Lord to assuage these thoughts and fill them with hope and His joy. I could pray and pray, but my distressing visions were too much to bare. The doctor prescribed medication so my mom got me on Prozac and Rivotril. These definitely helped me sleep and rest, and I was able to wean from them quickly because the effects of chemo were doing their part in putting me to sleep. After treatment, surgery, recovery, and three years in remission, I had not learned to stop fearing my mind. I had developed PTSD. But what hurt me the most was my inability to pray and talk to God as I used to. You see, you need quiet time to talk to God. How was I going to have quiet time when that terrified me?

My husband would scold me for taking my phone into the shower. "You´re going to ruin it with the humidity," he would try to reason with me. I would play YouTube videos or sitcom episodes to have noise while I shower. I couldn't bare the thought of being on my own with my mind even in the shower. I would stay awake long past my bedtime watching anything until I was tired enough that I knew I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. My husband would also scold me about this. "You´ll be cranky in the morning from lack of sleep. You´ll get headaches." This fear was ruining my stuff and my life. I finally confessed to him why I was doing these things. It pained him that he didn't know how to help, so he stopped scolding or moving me to the bed when I would fall asleep in the couch.

I told a friend about this, and she suggested to practice mindfulness.
I googled "mindfulness" and read the first definition I found.

"What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness can be described as the practice of paying attention in the present moment, and doing it intentionally and with non-judgment.  Mindfulness meditation practices refer to the deliberate acts of regulating attention through the observation of thoughts, emotions and body states. Typical mindfulness activities include:

• Mindful non-judgmental awareness of breath, body, feelings, emotions and/or thoughts (in sitting meditation practice or throughout the day)
• Mindful eating
• Mindful body scan in a sitting or lying down position
• Listening with non-judgment"

I kept reading here and there, and it is basically achieved by the practice of meditation and breathing and whatnot. I liked the part "non-judgmental." I had become so judgmental of myself that I began loathing writing on my devotional because all I was doing was enumerating to God all the ways I was failing and letting Him down in all my roles as a mom, daughter, disciple, and wife. It was not conducive to me wanting to spend more time in my devotional. The Spirit had revealed to me that this is not what God wanted of our time together or even how He viewed me. He reminded me of the worth and value I have to God and how He shows me that love everyday and through the scriptures. The temptation to berate myself is always a struggle, but I'm mindful not to let that be a main part of my interactions with my Lord.

I had tried mindfulness and meditation during my cancer recovery with no results, so I had given up on the idea. I kept studying and researching the whole "mind-over-body" to see how strengthening my mind would help me heal my broken body. It was all for naught! I was left with zero resilience. My mind was more shattered than before. I would break down, have panic attacks, or have fits of depression at the simplest opposition or struggle.

I feel sorry for anyone facing their own mind without the shelter of faith that God is working through you and a for you. I asked Pastor Steve how to achieve my praying eagerness again and he recommended "fake it until you make it." The friend that suggested mindfulness counseled that avoiding being alone with my thoughts would only make it worse and give the thoughts more power. I decided to start trying it out, if it only meant not bringing my phone with me to the shower. I found that being able to quiet down my voice instead of drowning it with the nonsense of random sitcom voices was making me more willing to start praying. I had dreaded spending alone time praying. It took me a few "alone sessions" to realize that I had spent so much time in prayer during my cancer treatment that now it would spark a little of my PTSD. Anything that sparks your PTSD takes you right back to the emotional state you felt when the trauma was created. I had no idea trauma could hurt something so precious to me as prayer. I thought it was only a fight with my own faith.

I have written less and less in the past years not because I don't want to. I like writing about the things God teaches me. I write about how He changes my life or how He shows Himself. The reason I don't write so often anymore is because I don't feel I have much to say to help someone in this situation for I feel I'm struggling just as much. BUT! I have other reasons to write than just recording His work in my life. When I put my mind in written form, the Spirit has a way of revealing lies I'm believing and truths I need to remember. One of these truths: "I have nothing to offer to anyone! Anything I have to offer comes from Him!"

So, I don't have any answers, but let's see what the Bible says. While I don't prescribe to Bible studies that take verses from here and there, I wanted to see what results would show when I googled "Bible verses with the word 'Mind'."

1 Peter 13
"13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;"
Isaiah 26:3
3 "You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You."

2 Corinthians 10
"3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,"

Colossians 3

"2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth."

Matthew 22
"37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

Psalm 19
"14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."

The intentional gratitude I had been practicing before my cancer days was a form a mindfulness. It was a mindfulness not of myself but of God. I was able to practice gratitude through any circumstance because I was trusting God and trusting His control over my life. I was aware that whatever was happening was His sovereign will and I could rest in that truth. I was mindful of His love and His power.

Mindfulness means being present in the moment. I find some Biblical support for that statement, because we are told that we only have today. But I don't want to be present in the moment thinking of myself. There is no hope there! My only hope is Christ. The more I read these google results, the more I read about "the mind of Christ." What is this mind of Christ? It says I have it. How do I access it and let go of my own? 

I feel every day I'm "making it" more than "faking it." In a recent Bible study we were looking at Colossians 4 and verse 3 really popped out to me.

"2 Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart."

This is my heart's desire. I need more prayer in my life and more gratitude in my heart. I'm sorry He has to teach me these truths over and over again, but I'm grateful He is a loving and patient God Who has steadfast love for His lambs like me. And so I'm off to take a quiet shower, where I will once again enjoy taking every small opportunity of "loneliness" during the day to spend it with my Hope and Refuge. And I will seek more "quiet time" to fill my mind with things to come, things from above, the mind of Christ, and be mindful of HIM in every moment. 

Width, Length, Depth, and Height of God´s Love?

Before I share this Bible study with you there is something you need to know:
The pastor who was leading this Bible study, my dear Pastor Bob Gunn, has terminal cancer.
Why do you need to know this?-you might ask.
Well, because what I am about to share, which he shared to me, only makes sense when you comprehend it through the Spirit. It is a prayer that Paul the apostle made and he too understood this can only make sense through the Spirit. To human knowledge this sounds insane.
But other than sounding insane, it might sound insensitive coming from the wrong person.
If you hear what I am about to share with you from someone who has never experienced true grief and sorrow, it doesn't quite have the same impact.
So it is important for me that you know that Bod has terminal cancer.


Ephesians 3
14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father [f]of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The last portion of this Bible excerpt is widely quoted and misused.  "To Him Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think...." What do Christians think this means? What do you think it means? Do you read that verse out of context and take it to mean that God will grant you whatever you ask of Him just because He can grant it?

It is interesting that Pastor Bob started out asking: "When we pray for others, do we ask for external needs (financial problems, health problems, relational problems) or do we pray for others' spiritual needs (desire to seek His Word and obey, increased faith, a life that is intentionally seeking to glorify Him, and work for the Kingdom). I even ventured to remark: "What do we ask others to pray for for us?" Do we tell others to pray for a deeper relationship with Christ as much as we ask for prayers for our external needs? Paul is praying for our relationship with Christ. His encouragement to have might in our inner man through the Spirit is not so that we can be prosperous, get that job we've been praying for, get that relationship we've been longing for, get that raise, or health, or any other thing we seek on this side of life.  He is asking that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.

First, Bob made sure we understood the difference Paul is trying to make by saying inner man. You see, two man of equal physical capacity can go for a run, but the one who stops first will stop not because of a difference in their physical strength but a difference in their will (inner man). Paul had extensive experience in how what happens in this life can break your will when it is not rooted and grounded in love. This is the reason we have known many Christians who have walked away from the faith when the road got tough. They didn't have deep roots to keep them steady in the storm. They are a tree that has toppled over when the soil was soft.

What is Paul's prayer for having deep roots? Comprehend the width, length, depth, and height of the love of Christ. Here is were it gets really interesting. You see, God loves you too much to leave you as He found you. C.S. Lewis made this statement in The Problem with Pain. He even illustrated it this way: you get a new dog. This dog is not house broken. He doesn't like that you are training him. An older dog would tell him he gets in return a dry, warm home, a full belly each day, love and affection and safety. He would tell the young dog it is all worth it, but this dog can't see the benefits while its being house broken. He sees it as mean. The same things happens to a child. His parents say no. They explain to him that the "no" is to keep him from harms way. He perceives this as mean. As humans, we have experienced what a dog that is not house broken will do to a home. If the dog can't be house broken, he will not remain in the home. We have all experienced what a child who is used to getting his way and has no limits set looks and acts like. You don't want to be near a child like that and he has a very hard time making friends. Why, then, is it so hard for us to perceive the hard things in our life as coming from a loving God?

When we try to picture the width, length, depth, and height of God's love that Paul is praying we comprehend, we picture His love as "loving." We think of His goodness, His blessings toward us, His mercies and forgiveness, His love in Christ dying for us, taking us on as His children, preparing a home for us with Him, seating us next to Him, interceding for us, and making us free of sin. We don't think that His love also involves changing us into a new creature and that requires breaking us first. We don't think that what He wants for us is holiness and He will not leave us as He found us and that house breaking will be painful. Sometimes, it will be VERY painful.

This is why it was important for me that you knew Bob had cancer. He is someone, who only through faith because otherwise this is bonkers, that can say that his condition comes from a loving God still changing him, breaking him in love so that he may be more like Christ.

As Bob was sharing the Bible study, I started seeing that last portion in a different light. Exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.... What could that be for me? My personal answer: to be like Christ. I could never ask or imagine being like Christ. I feel like that is what Paul would have wanted us to think of when telling us of this power that works in us.

Could we see a loved one in need or grief and say to them: "That is God's love in action!"? It would indeed be crazy talk if we didn't understand any of this through faith.
I heard this while battling a strong bout of depression.
I had been downcast lower than I could comprehend why. Is it clinical depression? Is there something wrong in my brain? It is my cancer coming back which is why my body feels so weak and aching?
Can I openly share to you, whoever you are out there that reads this, that I've battled suicide thoughts?
And in the grief-stricken state I was, hearing Bob say this dark desert is God's love in action somehow lifted my Spirit. I write Spirit with a capital "s" because it was not my own spirit that was strengthened. It was my inner man through His Spirit, just like Paul prayed.

Bob closed the study by reminding us that the prayer said "comprehend with all the saints" and "to Him be the glory in the Church." And that is exactly what he did for me in that moment. He reminded me that the width, length, depth, and height of God's love encompasses so much more than I usually think. That in His love He is not taking my desert away as I've asked Him to (and which He could very easily take away), but He is with me there, changing me, transforming me, and making me (even beyond what I could ask or imagine) more like Him. And it was His church and His saints who strengthen that faith and love, as Bod did for me and we do for him.

I have a very dear friend in a very deep, dark desert. I'm hurting with her and for her. I ventured to tell her: "All this is God's love in action. It is part of the width, length, depth, and height of His love. His love is too big for this to be out of its reach." She was strengthen by this and even shared it with those who are hurting along her. My brothers and sisters, this is crazy talk to the world. I pray you are strengthened like Paul strengthened Bob, Bob strengthen me, and I hope to strengthen you, all inside the width, length, depth, and height of His love.