I am not a guy who keeps a journal of my daily activities and thoughts, but about six years ago I made an abortive effort to keep a record of these things that have little significance to the world. As stated, it was an attempt that fizzled out after a couple of years of intermittent stabs at it. There were not many entries in my journal, but some of them were as follows – for whatever good it will do anyone reading them:
5/28/2005 12:39 PM
At the age of 84 certain thoughts come to me that are corollary to my age. I have to face the possibility that I will some day lose my faculties to the point of becoming senile. It’s a scary thought, but not an obsessing one. The pertinent question is this: Do I completely trust in God or do I only believe in Him up to a point? I have made my boast in my Jesus, and now, with the specter of senility looming on the horizon, will that trust begin to crumble and leave me, along with it, in a chaotic cloud of dust? As the possibility of “losing it” begins to turn into reality, will I hasten its advance by my own mental self-destruction? No, no, that cannot happen – not as long as I maintain my trust in God.
6/17/2005 4:02 PM
Just to be clear: I CAN fall victim to senility, but I will NOT aid its work in me by throwing my hands up in surrender. I will not self-destruct.
1/26/2007 6:00 PM
I neglected to write on [my brother] Walter’s passing a couple of weeks ago. It was not that it had no effect on me – it did. I remember babysitting with Walt when he was just a few months old. I myself was only a child nine years of age. Walter had asthma... bad. I can recall once holding him in my arms and rocking him during one of those terrible attacks. Why I would rock him at that time I don’t really know. That wouldn’t have stopped the terrible wheezing and rattling that occurred with each labored breath. It seemed that each gasp would be his last. I was scared for that little brother of mine and didn’t know what to do... there was no such thing as a 911 line. I was not yet saved. But, as I recall, I really prayed for that little flickering life in my arms and struggled with him as he gasped for each breath.
I of course could not foresee that he would live through the asthma attack and even overcome it as he grew older. Nor could I foresee that he would much later die before I did...I who was nine years his senior. I had not the least idea that I would some day look down at him in the repose of death – the death to which I was so fearful many years before that he would succumb at any moment – and feel the all too familiar pain in my heart for finally losing him.
But he wanted to go. He was ready and willing – and so there was a good measure of comfort in knowing that he wanted to leave this place of pain and suffering. This time I knew more about the God he and I both served and I knew it was God’s time, it was Walt’s time and there was no more fitting a time for Walt to leave this life... and I take comfort in that.
My “little brother” has gone home.
I miss him.
Circa 2/2007
Since the passing of Walter in December – which was a compounding of the grief felt at Ruth’s passing a year and a half previously in a family that had not experienced a sibling loss in sixty-three years – my schedule, such as it was, has been a shambles. My faith was not shaken by the loss, but my emotions, it seems, were adversely affected and the turmoil reached into the physical, upsetting my body’s normal resistance to affliction and pushing an already tenuous memory another notch lower. My writing muse took a leave of absence and my ability to meditate was for a time impaired. [And I am experiencing much the same turmoil at this present moment, but now I know a little bit more about the steadfastness of divine love.] Altogether it was not a good time although at present writing I am so grateful for the experience.
But, despite all appearances, it happened as I knew (somewhere deep down) it would: God, who is faithful and infallible, stepped in, in His own way and His own time, and set me back on track.
What have I learned from this? That God will never leave one who trusts in Him, hanging in the wind forever. We may be battered and tossed wildly about like a small craft in a stormy sea, but He will never forsake us. The preceding sentence, that “we may be battered and tossed wildly about like a small craft in a stormy sea,” is such an apt figure of speech – I was most certainly tossed wildly here and there and all my logic and strong will helped me not the least – I was at the mercy of the raging elements. But “... we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” (2Co 4:7) Almighty God will let happen to us just what is needed for our molding and purging; no trial of our faith can go beyond that. We cannot be defeated.
6/6/2007
I have not actually written to any great length about a recent epic struggle I experienced. It was a very bad convergence of most of my personal foibles. It consisted of a number of things: skepticism about my basic worth, of my ever living up to God’s expectations of me and a number of genetic glitches that have plagued me most of my life. But there is one thing notable about the whole long drawn out episode: While my entire faith structure was in danger of completely collapsing, like a structure made of cards, the same faith – which was about to fold under the pressure – nevertheless whispered in my heart, “Believe… only believe… don’t let your faith in Jesus fail you... then you will have nothing at all.”
And why did faith revive just when it was in a most critical condition? It was certainly not my own resilience and strength and perseverance. God activated His worldwide network of believers and someone or someones, somewhere, began to pray for me just as I was going down under the water for the last time. I have to say it was only Christ who brought me through the perilous rapids – I have neither the strength of will nor the skill to navigate those waters on my own. This is no false modesty; it is the real, abased and abashed ME speaking. I have seen myself and I am chastened and ashamed. But God, whose mercy exceeds the height of the heavens, deemed it worth His while to bring me out. I can do nothing other than praise and magnify the Lord Jesus Christ for His exceedingly great goodness to me.
He brought me out, and at this writing I am alive, sane, safe and saved – and a better person for the experience. I should have died spiritually and physically, but God was not ready to call me home just yet. There was more He wanted me to do and so – as unworthy as I am – here I am.
6/2011 (Retrospect)
I am 90 years old now. As I look back at these meager entries in this so-called journal, I come face to face with this inevitable conclusion – there is no God like the God I serve! There is not the room in all of Creation for another God like Him. There cannot be two all-everything Gods. I am truly chastened and humbled before such awesome power and magnanimous love that defies description. Who wouldn’t serve this God? Who would dare to resist not just His power that can annihilate in a scant second, but the love that turns worlds upside down to accomplish the salvation of one lone mortal!
I am literally speechless.
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