Susan Lenzkes, author of �Life is Like Licking Honey Off a Thorn� writes, �We take the laughter and the tears however they come, and let our God of reality make sense of it all.�
Here on the coast we get clouds blowing in and out. Sometimes they are fluffy and high. Sometimes they are dark and heavy, hanging over the valley where I live. Other times the fog covers everything like gauze, blurring and obscuring. But the wind always comes again, blowing those clouds or fog away and revealing the beautiful blue sky above.
We all have times in our life when the dark clouds cover us. It is especially hard at this time of year. I am not going to tell you to keep your chin up because the blue skies will come. Sometimes you have to wait a l�o�n�g time for those blue skies. What I will share is what I read in a devotional recently: By faith we as Christians can cling to God�s promise of Romans 8:28. And we recall that �our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all� (2 Cor. 4:17) (And I might add � read verse 18 also) God loves us, and He�s getting us ready for the day when skies will be forever blue. God promises us a safe landing � but not necessarily a calm passage.
You are SO right!!! Thanks for sharing this encouraging reminder from the devotional you read!!! :hearts::hearts::hearts:
My Christian brother Rob and his family have been going through some tough, cloudy days this year and he and they have been looking to the Lord through it all and receiving their blue skies of God's blessings in His timings in many special ways, which always provide an encouraging example to me and others in our family and among our friends ... this morning, I just found out about another "cloudy day" situation my brother and his family are experiencing: my brother has been having trouble with some chest pains lately and the doctors' diagnosis has concluded he needs a heart operation to have a catheter put in his heart ... naturally, he's nervous about all of this, the operation itself, the bills, being off work for a while without pay etc ... Rob is scheduled to go into the hospital tomorrow morning for this operation and, of course, I'm praying for him and doing whatever I can to help ... would you please add your prayers to mine and others for this "cloudy days" situation? Thank you.
Yes, Steve. I'll be glad to pray for those folks. I have a friend who has been a widower for 2 years -- he is having a hard time this holiday season. I have another friend who is recovering from being paralyzed from the neck down. He is struggling. Both men know God and have faith -- they are just under a cloud right now, and it is hard for them.
Here's the latest news about my brother Rob's heart operation that was performed this morning, everyone:
The doctors went in with one of those heart catheter devices and looked all around the veins of his heart ... they discovered that Rob has three blockages, one each in three different veins ... one vein, they said, has a 95% blockage in it, the other two are 85% per cent blocked ... and they said Rob has been like a "walking miracle", not having had a massive heart attack before they discovered what has been causing all of his chest pains ... and I say: HE SURE BAREFOOT HAS BEEN "A WALKING MIRACLE!!!" God does that for His children!!! :hearts::hearts::hearts: ... so now the doctors will be performing a triple bypass heart operation on Rob sometime soon, hopefully, yet this week, as soon as they can get it scheduled and do it ... he's supposed to be released later today on an aspirin regimen, which helps to thin your blood, and will be waiting at home to hear when he's supposed to come back in for the bypass heart operation ... Rob and his wife Kate and their family are members of The Salvation Army church group here in Mansfield, Ohio, and are receiving various types of help and prayer support from their brothers and sisters in this church, as well as, from me and our other family members and friends ... we would be blessed to have your prayer support as well, everyone ... thanks, and I'll keep you posted on how things are going with Rob.
