Tag: healing

For the Lord Will Be Your Everlasting Light

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Sky2 Comments

august sunset ch IMG_4750

The sun shall be no more
your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
give you light;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.

Your sun shall no more go down,
nor your moon withdraw itself;
for the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of mourning shall be ended.

(Isaiah 60:18, 20 ESV)

I often hear people say, “I’ll be happy when this is over.”  Then the next thing happens. They are not happy yet.

Jesus is our light in the darkness now. Our everlasting life is not dependent on physical circumstances.

There is a hope that only the light of eternity can illuminate.

There is a joy in seeing the glory of the Lord even when the sun and moon withdraw.

A Way Through the Desert

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Photography, Water4 Comments

St marys Falls gouache 4

Eternal One: Don’t revel only in the past,
        or spend all your time recounting the victories of days gone by.
  

Watch closely: I am preparing something new; it’s happening now, even as I speak,
        and you’re about to see it.

I am preparing a way through the desert;
    Waters will flow where there had been none.
   Wild animals in the fields will honor Me;
        the wild dogs and surly birds will join in.
    

There will be water enough for My chosen people,
        trickling springs and clear streams running through the desert.

(Isaiah 43:18-20 The Voice)

God makes a way –through the desert, through the valley, through the floods, through the fire, through depression.

Don’t stop now. Look for His way.

Sometimes There Are No Words

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Photography, Sky10 Comments

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Did any of you parents ever hear your child wake from sleep with some panic fear and shriek the mother’s name through the darkness? Was not that a more powerful appeal than all words? And, depend upon it, that the soul which cries aloud on God, “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” though it have “no language but a cry,” will never call in vain.
– Alexander MacLaren

My friend’s handsome young son is dead.

In a moment of hopeless despair he took his own life.

All I can do is cry out.

I have no more words than that.

Victory and Suffering: Both

On By Charis PsalloIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I have often felt I’ve been in the awkward position of having to choose between being with those who pursue a life of victory in Christ or those who glory in suffering.

My life verse has been, “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection…” The problem is that I cannot ignore the next part: “and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11)

Victory, yes, but suffering…

I came across this video by Ryan Matchett (one of the pastors at River of Life Church in Lethbridge, Alberta) talking about this problem. It’s about realizing the purpose and value of suffering without getting stuck there.

Thomas believed in Jesus enough to be willing to die with him. His doubt was about his difficulty transitioning from a willingness to suffer with Jesus to a willingness to also share in his resurrection. “When we don’t believe in resurrection in the midst of suffering we make agreement with death.”

This is well worth the 38 minutes of listening time.

Dancing Upon Injustice

On By Charis PsalloIn Art6 Comments

IMG_0497 Dancing on Iinjustice ch

Some friends invited me to join them for a week of thanksgiving and worship as they pray for a young dad with an aggressive form of cancer. For two evenings I sat at the back painting. This is just a cell phone shot of a quick painting but I’m posting it here as an invitation to pray for Jarrett, and any others you know of with life-threatening illnesses. It’s a painted prayer I call “Dancing Upon Injustice” because there is nothing just about cancer.

Originally I painted a night sky but the band started singing, “Open the floodgates of heaven…” and I started adding  waterfalls and eddies and sparkles of light. There is a place where cancer does not exist and we pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. I’ve never seen a worship dancer with army boots, but I think they should be standard issue, so I added those too.

Pray for Jarrett and his family.

I Went to a Marvelous Party

On By Charis PsalloIn Art2 Comments

party paper

Erupt with thanks to the Eternal, for He is good
and His loyal love lasts forever.
Let all those redeemed by the Eternal—
those rescued from times of deep trouble—join in giving thanks.
(Psalm 107:1,2)

Shortly after our son-in-law was miraculously healed from a disease that seemed would certainly end in death (story told here) another man was in the ICU in our town in a similar state. My daughter asked me to pray for him and I became friends with his wife on Facebook. What a remarkable woman of faith. Her steadfastness and willingness to trust God through set-back after set-back, and to be transparently honest about their journey was deeply inspiring. Their story is amazing. Their answer took longer in arriving than ours and he faced death more than once. At one point the doctors told him he probably had six days at most to live.

But God…!

Last night they threw a party to celebrate his healing. Staff in the hospitals are also calling him the “Miracle Man” — the same nickname the staff at the hospital that treated our son-in-law gave him. Along with many others who prayed for them I was invited to the celebration. It was the first time we met face to face, but I felt such joy for them and such praise for the goodness of God. There was feasting and music and dancing —  clog dancing! Such happiness!

We are told that we overcome the enemy of our souls by the Blood of the Lamb and by the telling of our stories, and these wonderful people were doing just that.

Do you have a story worthy of a party to celebrate God? Do you have reason to be thankful? Tell me about it.

Thanks for the Memories

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Mountains, Photography8 Comments

 

Bar U Ranch

“...The Lord showed me the reason I didn’t think he answered my prayers. It was simply that I was not thankful when He did. Without an attitude of thanksgiving those memories were lost to me.” -Lara Merz

The new book While He Lay Dying is touching some sore spots for some people. I understand. The story hit a lot of mine as well -sore spots that God was putting pressure on, like a kind doctor who looked into my eyes while asking, “Does that hurt?”

The intent of the doctor is not to torment you, but to heal you, but first he needs to identify the source of the pain by having you acknowledge it.

I do believe that prayer is more about learning to listen to God than handing him my Christmas wish list, or a job description of my design with expectations I think he needs to meet. Still he invites us to come to him with all our cares and needs and with prayers and petitions – with thanksgiving – and present our requests. The thanksgiving is actually for our sakes, because being grateful for the things he has done for us already helps us remember and come in faith.

I met a woman a few years ago who, like I had been, was mired in chronic depression. Healing from depression can involve more than one avenue since this wretched condition affects every part of our lives – mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, relational. But one of the glimmers of light in that cave of darkness begins to shine when we are willing to be thankful for one thing. Thanking God for just one thing is like picking up the first crumb that leads to a trail of crumbs -more things to be thankful for. The trail leads to the exit of the dark cave. I asked her to tell God one thing she was thankful for. She refused. She could think of nothing -as she sat in a large warm house, in a free country, with a good meal, and all her expenses cared for by a generous family member, comforted by friends who constantly tried to reach out to her. “My life is too bitter,” she said.

Another person said, “Sure. God healed your son-in-law. How nice for you. But why be thankful? There is no guarantee he’ll be here next Christmas. He could be hit by a bus, or another tragedy could strike your family. It happens all the time. Where was God when this happened and that happened? Look at the news this week and what about the time I prayed and he didn’t give me the answer I wanted?”

Do you see how quickly we can lose the memory of a miraculous response to prayer and forget God’s goodness when we refuse to be grateful and choose to focus on disappointment? It was like turning away from the spot of light in a dark cave and saying, “So you saw something that might point to a light, or maybe even an exit of some sort. How nice for you. But my experience is that it is dark in this cave. Look at all the places where there is no light. Don’t remind me of my pain. There is no hope.”

Of course we all die. Miracles are not about having perfect circumstances and a care-free life. Signs point to something -or Someone. Signs are not the destination. Don’t park there. Keep moving.

A friend reminded me yesterday that those of us born in the 50’s have lived in two centuries and two millennium -and people we knew in our youth had been born in the 1800’s. He made me think. One of the most influential people in my life, my grandmother, was born in 1909. My granddaughter was born in 2009 -100 years later, and yet these two people are central in my memories. I am so thankful for them. I am especially thankful that my grandmother told me the stories of God’s provision, even through the most horrible experiences -from the death of her kitten as a wee girl to the death of her two children as a young mother. Yes, she found herself in dark places sometimes, but she always came out singing, because she remembered her answered prayers, and thankfulness pinned those memories down for her. She knew the God she appealed to, and the longer she knew him, the more she loved him. A few weeks before she died she told me, “Death holds no fear for me. It is a wide-open door to the light. And my dear Jesus is standing there, arms open, waiting to wipe away all my tears.”

 

I Want My Daddy!

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks, Photography7 Comments

boy wheelchair

What do you do when God gives you a real live miracle?

First, you respond with thankfulness. Then you look toward the One the sign points to. Asking Him why we received a miracle brings as silent a response as asking why there have been times when we did not see a loved one healed. A better question is “What?”

“What would you have us do with this experience?”

“What does this mean?”

“What are you showing us about yourself?”

Or “How would you have us respond?” ”

My job during the crisis was mainly to care for the children. We knew people were praying and most of the time felt a cocoon of love around us, but to be honest there were times when this little boy in the photo felt the agony of not having his Daddy there with him, of not knowing why somber adults spoke in hushed voices or stopped talking when they noticed him playing at their feet or hiding behind the door. There were times when he cried inconsolably, “I want my Daddy! Where is my Daddy? I need my Daddy!” and no one, not uncles or grandmothers or even Mommy could comfort him. There were times when he refused to eat or sleep and trashed his room late at night when grown-ups insisted he go to bed.

Then there were times when he was the one with the strongest faith, when he sat on Mommy’s lap and looked into her eyes and said, “We don’t hass to be afraid, Mommy. We don’t hass to be afraid cuz Jesus is wiss us.” When doctors privately gave his Daddy a 0% chance of recovery from necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease) he and his sister set aside drawings and pine cones and other precious things to show Daddy when he came home. They sang songs about nothing being impossible for Jesus.

What do you do when God gives you a real live miracle? What you do with a miracle is tell the story truthfully, including the times of outrageous faith, and the times of soul-crushing disappointment. I appreciate our son-in-love Bruce and daughter Lara Merz’ efforts to be accurate when they tell the story of their miracle in the book While He Lay Dying. They are honest about their struggles, their fears. their set-backs. They are honest about surges of faith that came from beyond themselves. They are honest about the difficulty of pursuing being a community of love and being transparently vulnerable in times of crisis. They are honest about the way God accomplished the very tasks Bruce had once strived to accomplish, by bringing them about while he lay in bed doing absolutely nothing. At all. He couldn’t even breathe for himself.

One of the contributors to the book is a fine physician who witnessed the roller-coaster ride that this event entailed. He volunteered to verify the chronology and medical information and write a chapter from his perspective. Their pastor gives his story of how the event led to greater revelation for him and its significance for the larger church, and Bruce and Lara’s little daughter also expresses her point of view.

What do you do when God gives you a real live miracle? You stand up, relinquish your rights to life as you have known it and say, “This is what we saw. This is what God did. This is Who He is to us.” You become a witness to His goodness. You give him all the glory for the things He has done.

Last week I heard this little guy giggling as his Daddy tucked him into bed. God heard his cry. Daddy came home without any loss of limbs and with organs functioning better than before he becme ill.

This week the book telling this amazing story of how the Lord gathered an army of believers to pray for the life of one man and support one little family has been released. I think you’ll find it inspiring.

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The website:
http://whilehelaydying.com/#

Book available from:

Amazon in both print and eBook form. (A free Kindle download is available for reading eBooks on computers and other devices.) Click on one of these:

In the USA

In Canada

In the UK

Kobo (eBook)
Indigo/Chapters with free shipping until Dec. 15

Essence Publishers (print)

Your local bookstore by request

Profits beyond expenses related to book to go to charity.

Laying It Down

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Uncategorized5 Comments

yellow leaves snow db

 

In God’s economy nothing of value is actually lost. Theory is all well and good, but until our personal stories work something of Christ’s character into to us, we don’t know Him. Not really. He never asks for anything of us – even our lives – without plans to give us something greater in return.

“You notice that the Apostles got their revelation for the Church in practical situations. They never met around a table to have a Round-Table Conference, to draw up a scheme of doctrine and practice for the churches. They went out into the business and came right up against the desperate situation, and in the situation which pressed them, oft-times to desperation, they had to get before God and get revelation. The New Testament is the most practical book, because it was born out of pressing situations. The Lord gave light for a situation. The revelation of Christ, we might say, in emergencies is the way to keep Christ alive, and the only way in which Christ really does live to His own.”
— T. Austin Sparks

Those gathered around our son-in-love’s hospital bed while he was in a coma and expected to die, admitted they had no idea how to pray. As they cried out in desperation, the Lord answered. It started with one man who wanted to reconcile with his brother. Then another, and another until many people who were woken in the night to pray for him and were reminded they needed to go to a brother or sister and be reconciled before they could pray with authority. As they did, the miracles started happening, one tiny rise in blood pressure at a time. The Lord was asking for a united unoffended body of believers to come together to pray in faith.

They dug deep and found Holy Spirit had already planted the seeds of faith and love in their hearts long before they needed it. He was there all the time, in their story with them.