The pattern has repeated itself so many times that I do not know why, in my humanity, that I am still here. There must be a God.

When suffering exceeds the limits of the human frame, or so it seems, then there must be more holding that person together. There must be a God.

Satan will use every and any negative emotion, event, infirmity, mental game, situation, deficit or even excess, pain, memory, experience, high or low to attempt to separate us from our Creator. When he ultimately fails, we know there must be a God.

Our worth has little to do with what others think, do, or say once we come to know Who knew us from our first moment of life. As this transcendence to seeking others to seeking God becomes real, we will understand that God has a personal form.

What that personal God shows us in His mercy and grace, speaks to our hearts in a way we can know and feel, so that we respond in submission and an eternal embrace. The love and acceptance you will find therein comes from Jesus Christ. He becomes not only THE God but YOUR God.

We are stewards of what happens to us just like the stuff that is given to us to use in our lifetimes. And if your journey like mine has included chronic illness, we still have a stewardship responsibility to use what has been allowed in our lives for some greater good. Yes, even the bad stuff. Use it to point others to the hope you have in Christ. What has He done for you? For what are you grateful? How did you overcome the grave marker of despair? How did you come to understand that the Lord is not Santa Claus and that bad things happen to good people in a fallen, imperfect world? And how did you become o.k. with all of that?

So what then about the meme above? What if others judge you anyways no matter your “testimony,” mock you, and really don’t care about what message you have to convey? You have to live your life anyways in concert with the tri-une God who will never leave you or forsake you. What He thinks is what matters most! His Holy Spirit will guide you along the way, take your prayers to the Father and let Him help you to know that Jesus Christ is real and really God. Oh and especially reassuring is that He will make all things right one day, maybe soon.

I write these thoughts as I sense gradual breakthrough coming in my battle over a horrific illness these past 8 years. Improvements are lasting more than a day. Treatments are starting to work and I can do some things that I enjoy at least one day per week. Sleeping is more restful for at least one, 4-hour segment with at least one of these during the nighttime where it belongs. The convulsive episodes are more consistently less intense, shorter, and sparing of at least one day per week. I am somewhat less reactive to more types of noxious sensory stimuli. Progress is not perfection but I gotta shout out that this time for me there are clear improvements in my life as a whole.

I knew a young bride some years ago as her wedding got closer, who faced the frequent harassment of an overbearing mother-in-law. Her own mother taught her a simple technique of taking the verbal assault as if they were splashes of water. The young lady learned to let those splashes of water run off of her like water on a ducks back, exclaiming in her thoughts, “QUACK! QUACK!” The little internal laugh of such a silly technique has actually helped me shed the critical remarks of others many, many times. With the COVID-19 pandemic, I have had several folks claim my conservative views were due to my health problems. No one cares about my Master’s degree nor extensive work experience in the health care field. I get shot down as one of those with a “compromised immune system,” probably o.k. to let go, to get sick, to die. Seriously! Or I am not someone whose opinion counts about anything important because I am not important. And that is a LIE. QUACK! QUACK!

Just don’t give up Gentle Reader, k? No matter what gets thrown at you or thrown against the walls around you, keep going. Lean on the Lord as the person of Jesus Christ to provide supernatural strength and wisdom. Dig into His Word if only for one verse at a time. Cling to it like a lifeline! These are crazy times indeed. Regardless the God of the universe has overcome it all!

Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ may just change more than your own life. JJ

1 John 5:4

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.