I am sitting in the hospital with my son, Daniel. He is the one who had meningitis at 15 months of age and left him totally dependent on others for his survival. Now, that is a story in itself, and one day I know God will restore Daniel. If Lazarus' dead brain cells can be recreated God can do that for Daniel's dead brain cells caused by disease.
Our family has been blessed to go on a nice vacation, starting next Friday. In all our years of ministry, every time we planned time away from our church something would happen to try to discourage us from taking it...when Stan was working on his Master's Degree and ordination Daniel was put in hospital with meningitis and not expected to live through the night. One year while on our way to Oklahoma the gas we filled our van with was mostly water. Someone we didn't even know paid for our hotel and the work done on our van. What an angel in disguise. Many times while away we would receive calls that someone in our congregation had passed away unexpectedly, or some other traumatic incident.
Now, while planning our big cruise excursion for next week, in addition to Stan trying to finish his assignments due today for his DMin, Daniel is once again in the hospital. He is happy and in no pain, but because he has a g-tube we noticed blood in his stomach. There is so much blood the endoscopy procedure could not see in his stomach. We have had to do 2 endoscopy procedures and are scheduled for a third Sat. morning.
Last night I was settling in to sleep on the chair in Daniel's hospital room and couldn't sleep until I turned the light on and wrote down what I felt God telling me. I wanted to share a portion of what He was saying to me, "The first 30 years of our ministry had a purpose (and He reminded me of those things), but the second 30 years of ministry IS GOING TO BE BETTER THAN THE FIRST (and he gave me a little insight to what that might be, but that is between me and Him right now.)" That inspired me and this came to mind,
"Satan has tried to thwart our calling and mission, but we are coming back with a vengeance, declaring war in the heavenlies and victory for the cause of the King and His Kingdom."
My whole point in even mentioning these things is to encourage each of you reading this blog. When you are doing what God has called you to and you have positioned yourself where He wants you, satan will try his best to keep you from succeeding. Some things will be obvious and some things not so obvious.
God gets the last word...
"Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You're not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It's the same with the Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won't last forever. It won't be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ - eternal and glorious plans they are! - will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word, yes, he does." 1 Peter 5:8-11 The Message
Keep moving forward, into all God has for you! He is right there with you all the way.
