Category: Faith

"Life Happens," they say. Catastrophes happen, too.

Fears we stuff down during the day haunt us at 2 a.m. Questions like, If that were true for me, could I handle it?

That's on my mind because of what happened to friends I'll call John and Mary. These two were driving home from vacation on a summer day. No speeding. No alcohol or drugs. Suddenly their car spun out of control on a curve and slammed into a highway guard-rail. Most of the impact was on the right-front corner of their new SUV.

Mary's side.

John walked away. Mary was helicoptered to the nearest trauma center. Doctors could not repair her mangled legs and amputated both of them below the knee.

Mary's life will never be the same. Neither will John's.

Like so many other friends I'm praying God's healing and comfort. Courage, too, for both of them, every day.

Courageous people seldom see themselves as heroes

For another wonderful couple I know, let's call them Jim and Jenny, this scenario is familiar territory. When she was a young mother Jenny contracted a type of flesh-eating bacteria.

Doctors gave them a choice: Her legs or her life. They chose life.

Surgeons severed her legs well above the infected area, up to her knees. Since then Jenny's prosthetic legs and her walker have been her best buddies. Together this young couple coped, reared their children and made a warm, loving family life.

When asked individually how they got through it, each one said something like, "Well, we knew God wouldn't give us more than we could handle. So we just prayed and kept going."

Tragedy strips away pretenses

After years of happy marriage, Mary and John face the same kind of challenges as they adjust to this new reality. John reports that Mary already is receiving physical therapy. She already can transfer herself from the bed to a wheelchair and will be fitted with prosthetics. After transfer to a long-term rehab facility in another city she's amazing therapists. They predict she'll be walking and driving within six months.

John thanked friends for their support and prayers, then closes his update with this sentence:

"Our lives have changed but we will move forward doing what we want to do in a different way."

When everything else falls away, it's what's inside that counts

Jesus talks about that in Luke 6:45:

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

My friends have an inner reserve on which they draw.

If we continually put the Good Stuff in it's like "filling our tanks," a reserve of courage beyond our own. Then we'll be ready for every day, whatever it brings.

I've found it helpful to underline Bible verses that speak to my heart so I can find them more easily. Verses like these remind me I'm not alone.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. —2 Corinthians 4:7-9

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. –Isaiah 41:10

As you read your Bible mark verses you love. Think of them as your internal armor (Ephesians 6:10-18.)

Then when the what ifs come in the night, repeat them and let them balm away your fears. Peace, be still.

Love,

Lenore

When the bottom drops out of life, how can we go on?

July 14, 2012
Some of us ran out of hope a long time ago.

Maybe that's where you are right now, or you know someone who is. This one's for you. It will lift your heart.

First, some background. As Scott Lohman neared his goal, life was good. After years of seminary classes and an internship at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Downers Grove, IL, he was almost ready. In a few weeks he would be ordained as a Lutheran pastor.

Then came what looked like the end of everything.

But God had other plans.

______________

(Chris James, a pastor at Immanuel, told Scott's story for the February, 2012, edition of their church newsletter. He graciously gave permission to reprint his article, slightly edited.)

THE HAND OF GOD

On Monday, November 28, 2011, at 3:30 pm, Vicar Scott Lohman suffered an aortic dissection. Into the middle of this horrific tragedy, the Hand of God reached down to intervene.

Scott should have been in his garage by himself that afternoon, but his wife, Gina, called to report a harmless car accident, so he headed to Interstate-55 –that was the Hand of God.

Soon after he arrived at the accident scene, Scott passed out. An ambulance which police routinely summoned for accidents, waited, ready to take him to the hospital —that was the Hand of God.

The closest hospital was St. Joseph's in Joliet, nationally recognized for both stroke and heart care –that was the Hand of God.

Emergency Room physicians planned to wait until morning to follow up on Scott's tests. Then Gina's cousin, Andy, an off-duty St. Joseph's physician, stopped by. He said, "He's had a stroke; he needs help." —that was the Hand of God.

A dozen nurses, six doctors and multiple test results surrounded the patient. Only Nikita, an ICU nurse, noticed Scott had two different pulses in his wrists, which signaled a heart problem —that was the Hand of God.

The heart surgeon told waiting family and friends what happened alongside busy Route I-55 that afternoon. Scott suffered an aortic dissection, which caused his stroke, then traveled to both arms and legs, as well as his brain. Scott most likely would not survive the surgery. Yet five and a half hours later he emerged. He lived – that was the Hand of God.

The surgeon warned he could only repair the valve to Scott's heart. Yet during the surgery, he was able to repair Scott's ascending aorta, too, and restore blood flow back to his brain — that was the Hand of God.

Vascular damage to Scott's left arm was irreversible and he would lose it, said the surgeon. Yet the next day Scott had a pulse in his left wrist –that was the Hand of God.

No one promised Scott would wake up from his coma, and if he did, whether he would recognize anyone or ever move again. He did, he does, and oh, how he moves! —that was the hand of God.

Because Scott's kidneys were wrecked he requred daily dialysis. His only hope would be a kidney transplant. And then, his kidneys were healed — that was the Hand of God.

Scott could not breathe without the ventilator. No one knew if he ever would. Now the vent is gone and he is back to his old, chatty self –that was the hand of God.

That dark November night Gina said good-bye to her husband. By the Hand of God she and the kids have received him back home, where they are all looking forward to a new chapter.

Praise the Lord all my soul; all my inmost being, praise His Holy Name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits–who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. –Psalm 103:1-5

________________________

An upadate: On July 1 Scott Lohman will be ordained as an assistant pastor at Immanuel. With Immanuel's sponsorship, Scott will concentrate on planting and pastoring a new church in nearby Minooka, where the Lohmans have lived for several years.

_____________________

Every one of us can recall times we prayed with all our hearts and saw no evidence God heard us. No Scott Lohman outcome for us.

But God does hear us. Even when life makes no sense, we can trust His love for us because of Jesus (John 3:16.) We who believe can know that God's hand is on our lives just as surely as on Scott's. In every circumstance, He promises us strength for each day (Psalm 46:1.)

That makes it safe to give up fretting, even in hard times, and trust. Let God be God.

That's not fatalism. That's peace, the peace that passes all human understanding.

May you know that peace, my friends,

Lenore

Looking for hope? Read this man’s story

June 15, 2012
I resisted being drawn into the hoopla around THE wedding. I've never been much of a royal-watcher.

Until today.

Today I gave in and watched the lovely pageantry of the day, the ceremony in magnificent Westminster Abbey, with its soaring ceiling and choirboys with angelic voices.

The Bishop with his heavy robes, the chanting, all of it seemed appropriate on this day. Wedding guests sang hymns and spoke prayers, including the Lord's Prayer.

An estimated two billion people were said to be watching this wedding around the world.

Then it hit me. Two billion people, most of them non-Christians, were hanging on every word as the Bishop proclaimed the Word of God and delivered a Christ-centered sermon, as well.

Many who were glued to their telly live in cultures where wives are looked upon as mere property, second-class, easily disposable. In Westernized countries like ours, more and more people now consider matrimony a needless outdated custom, irrelevent in today's society. Too many consider faithfulness and monogamy rather quaint.

No matter where viewers live, each one heard Prince William and Kate Middleton pledge to be wed as husband and wife and to live together according to God's holy estate of matrimony. Each promised to love and comfort, honour and keep each other, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Each vowed to forsake all others and to keep themselves only for each other so long as both shall live.

What will these two people make of their marriage? That's up to them. They know their family history and the challenges they face even better than we. But I choose not to be cynical and to wish them God's blessing. I am glad for their choice to be married in a Christian church and to promise before God and the world to be married–and faithful–for life.

I'm thankful that the Church of England bishop preached a faith-centered, meaningful wedding sermons. Most of all, I am thankful that Christ was proclaimed. For once, the world was listening.

Who knows how God will use this?

Lovingly,

Lenore

Three cheers for this royal couple and may their example catch on

April 29, 2011
Nobody saw it coming. Catastrophes are like that.

This is the face of one woman in the aftermath of unimaginable horror, Japan's 9.0 earthquake and the devastating tsunami that quickly followed.

You and I have not lived what she experienced, but we know that face. We know those tears and those inner groans of, "Oh, please, not that!"

Our world can shake and crumble around us without an earthquake. We can be swamped and drowning without a tsunami.

All it takes is being given that diagnosis we never wanted to hear. Or a day when we wave goodbye to our husband or wife who never makes it home from work. A sports accident that turns our healthy, strong son or daughter into a paraplegic. The young adult child with so much potential who chooses a path we know will lead to unhappiness. The rumored pink slip that awaits us when we thought our job was safe. Home values that plummet and investments that tank when we thought we had saved up some money for the future.

Each of us has our own list. We watch, we cry, we pray. We scream, "Why?" into our long, sleepless nights. And we feel utterly helpless.

That's when we wear the same face as the woman in this photo, the face of fear and dread and hopelessness. She cannot escape her reality and neither can we.

But we can find refuge. Listen to the wonderful words of Psalm 46:1-3 and verse 7, followed by Isaiah 41:10:

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging . . .

The LORD Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress . . .

So do not fear, for I am with you;

do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

The hard truth of life is that we have no truly safe place here on this earth. No guarantees of a perfect life in this imperfect world.

No place to run except into the sheltering arms of God, who so loved the world that he sent his only Son to earth to die on a cross and live again. For you. For me.

In His strength we weather our storms and go on, leaning on the everlasting arms.

His peace,

Lenore

Where can we go when disaster strikes in our world?

March 14, 2011