Tag: mother in law

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He Will Provide

krisshetter

First published May 16, 2022 as part of the Lessons from Cherith series.

“The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down”.  Psalm 145:14

We had come to Colorado after receiving the news – my mother-in-law’s constant bowel pain was the result of peritoneal cancer, a rare and deadly disease.  She had never fully recovered from her battle with uterine cancer, diagnosed just eighteen months earlier. Her cancer markers were clear, yet the persistent abdominal pain continued to sideline her.  We will never know why it wasn’t discovered sooner but there are blessings even in that.

And so, after setting her up on hospice and determining that additional in-home care wouldn’t be sufficient and was well beyond what my father-in-law could afford, I offered to stay longer.  As I said goodbye to my husband who needed to get back to San Diego for work, I found myself wrestling with familiar self-doubt..  “I’m not good at this kind of thing,” I said to myself.  “I’m not a sweet, kind, compassionate person,” I lamented.  “I never know what to say in difficult times,” I fretted.  

I was scared to face day-to-day the woman I love as my own mother as she lay living out her last days.  I was worried about how to be around my quiet father-in-law.  I definitely was concerned how to handle all her friends who wanted to visit and needed a shoulder to cry on. Then, in the midst of all those fears, I remembered God.

“He has caused his wonders to be remembered;
    the Lord is gracious and compassionate.
He provides food for those who fear him;
    he remembers his covenant forever.”  Psalm 111: 4-5

I went for a walk and soaked in the beauty of the Colorado mountains and realized I didn’t need to have all those gifts.  He has blessed me with so many other gifts that were needed – organizing, communication, and more.  And what I now needed was to lean on Him for the rest of what was required.  

My BSGs had just finished Shirley Giles Davis’ study book, God. Gifts. You. Which takes a deep dive into the list of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit.  Coincidentally, she lives and works in Boulder, Colorado, just a few miles from where I now found myself needing the strength of God’s gifts.  She reminded us that our gifts can be used for good and have their own pitfalls if used incorrectly.  She showed us how God’s beautiful world can only function properly when we appreciate and honor the intricate ways all people’s gifts are used in harmony.  

“As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me.”  Psalms 55:16

And so, I called on God in humility.  I thanked Him for the blessings of financial security that helped me be there.  I listed in thankfulness the gifts of the Holy Spirit which have been endowed to me.  And I prayerfully spoke the following:

“Lord, I cannot do this without you.  I don’t have the right words for the right moments so I need the Holy Spirit to speak for me.  I don’t have the strength for this gracious Father.  I need you to keep me strong and lifted or I will fail.  Only through your loving grace, using my gifts that I have been blessed with and you filling in the rest will I be able to glorify you and help Bev and all those around her. Please Lord speak in place of my words and be my strength.” Amen

His intervention was immediate as He surrounded me with His love and peace.  All those worries and fears dissipated.  For the next three weeks, the Holy Spirit sustained me and spoke through me.  He comforted friends who left Bev’s room in tears. He guided conversations with family members who grieved differently than I did. He ministered to Bev as I read Psalms aloud each day.  And He kept me from being tired and weak.  I could wake at any hour with ease to administer medication, keep the house clean, and make meals for the ever-changing number of people at the house.  He provided, just as He promises, just as He always has.

“You are my strength, I sing praises to you; you, God are my fortress, my God on whom I can rely.” ‘ Psalms 59:17

My BSGs recently completed Priscilla Shirer’s study on Elijah.  In her week 6 video she mentions the definition of faith as aligning our entire life with God’s 8,000 promises found in His Word.  Our faith doesn’t need to be some mysterious feeling that is undefinable.  Faith is simply believing God’s promises and living as though they are true.  

That’s what Elijah did when he went, as directed by God, to Cherith — a lonely, dry, desolate place. God provided in extraordinary ways, sending ravens with food and sustaining him with water for nearly two years.  Elijah knew he couldn’t make it on his own. He needed God to survive.  His own knowledge and abilities were not enough.  God would need to fill in where he was lacking.

Friends, God promises over and over to provide for us.  The Bible is filled with endless stories of His provision.  Our own lives are testimonies to those provisions.  Sometimes we just need to remember to humbly ask for Him to provide where we are weak and not gifted.

The morning my beloved Bev went home to our Father I was blessed again to have God show me how much He had answered my prayer.  I needed some alone time so I decided to take a shower.  As I stood in the bathroom waiting for the water to warm up, I suddenly felt a huge weight press on me – like an anvil was placed on each shoulder.  I cried out in surprise and then it was gone.  I knew He was showing me what He had sheltered me from for the last few weeks.  And although I am still experiencing the grief of Bev being gone from this earth, that heavy weight has never returned.  I can thank God and the Holy Spirit for being my weight bearers.  And I can thank God that He will provide in our weakest moments.

Where in your life do you need to ask for God’s provision?  
Where do you feel insufficient and weak?  Ask Him today He will provide!

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From Why? to What?

krisshetter

Lessons from Cherith

He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Luke 24:38

During the time in my own land of Cherith, a place where I was separated from my home, my regular way of life and exposed to great sadness, I so needed to rely on the vast promises of God.  Yet each day I battled the “why” of it all.  Why didn’t the cancer doctors see and recognize the increased cancer markers in my beloved mother-in-law’s blood tests?  Why did each visit to the emergency room end without answers?  But more importantly, why would this woman, a shining light for God, an inspiring gift to everyone around her, a woman, as her pastor reflected at her funeral with a beautiful aura surrounding her, be stricken with cancer and taken so soon? Why God, oh why?

How often have we lamented that why question in our lives?  Why are we suffering financially?  Why is my child rebelling?  Why is my marriage on the rocks?  Why did I suffer that abuse?  It seems as Christians we are expected to answer those questions.  I believe many of us avoid speaking the Gospel to our friends, family and neighbors out of fear of being asked those why’s of life.  In fact, as a young college student who was approached one day on my campus by two religious folks, I too asked the big why – why is there suffering?  You see I believed in God but didn’t really know anything about Him.  Unfortunately, neither did these two young proselytizers.

I recently heard the statement: “If we view the world as a Christian, it all makes sense.”  On the surface that’s a real head scratcher since this world seems so upside down especially now.  Broken families, broken lives, so much pain and death abound.  But take a step back, way back to Genesis 3.

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Genesis 3:17-18

And that’s just a taste of what man’s rebellion wrought.  Creation is currently at odds with God.  And just as cells divide and life moves without our intervention, our world around us is no longer under our full dominion.  So yes, there’s floods and fire and famine and cancer.  And it has absolutely nothing to do with whether we are a good person or not.  In addition to this result of The Fall, we became separated from God, always seemingly looking for ways to buck His system.  And we face the consequences for our actions, both individually and collectively.

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’” 2 Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”  Exodus 5:1-2

And we know how well that went for Pharoah.  But what was Moses’ first reaction after Pharoah knuckled down and made the Israelites work harder?  “Why?”  He asked God why did He have to make things worse and why did Moses have to be the brunt of everything?  From a Christian point of view, we should say, “There’s consequences in this world when anyone chooses to not submit – whether you choose to believe in God or not.”  This is not “Karma,” it’s simply a cause and effect of acting outside God’s desires for us.  

And while we may cry out, “why?!” in the moment whether in situations of our own making or of those in which we have no power, we need to remember the “what.”  What is God doing in me or even in the world?  What is God expecting of me as a believer? What is the promise I can hold on to?  The early Israelites had a decent excuse.  They didn’t know God as well as we do now.  They didn’t have all the stories of how He has rescued and protected His people.  They didn’t have Jesus’ brother James telling them there will be trials and in them they need to seek the lessons of God.  They didn’t have Jesus come to earth and die for their sins.  They didn’t have the Book of Revelation.  But we do.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

So, each day as I sat beside Bev’s bed as her body succumbed not to cancer but to an infection, I battled the “why” demon. I wanted someone punished.  I wanted someone to suffer like I was now suffering.  Then I heard a whisper, “She gets to come home to me.  And you need to see what I am teaching you.”

You see even in her suffering, on her death bed, this Christian called Bev was a conduit for Jesus.  A teacher and a comforter.  I finally realized it didn’t matter the “why.”  For one, there really were no answers that fully satisfied.  At times like that we just need to submit to God’s sovereignty and say, “I don’t know but He does.”  The only real answers that I continued to come back to were the “what.”

What did I truly believe about God?  And what was He trying to teach me?

Christian Friend, if you earnestly believe the Bible, believe that God is the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and all it’s inhabitants, if you believe He is sovereign and He sent His Son to die for our sins, if you believe that there is a place greater than Eden awaiting us then you could understand why Bev wasn’t worried.  Why she could make us all laugh at her darkest hour.  Why, in the middle of a conversation she looked over my shoulder, waved and with a child-like voice exclaimed in joy, “Hi Jesus!”

2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? John 14:2

You see I didn’t need to know the answers to my worldly questions and I definitely didn’t need retribution.  I needed to remember that Jesus hates death because it’s a sign of our broken world.  And He is right now preparing a room more beautiful than I can imagine for even me.  When He comes back we will all be raised up to live forever in a beautiful place that has no suffering, no death, no pain, no war, no hate, no fear.  And that is just what I needed to learn.

Are you asking “why” in your difficult time when you should be asking “what?”

What is the Lord teaching or asking you right now?  

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A Mirror for Jesus

krisshetter

Lesson 3: Imitate good, not evil

Dear friend, do not imitate 
what is evil but what is good.  
Anyone who does what is good 
is from God.
3 John 11

Occasionally in our lives we are asked to state who we consider to be our “hero or who we most admire.”  According to the annual United States Gallup poll the incumbent president is usually top of mind when Americans name, without prompting, which man living anywhere in the world they admire most. In the 74 times Gallup has asked the open-ended most admired man question since 1946, the incumbent president has topped the list 60 times.

When you look at the list from 2020, four of the “most admired men alive today” are politicians, one is a government employee, two are businessmen, one is an athlete and two are religious leaders.  Billy Graham is the all-time vote getter while he was still living with 61 appearances in the top 10 of this list.  That fact made me feel slightly better.

Although as a society we seem to easily agree that most politicians are not typically ones to be trusted we, for some reason, continue to view them as someone to admire.  

Growing up I would have done a “hard pass” on who to write down when asked this question.  I lived a fairly sheltered life – not much TV, only one friend, my parents didn’t have many friends.  And I wouldn’t have written my mom or dad on that list.  At various times in my life I’ve thanked God for somehow keeping me on a halfway straight path due to limited guidance.

According to Forbes magazine these are the ten qualities people admire most in others:

  1. Humility
  2. The ability to learn
  3. Integrity
  4. Responsibility
  5. Resilience
  6. Compassion for others
  7. Respect for others
  8. Big visions
  9. Inspire others
  10. The ability to “reinvent themselves”

After reading this list, did anyone come to mind?  I doubt that it was a politician.  When I got married I finally met someone that does a pretty good job meeting the high standards of this list – my mother in law.  I set upon a path of being more like her.  Someone who is kind to everyone, offers a friendly “hello” at all times, thinks of and serves others, and is always looking on the bright side.  While attempting to mirror her I realized I had, in fact, been imitating someone else all along.  Someone who was inwardly focused, pessimistic, frequently angry, and had difficulty showing love.  

At the end of John’s letter to the church elder Gaius, he warns us to be careful who we choose to imitate.  He has made the case that another church leader, Diotrephes, while powerful and surely had a large following, was not up to the standards set by Jesus.  He instead turns Gaius to another Christian brother, Demetrius.

Demetrius is well spoken of by 
everyone—and even by the truth 
itself. We also speak well of him, 
and you know that our testimony 
is true.
3 John 12

You notice it isn’t enough to have others speak well of someone.  John reminds us that the “truth” must also be used as a measuring stick.  There are many famous people on Gallup’s “most admired men alive” list.  And many have well known, serious transgressions.  Carelessness with the truth has been one of those.  But because they are famous we humans tend to set many bad behaviors aside.

When I was coaching girls softball, I watched the habits and techniques of many of the successful coaches.  I gleaned a lot of good coaching skills from them.  But there wasn’t one, at the time, that I could name as most admirable.  Many parents, on the other hand, admired those coaches because they won trophies.  What they didn’t mind was the abusive behavior toward their young daughters.  Unfortunately, throughout my years in youth, high school and collegiate sports I found this to be frequently the case.  And parents expected other coaches to imitate this same behavior, thinking that was a winning formula.

Last year, my BSGs (Bible Study girls) embarked on a new study called “The Proverbs 31 Woman.”  Now there’s a woman to admire!  Here’s an excerpt from this long list of character traits to imitate:

She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
Proverb 31: 15-18

Each week we would take a verse and apply it to our lives.  From our relationship with our husbands to our finances, our work ethic to our own health we were presented with a truly admirable touchstone for our lives.  We cleaned out our closets and our minds.  We took a hard look at our finances and our eating habits.  We used God’s Word rather than the world of the flesh to imitate.

In our world today so many people are trying to imitate the latest Instagram influencer or sports figure.  We see “success” or fame as proof they are worthy of imitation.   We put people like Joanna Gaines or Elon Musk up high on our list. Meanwhile there are Jesus followers, who just do the good work day in and day out that truly deserve our imitation.

Join together in following my 
example, brothers and sisters, 
and just as you have us as a 
model, keep your eyes on those 
who live as we do.
Philippians 3:17

It might seem like it takes a real discerning, wise mind to know who to imitate.  But we all truly know when we’ve met that “someone.”  We just then need to measure that person against God’s truth. And yes, we all sin.  We all have something to which we must repent to God.  But I’d rather imitate a loving, self sacrificing person who doesn’t always use her time wisely than a person who causes chaos and destruction in her wake.

Take a moment today and evaluate the answer to the question, “Who do you most admire?”  Be honest.  It’s easy to throw off platitudes.  No one else but God is listening.  Until we can face the evil we are imitating we cannot fully become the mirrors for Jesus.