'I Lift My Eyes Up'

When times are rough.

PREACH.

T

Again...

Disaster, again this week.

So we'll play football tomorrow.

That's how you deal with it, right? You keep going. And, if you're me, you PREACH your way through it. This week's sermon was written for my wife, who's in Maui sitting by her Dad who had a massive stroke on Monday. He lived. They told us the first few days were the most 'touch and go'. Now that he's off life-support and breathing on his own we get to watch and wait to see if he'll ever walk or talk or sail or garden or build or squeeze his grandkids ever again.

(I'm betting he will)

He's 64.

Balls.

Disaster.

Did I mention we've had three deaths in our family this year? Did I further mention that I've lost two major contracts this year? (and I'm not even going to mention the financial impact in this public of a space) It might be enough to say...

I'm thinking of changing my name to 'Job'.

:)

Am I feeling sorry for myself, ourselves? Nope. I'm loving Jesus. Painfully.

Seriously, as we've walked through this, the wife and I have found ourselves leaning more and more closely on the presence and love of Jesus, which has been VERY palpable in our day to day living. Let's not sugar-coat it, we're still in deep--chest pain inducing--stress almost every moment of every day but, simply put, as a result we're finding ourselves forced into moment to moment living in the arms of Christ. Simple.

If Jesus isn't your sustaining mercy and grace and power and joy in these type of seasons that what-in-the-heck-is-the-point-of-a-life-of-faith anyway? Right?

Right.

So we're putting our 'money' where our pain is.

For us, it's onward and upward to Zion. Onward and upward with Jesus. We're LOVING life, in deepest sorrow and insecurity and pain and in 'worst-case scenario' (at least top-ten level) type suffering.

Which is why I'm preaching my heart out this Sunday online from Psalm 121 and why Sam will play his heart out and I'll coach mine out tomorrow.

'Cause we're learning (and teaching him) that life is too wonderful to stop living.

Truth.

T