To Keep or Not To Keep? And What Does That Have to Do With Ukraine?

This past Saturday, we had a Bible Prophecy Conference at our church.

This was the 13th Annual Midwest Calvary Chapel Bible Prophecy Conference.  It was touch and go whether our church could actually pull it off this year since Pastor Joe had been so sick.  

But it all came together as the Lord had pre-determined that it would.  We had several great speakers in the line-up, who talked about the Great Reset, the surveillance state, Matthew 24 and Luke 21, and of course, the Rapture.  If you had been there, you might have learned, for example, that there’s a difference between The Tribulation and The Great Tribulation, or that there’s a plan to hack into the DNA of all the people in the world and change them into whatever the elite globalists want the masses to be.  

Since my post last week was mostly about Matthew 24, I was interested to see what differences of opinion there might be between the speakers and myself, or even between the speakers and each other.  And there were some.  

But there were some opinions about details of the Second Coming that were pretty unanimous -- 

1. We’re getting down to the wire.  Current events are painful to watch, but it’s a privilege to be a part of the generation that will likely be alive when Jesus comes to claim His Bride, the Church.

2. It will get much worse.

3. While we are here, the Church is that which restrains Loser Satan from doing all he wants to do.  There is a limit to what God is allowing him to do.

4. While we are here, We the Church are to continue the work we have been commissioned to do.  That has never changed.

Perhaps the most riveting presentation came from a speaker who had no PowerPoint presentation, no outline, not even any notes in front of him.  But he was there in Dnipro, Ukraine, beginning to plant a church.  He could identify with the refugees we’ve heard about because he and his family were among them …

Levi Brinkerhoff at Calvary Chapel of Lafayette, March 26, 2022

*********************

A Tale of Four Basements

Meanwhile, I have seen several basements lately.  Our own is rather gross from all the flooding, so I haven’t been down there with Eric.  (I know that sounds squeamish.)  There’s nothing of value down there anymore except the few large appliances we haven’t moved out yet.

But Sunday afternoon, Eric and I went to Dad’s house, and Dad showed Eric not only his cleverly-engineered water softener salt bag pulley system, but his extensive pipe-and-triple-sump-pump flooding control system to keep his basement dry.  Lining all the walls of his deep, dry basement are shelves full of carefully packed and labeled boxes of everything he wants to have close at hand.  Granted, much of that might have been carefully packed and stored by Angela before she passed, but my dad’s act, as usual, is together, and it’s very impressive.

After the basement tour, Dad showed me pictures he took on his smartphone when he had visited Uncle Sam.  

“Look at all the stuff he has in his basement!”

Cabinets full of tools and equipment of all kinds inhabit my uncle’s basement.  

“Dad, the only reason you don’t have all that stuff in your basement is because you have it all in your workshop!”

“Oh yeah.”

The project, undertaken by his two adult children, to liquidate Uncle Sam’s belongings has begun.  He’s in a nursing home with no prospect of coming home now and he needs to pay for his room and board there.  Diabetes has killed one of his legs and he might not get to keep even that.  He has lost almost a hundred pounds since we last saw him.

Sam Jr. (Tito) and Eunice (Mimi) have been keeping some of the belongings, giving some away, and selling some in order to empty the house to put it on the market.  Every bit of Sam’s possessions must be evaluated, whether to keep or not to keep.

Another friend told me recently that if we ever had to evacuate our house because there was a toilet paper shortage and we couldn’t wipe, we could come and live with her.  And she showed me pictures of her basement, with enough toilet paper stuffed in every corner to billet a regiment!  Of course, she had much more in her roomy basement, including emergency food supplies that would last 25 years, that kind of thing.

There are things people hoard, even when there is a popular saying, “You can’t take it with you,” that gently discourages too much of that.  We kept boys' clothing in the attic for many years when Chris grew out of it, only to find out when David was that size that any elastic was rotten and brittle from the summer heat.  Then, as the Bible notes, there are things like moths, rust, and thieves.  In our case, silverfish eat the finish on books, and mice use your belongings for their toilet and for enhancing their nests.

What To Keep and What to Give

Scripturally, there are things that are good to hoard, to packrat, to keep with you and share with others as needed.  This one’s at the top of the list:

“Buy the truth, and do not sell it, Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.”

~Proverbs 23:23

And of course:

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

~Jesus, in Matthew 6:19-21

What about the other stuff?

Still from "He Is No Fool" by Twila Paris

There is, without a doubt, some satisfaction in remembering that in the junk drawer or the button can, you have just the right screw or just the right button needed to save something and make it useful again.  The chances of it happening more than once a year could be slim, but it sometimes does work.  And my friend would feel very good about the toilet paper if there were a severe toilet paper shortage and she, being prepared, could share her stash with friends and neighbors.

But by and large, the real treasures are not earthly stuff.  The statement above was made by a missionary to an Amazon tribe, whose life and “untimely” death were made into a movie called End of the Spear.  Yes, you’ve got the idea.  He died from a spear, but he gave his life freely and gained eternity.  Here’s a music video by Twila Paris that will explain the saying even more.

In Acts Chapter 11, a prophet named Agabus prophesied that there would be a severe famine.  At once, the Church in Antioch chose to take up a collection for the brethren in Jerusalem and send it by the hand of Paul and Barnabas, two of their teachers.  They dug deep and sent a generous gift.  It looks like that is repeated at the Church in Corinth and the one in Galatia.  The Gentiles were concerned about their Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ.

There is something about giving that frees you up.  Jesus’ point about where your treasure is should be considered well.  If your main focus is on your stuff here, that’s where your heart will be. Put simply, this is idolatry.  But if the rewards accumulated by your good works done in Jesus’ Name are piling up in Heaven, you will long to be there, where God is.  

Levi, in his talk on Saturday, told of leaving everything behind in his only-recently-acquired apartment, and sitting in a slow-moving line of cars with car-sick and cranky children for about 35 hours.  But eventually, he made it safely out of Ukraine, donated his vehicles to those who were conducting rescue missions, and he and his family flew back to the States.  He would sometimes feel pangs of guilt for having left his friends behind in the war, but his children needed to be safe.

And now, he is engaged in the same kind of operation that Paul was.  People in Ukraine are not just shell-shocked, they are dying from the blasts, from the cold, and from literal famine.  So from his vantage point here, speaking to Western churches, and especially the overflowing crowd at the Prophecy Conference, he is mobilizing The Church to send relief into Ukraine.  At some point, he says, he may be able to go back to help, but our church in Lafayette has become a drop-off point for such items as clothing, diapers, MRE’s, bulletproof vests (if you can get them), and painkillers, as well as money.  And when Levi comes around again, he will arrange to have these items shipped out to those who need them.  

Levi makes it clear that this is actually not so much a war:  it is terrorism.  If you’ll remember, last week I went over people’s theories of who was at fault in this siege, and I said I tended to believe that Putin is demon possessed.  Now hearing this from a boots-on-the-ground representative of the Church in Ukraine, it is very clear that Putin’s aggression is driven by Satan.  Ukrainians have had to stop marking locations with “CHILDREN” in hopes that the enemy would pass over those places of refuge.  They found out quickly that the Russians are specifically targeting those locations.

But in the end, it doesn’t matter who is at fault politically.  The Church’s mission right now includes navigating through occupied cities in bullet-riddled cars to rescue the perishing on a day-to-day basis, and to bus in essential survival supplies.

Practically speaking, aid to refugees and to God’s people trying to help orphaned Ukrainian children is a very good thing -- something we can do to help, even though we are thousands of miles away.  And by sending aid and praying for our frontline workers, we will be able to store up (hoard, if you will) treasures in Heaven.

While we are here, We the Church are to continue the work we have been commissioned to do.  That has never changed.  While the world wants to send bombs and bullets (and we probably should), God’s Church is shining.  

*****************

How to Give:

An email from Pastor Joe to our church:

Thank you for giving to the missionaries on the cutting edge of what God is doing, in extracting those who are still in Ukraine and finding a safe place.  Below is a list of items for the Ukrainian refugees. Your continued prayers and financial aid are much appreciated by the Calvary Chapel missionaries. The best way to give is through Calvary Chapel with a notation in the memo or note that says "Ukraine Refugees," and we will get it to proper missionaries, who are distributing the aid. We have about eight missionaries to whom we are sending funds to assist in their outreach to the Ukrainians. You can also give to Samaritan's Purse, who also have boots on the ground at the borders where the refugees are crossing. If there is a specific missionary you want to give to-- like one of the Markeys or Levi-- please note that.   

Some of you may have heard that Jed Gourley, one of our CC missionaries, took a bus into Ukraine and rescued 40 orphans and has a temporary place for them in Hungary. All that is happening is an ongoing and uncertain drama that needs lots of prayers.   

Blessings & Maranatha!

- pastor joe

ITEMS FOR UKRAINE / REFUGEES:

Being collected at Calvary Chapel, Lafayette

2111 East State Street

Lafayette, IN 47905

765.477.7744

             (It has been requested that people not send anything that’s not on the list)

 

 

GEAR:

-          Bulletproof vests Level 3 or Level 4

-          Military style helmets

-          Tactical gloves

-          Night-vision goggles

-          Multi-tools

-          Knee pads

-          Camping mats

-          Sleeping bags

-          Tactical backpacks

-          Flashlights

 

FOOD

-          MREs

-          Protein/energy bars

-          Baby/infant puree

-          Grains, beans and rice

-          Instant and ground coffee

MEDICAL:

-          First aid packs

-          Bandages

-          Tourniquets

-          Emergency pressure bandage

-          Gauze

-          Medical tape

-          Medical scissors

-          Body warming pouches

-          Hot and cold packs for pain and inflammation

-          Space blankets (thermal isolation)

-          Saline wash for eyes

-          Ibuprofen

-          Tylenol

-          Aspirin

-          Paracetamol

-          Diarrhea medication

-          Diapers (all sizes)

 

CLOTHES:

-          Thermal underwear (size L and bigger)

-          Fleece jackets

-          Heavy duty socks

-          Children’s clothes of all sizes (no stains or tears)

LINKS:

I have included links above, but here they are again for reference:

Levi Brinkerhoff's presentation at the Prophecy Conference

https://youtu.be/O7FhLJHft8w

For giving through Calvary Chapel:

https://cchapel.org/give-online/   (Be sure to put what the donation is for in the memo field.)

For contact information for the various missionaries, especially including Levi:

https://cchapel.org/missions/

For Samaritan’s Purse:

https://video.samaritanspurse.org/channel/international-crisis-response/

A big thank you to each one who is giving to these critical needs.  You are, literally, a God-send.

It May Look Like WWIII, But The End is Not Yet

Last week, I did not write you a blog post! That hasn’t happened in close to two years. However, many of you enjoyed the picture on my Facebook timeline of me in my wedding dress. I hadn’t been able to zip it up in many, many years, so it was a big event—besides having been married to the same man for 47 years!

But Eric and I were stressed last week over complicated tax returns for the LLC and the looming deadline, and the way the basement had been flooding again and the need to engineer a sump pump solution. We decided what we needed to do about these concerns was to not stay awake at night fretting over them as we had been, but to trust God and just “do the next thing.” At least we were not being shelled, and we needed to be grateful for that. It could be worse ...

Beyond the simple joy of our wedding anniversary, there has been a lot of anguish lately, and you are no stranger to that if you’ve seen even five minutes of a news report. Our church supports several missionaries in Ukraine and Russia, so escaping the slaughter has been on everyone’s minds. Some of our friends made it safely across the border out of Ukraine to countries that were not under attack, but then were so concerned about loved ones who couldn’t get out that they’ve been organizing rescue missions. Others are engaged in getting supplies and aid to Ukraine from here in the States.

Even so, missionary kids have severe PTSD from the whole ordeal, and they are worried about their friends and neighbors, who may be bombarded by the Russians—and that is a valid concern.

Some people are calling Putin a mad, power-hungry Nazi. Putin is calling Zalenskyy (the Jewish President of Ukraine) a Nazi. The neo-Nazis in Ukraine (yes, there are some!) are calling Putin a Jew and that’s why they’re fighting him so hard.

Some say we are in the era of “the second horseman” in Revelation 6—the one who rides the red horse of War. But some are sure none of that part of Revelation (the seal judgments) happens until after the Rapture of the Church. 

Some say Putin is demon-possessed or maybe having “Roid Rage” from steroids taken for cancer treatment. I tend to be in this camp. Why else would he target for destruction a theater full of civilians with children or an art school, and continue to threaten everyone who opposes him with nuclear annihilation? Sobering news from the war makes Eric and I more conscious of squealing noises from our water heater that sound like approaching missiles, but I don’t think I would fit under my desk, the way we practiced atomic bomb drills in the ‘60s as kids.

Others believe Putin is working with President Trump to rid the world of sex traffickers in Ukraine, or of bio-weapons labs, and that a possible war between the U.S. and Russia is a trap of the Deep State. They say that both the U.S. government and the Ukraine government are corrupt. So what else is new?

Some say, after an impassioned plea to the U.S. Congress to help, and a call to President Biden to be the leader of the free world, that President Zelenskyy is actually the leader of the free world. Others say it’s actually NATO who is bombing Ukraine, not Russia.

Jane Fonda set the End of the World (climate doomsday) to eight years from now, and you know she’s an expert! Biden is getting ready to take the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps off the terrorist watch list and sign an even worse agreement than what Obama did, so that he can ostensibly become the world’s greatest sponsor of terrorism. And our porous southern border has 170,000 people getting ready to invade the U.S. as soon as some Trump-era policies expire.

Wars and rumors of wars? Nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom? Sounds like it to me! There are new ones every day, it seems, almost a free-for-all.

Jesus named these as but the beginning (the mild part!) of sorrows—birth pangs, or contractions—that will precede his Second Coming, along with famines, pestilences, and earthquakes. Lest we think we’re done with the pestilence part, notice that it is plural. And this week a 7.3 earthquake rocked Japan, the most powerful in a year. That barely made the headlines.

“And Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

“All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

~Matthew 24:4-8

The nature of labor is a dramatic increase in the intensity, duration, and frequency of the contractions, resulting in increasing discomfort, to put it mildly. (Been there, done that.) It makes strong women cry out for drugs, or to ask if they can just not do this—usually a few minutes before they actually give birth. It doesn’t really compute at the time that there is actually no way to turn back now.

Jesus’ analogy to labor equates to an increase in each of these signs before the End of All Time and His return. Maybe we’ll even feel some of that pain, maybe even a lot of it, before we are removed from the earth. Yes, the pains may even reach North America. 

So dive further into the text and see the action items Jesus gave us. As Christians, we remember Jesus said pretty often: “Follow me.” Nowhere did He bid us “follow the science.” With that in mind, what are Jesus’ instructions for these tumultuous times?

1. Take heed that no one deceives you.

2. See that you are not troubled.

#1 – Take heed that no one deceives you…

That seems a little difficult. Propaganda is everywhere! If you couldn’t trust the mainstream media for the last decade, why is it that they are suddenly reliable? And if they are not, then is anything that says the opposite of what they’re saying true? 

Elon Musk provided internet service for the Ukrainians so their communications wouldn’t be cut off. But he said he was a free speech purist, so he refused to censor the Russian propaganda sites. Still, thousands of volunteer hackers are trying to sabotage the Russians, Chinese hackers are trying to sabotage us (as we know they did in the 2020 election), and cyberwarfare has become the weapon d’jour. The Anonymous hacker group says if you are inexperienced at keeping yourself safe, even if you are enthused about the cyber war effort—don’t participate.

Hardly anyone knows what to believe, but they want to know the truth. Where do you find true information? Rumble? The modern-day “prophets”?

Now look at the whole verse.

“And Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.’”

There is a dearth of leadership in the world today. That’s why so many are still looking to President Trump, who was truly a great leader during his four years in office. It's why he can still command such tremendous crowds at rallies, and it’s why his endorsement is a golden ticket.

It’s why the world is spellbound by President Zelenskyy, wondering if he is strong enough to actually win a war against a nuclear superpower—a modern David and Goliath story. Is he the leader the world needs?

And, it is why the world has been plunged into chaos. It is so that a Man with a Plan will rise to the top and find an adoring world ready to follow him, even worship him. This week, Joe Biden repeated his belief in this coming “New World Order.”

We must be very very careful to only follow our Messiah, Jesus the Christ. The rejection of God’s Messiah opens the door for false ones. Some of the false prophets and leaders are already taking over entire denominations of the modern Church.

If we are to not be deceived, then what should we believe? 

We can believe God’s Word. He says in His Word that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The governments of the earth have corrupted themselves, and it will only get worse.

He says that in That Day, when Jesus comes for us, the state of the world will be very similar to the days of Noah. Moses wrote of those days that every thought of man’s heart was always evil continually.

“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

~Matthew 24:25

Supporting one government over another one because this one is the good guy, and that one is the villain is complex. We need to be careful about that and gather the best information we can.

But while we are still here, we are to trust God, believe His promises, push back against evil with fervent prayer and action, speak the Truth, believe that the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against God’s Church, and keep preaching the Good News of Salvation to a hopelessly anxious world.

“But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

~Matthew 24:13

“See, I have told you beforehand … “

~Matthew 24:25

#2 – Be not troubled. 

Hmmmm ... Do I need some of this?

How do we do that? Psych meds? Melatonin? Yoga? Anxiety attacks are about as common as shopping trips right now.

First, we need to remember the “why” in the above: For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. These things have to happen before The End. Labor has to happen before the baby is born.

That Jesus Christ was executed on a Roman cross also had to happen, and the early Church understood this. Notice the following in their prayer for boldness in the face of persecution:

“For truly both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together in this city against Your holy Servant Yeshua, whom You anointed. They did whatever Your hand and Your purpose predetermined to happen …”

Acts 4:27-28 (Tree of Life Version)

By faith, we can believe that there are some things predetermined by God that must happen, and we are not to be in anguish about them. They are rough, but we can do this with His help.

We must not let our hearts be troubled. That’s rather like not letting our old blind dog out. She would kill herself if she went trotting through the front door by herself, and that’s a fact. And so we do not leave it standing open, leaving her vulnerable, but we take precautions to make sure the door is secure, especially if we will be gone for a while.

What precautions can we take to safeguard our heart against anxiety? O Christian, we need to rely wholly on God’s Word and His promises. (Isn’t that a lot like the answer to the first question about being deceived?)  

I know it is imperative to read God’s Word daily. To be honest, most of the time, the only Bible verses that come to mind in a time of need are the ones I read that very day. Others will begin to materialize later, but slowly. The first thing I think of is, “What was that I read this morning?” So this is what I just read in Proverbs:

“Do not let your heart envy sinners, But be zealous for the fear of the LORD all the day;

For surely there is a hereafter, And your hope will not be cut off.”

~Proverbs 23:17-18

If we are focused on Russian oligarchs and thinking how nice it would be to own a superyacht, our hearts will be troubled, because we’ll never own a superyacht. Maybe we won’t even own our own home. We may be hurt here: it’s an evil world. We may be subject to fighting in a war or evacuating to avoid being shelled. We could suffer abuse, persecution, or catastrophe.

But we have a Blessed Hope. This is the very best promise He could give us. The security in that promise to us is greater than any anxiety over what could happen to us on earth.

“… denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…”

~Titus 2:12-13

But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

~1 Cor. 2:9

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

~Romans 8:18

Instead of being focused on this world and all that is wrong with it, we must keep our gaze on our Lord, the treasures in Heaven, the Hereafter… and even be a little fanatical about it. This promise, “And Your hope will not be cut off,” is a far better sleep aid than melatonin.

Next week, I will add another action item to the list, something very practical we can do.

“Our Father in Heaven, You are the One in Whom we hope, and You have never failed us. We know there are world affairs for You to deal with, wedding plans, Heaven to run, and billions of people in the world with bigger problems than our own. 

“But we are Your people and the sheep of Your pasture, and we are listening for Your voice alone.

“Protect Your sheep from the wolves of the world, we pray, and provide us with comfortable still water and abundant grazing land. Watch over us as we safely sleep under Your constant care.

“For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.”

Family Secrets Revisited, and God’s Healing

I wrote in depth about some troubling secrets in my family about a year and a half ago. It is time to do it again, but all in one post. 

Our church had a Healing Focus service this week, as we have had for several years now, and it was a good one. Eric and I got to lead worship, and by special request, we sang “He Touched Me,” an old favorite.

Pastor Joe always says that if anyone has a good healing testimony, to let him know. He always includes other areas besides physical healing, such as mental, emotional, and relational, and he schedules the testimonials, giving the speaker about 5 minutes, before he moves on to the part of the service where the elders of the church anoint and pray for people. We have some anointing oil from Israel called “Oil of Gladness” and it smells pretty wonderful.

But before this special service, I was struggling. Every year about this time, I wonder if I should tell my story. Some have told me no, don’t do it: people look at you differently when they know these things about you. But could my testimony of God’s healing work in my life be of help to somebody else? So I asked our pastor about it, admitting that it’s much much easier to tell about God healing you of cancer. He considered it, but finally replied that it would probably take too long for this service. Instead, we should strategize about how we could introduce this very important topic in the future.

Here is my story.

Fifty years ago – almost 51 now, in the summer of 1971 – I spent a few weeks during my summer vacation visiting with my Grandma and Grandpa Ware in California. My sister and I were flown out by ourselves from our home in Arizona, one at a time. And while I was there, the young 14-year-old that I was, with a poor mental image and no previous boyfriends, encountered a grandparent who was sexually attracted to me. I didn’t know what to do with that, since I had no other family there to ask, no way to contact anyone, and anyway, he told me not to tell.

After many encounters with him, I left California with only one instruction:

“Now when you go back home, you’ll probably have boyfriends. Whatever you do, just don’t get pregnant.”

Upon returning to Arizona, I did indeed find several boyfriends and I made sure I didn’t get pregnant. But until I was invited to a fellow high school band member’s Baptist church youth group in Lakewood, California in 1974, I really didn’t understand that my lifestyle of kissing boys was sinful and destructive. I was a Christian, but didn’t even know where it said in the Bible that that was bad.

So when I found out, with chapters and verses, the light went on for me. I repented of my sins and the cymbal playing girl with the bad reputation became the “Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice” of my youth band.

Eric and I were married in 1975. We knew full disclosure was needed so we confided in one another, but agreed that as Christians, it was all behind us. How could it be otherwise? 

Twelve years later, when our two oldest daughters were five and three, Grandpa invited all of us to California for a vacation. He took us to the beach, and at his request, Eric took the girls a little way down the beach to search for seashells, but at my request, he always stayed within view. 

I found myself alone with Grandpa. That wasn’t easy, and I stayed socially distanced for sure, but his purpose was to apologize for his actions when I was a child. To his relief, I told him I had forgiven him long ago.

And so life continued on without much thought until I began to write this blog, beginning at the beginning, when I was born. I introduced the primary players in my human existence, telling about Grandpa and his great wealth, and about his position as the founder and first mayor of a small city in California. But I also talked about Grandpa as a pedophile.

One thing led to another. In the course of telling about Grandpa and the family secret that I’d kept from most of the family for years and years, I became aware that Grandpa’s position and power may have enabled him to molest others as well. I had to find out what I could, so I talked with my Cousin Terri, who said no, Grandpa had not approached her, but she knew a lot of other family secrets, and they all came spilling out. I wrote about some of that as well.

But it was not the end of the story.

Here’s a picture of a birthday gift from my real brother in Texas. I looked at it very carefully the other day with my glasses off and realized that it was … me!

It is a very small bloom of Queen Anne’s lace, a native wildflower here in Indiana, also known less romantically as “wild carrot.” I called myself a morning glory earlier in this blog – rather a “here today, gone tomorrow” person, small, insignificant by myself, but beautiful in a field together with others, lifting up my head to the Son. Queen Anne’s lace is much the same.

Around the tiny flower is beaten silver, hand-crafted and not molded, a little rough around the edges, non-symmetrical. The craftsman has made this insignificant flower eternal by encasing it in glass, and then he has given it value by surrounding it with a precious metal. 

My Savior did all of that for me. He took a small, perishable, insignificant wildflower and made me eternal. He gave me value with His own hands.

This is what I wrote in my blog about my cousin Terri:

“Jesus took our guilt and shame to the cross with him. All of that is crucified and CANCELLED. There is therefore now NO condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Our ancestry and the circumstances of our family life do not matter anymore, because even if it has affected who we are, it does NOT define us.”

And I prayed, “Our dear Father in Heaven, Terri doesn’t know her father nor her grandfather, and my own grandfather betrayed me. But You are our Real Father. Help us to understand that someday we will stand in Heaven before You, along with our very large and diverse Real Family, together forever, where You will wipe away every tear from our eyes ...”

Terri and I are set free. I am healing from the effects of incest. I know the Father, and this is what I think of “generational curses”:

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree")”

 ~Galatians 3:13

Recently we’ve had more talks and grown closer. Terri has become my “Sister-Cuz” because she and I are both fanatical about JESUS, and there really aren’t any others like that in either of our families.

Terri has a hereditary neurological disease that used to be classified as a subset of Multiple Sclerosis – Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease. This causes great pain and paralysis in her muscles, until she can no longer walk but has caregivers who come in daily to look out for her. It was rather frightening to hear about how she had a spell of CMT while driving on an L.A. freeway and lost all feeling in her whole body.

You’d think maybe, since this post is about God’s healing, that I was going to talk about Terri being healed of CMT, but no… not that. Terri is healing from a childhood far worse than her disease, and far far worse than my own childhood, that extended into adulthood and parenthood (which actually came before adulthood on her timeline). 

Terri’s experiences included watching a drunken father rape and beat the tar out of her two older siblings every night, and waking from sleep to see her mother laughing and standing over her with a butcher knife. She saw her father throw every piece of furniture they owned through the glass windows and doors of the house. She remembers the police visiting the premises about three times a week, every week.

And, Terri cried when her mother left him, because he was the only father she had ever known, only to hear her mother yell at her to shut up – that he was not really her father.

What would you do to recover from a violent, horrible childhood like that? Of the three siblings, the oldest one is extremely violent, abuses drugs, and Terri says she’s demon possessed. From what I’ve heard, she is probably correct in her assumption. The brother never talked about the past after he left home, but just made money as much and as fast as he could. But Terri went to Bible college, found the Savior, and experienced a vision of Him holding her. It may be that because she has no knowledge of her earthly father, Jesus Himself gave her the comfort she needed at that time, and which she has never forgotten.

Terri told me a lot about her past, about her one daughter that she didn’t know how to raise who ended up on the streets selling herself for drug money, how her daughter tragically died of mouth and tongue cancer, how she herself had been homeless for a while and living in a slum, how she had been falsely accused of armed robbery and defrauded of about $100,000 on her credit card. But perhaps worst of all, she told me that she has spent her whole life never telling anyone about all of this, never talking about it, never talking to her brother, never having any kind of warm family relationships.

But because I opened up about Grandpa, and told her that family secret of mine, even though it had taken decades for me to finally address it, Terri felt safe telling me her own secrets. (Don’t worry – she’s reading this before I publish it.)

All of it came tumbling out, and then she got a chance to talk to her brother – for 2½ hours! – and it all came tumbling out with him. There was so much he never knew about what she’d gone through. And suddenly, there he was, listening patiently, intently, and compassionately with a possibility that there could be a real reconciliation in their family. When her cat died shortly after that, he called and wept with her. 

Why would you want to open old wounds again? Why would you want to bring up those painful topics? Terri would never have filed charges against her mother, who just this evening was taken to the hospital with a heart attack. Her father departed this life at age 54 with a carload of drunks in a horrible accident involving several trees. My own grandfather, his wife, and my mother are dead. They’ve all gone to their eternal state – whether that’s reward or punishment.

Those old wounds needed to be re-opened, because there was an understandable perpetual festering of bitterness going on inside. But when that pus is exposed, it can then be washed away by the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.  And the Light of Jesus Christ is a phototherapy that sanitizes and purifies our hearts.

After Terri bared her soul to me, she said that she finally felt free. And she said, “You might have saved my life.”

That brought tears to my eyes. My freedom in Christ, freedom and healing from child sexual abuse, is my testimony. Jesus healed me as I revisited my past and recorded it in this blog, and now, because I shared my experiences and my testimony, my Sister-Cuz is also revisiting her past and finding the same healing. 

Now, her experiences will be her testimony too, that she can be free to share with others. And we are both praying for the salvation of her whole family. 

Let it be so, Lord! Amen and amen!

With love, 

Two small blooms of Queen Anne’s lace