To all blog readers, this update on my ordeal. I fell on a walk about 3 months ago when I stubbed my right toe on a 3/4-inch-high curb over a sunken sidewalk.
I landed squarely on my left shoulder, and must have twisted my body, giving great pain to my left groin. (Had x-rays taken.) Both seemed to be improving until Saturday night, August 30. I awakened at midnight with the strongest pain ever felt—on my right side, above my rib cage. After several futile efforts to reduce the pain, I had Judy call 911. Went to E.R. at the new Kaiser Hospital, San Marcos. A cat scan and another test proved I had a big blood clot in my lung and one in my left leg. Now on blood thinner. Had I known I needed to walk through the pain after the fall, I would have continued my years-long walking habit. Ignorant of the need, I developed the blood clots by being sedentary. Spared certain death, I decided God still had work for me. One project is now underway—an update later. Sunday, October 1, I returned to the pulpit for the first time in a month. No diminution of energy from it. I ask for your prayers. Dr. Gale thinks I’ll have another 5 months on blood thinner. If God wills, I ask hm to more quickly accelerate the absorption of the clots. His will be done. As of October 1, 2023, I’m back to my regular walking schedule—slower but persistent, preaching, teaching Bible Study, blogging and writing. Please remember me in your prayers. Thanks. God Bless, Virg.
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Note: this week’s blogs on resurrection theme.
Judy and I remember still, with the couple two months before, to the day. Then to celebrate the vows taken 50 years before; two months later to mourn the loss of a precious wife, mother, relative and friend. Laughter before, tears that day. Pleasure before, bereavement that day. When will we ever learn: NEVER trust life for security and serenity? It never fails to ambush us at the most inopportune time. When we’re most vulnerable, but don’t know it. When we least expect it, for anticipating better things. Secular scientists assure us of their unrelenting search for humanity’s nativity. And where do they look? In the muck of dirt, in the slime of seas. Which is fine if we’re a peanut or potato/or for even the genesis of the human body. But not OUR GENESIS! We, made in the Image of God, defy the death that carries the body away to the grave or the crematoria, to the depths of the sea, or to a cleft in the mountains. We don’t have to WANT to die to PREPARE to die. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live if living means serving Christ. Just as there’s nothing wrong with desiring death if, in death, we enter Christ’s presence Philippians 1:20-26. The frailties of an aging mind and body may create a desire to die; while retaining strength of both in aging may urge desire to live—but only to serve Jesus, not to add years, fame, wealth or reputation. After all, no one in Paradise will be impressed when we arrive at 100 years old. Multiplied numbers of them lived 800-900 years before dying Genesis 5. Genesis 2 tells us what we once were…innocent children of God. Romans 8 tells what we now are…forgiven children of God. Revelation 21-22 tell us what we are yet to be…glorified children of God. We have enough success here to assure us of what life can be. We endure enough defeat here to remind us what life often is. But thank God, through the Grace of Jesus Christ, we’re yet to become victoriously eternal. Neither adversity nor pain is final, then; nor defeat and death; nor bereavement and loss. Those imposters lie. God’s people, rescued from sin by Christ’s forgiveness, from weakness by Christ’s strength, from mortality by Christ’s immortality, experience forever and ever success, rewards and ecstasy. |
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