Hesed

So, one of my acquaintances just came back from a retreat.
One of the classes was called, Hesed.
What follows is my understanding, of his understanding.
So may be confusing.
Or less than understandable.
If so, my apologies!

Hesed is God's loving kindness.
His covenant.
His loyalty.

Hesed is best understood in God
God and his character are essential to understanding Hesed.
It is beyond our understanding.
We must understand who God is.
Jesus lived God's Hesed.

Hesed is what moves us to worship God.
Give thanks for He is slow to anger.
Steadfast in His love for us.
Moses was lead to worship the "I Am, Whom I Am".
His love endures forever.

We must cultivate a heart of gratitude.
Being truly thankful for All.
Acknowledge God in All things.

Hesed teaches us to love God.
By his example in loving others.
By sacrifice.

Hesed brings us to the person of Jesus.

Thankfulness

When I was informed that the wound's closure - I burst into tears for several hours.
Thhis has been emotionally exhausting.
Admittedly, it does not take much to exhaust me.

So, yesterday, I took my nurse to the local cantina for lunch.
I do not think that nurses get very much thanks.
We dined on the new Mexican menu.
It was good.
She had fun. I had fun, the waitress had some good laughs as well!

And she talked about how in 22 years No One had ever thanked her for doing what she enjoys.
Make no mistake, her insights certainly were what has brought to this point.
And her wagging tongue is why I have to see the surgeon on Monday .,,,

Sigh .....

I guess I need to be thankful for that as well ...

A Grateful Heart

I have so wanted to post something about this for many weeks, but what better time to talk about gratitude than on Thanksgiving Day?

Due to the nature of my own creation, gratitude is not something I knew.  I was "thankful" for much, to the degree I could be, but nothing like you know of gratitude.

But that was to begin to change in 2012 as God began to change my nature.  But, change is slow to absorb and understand.  Much less, the concept of practice.  I knew what God was doing because He was driving me crazy with these new emotions and feelings I had never had.  Bit by bit I was walked through emotions for family, for friends, then commitments.  I thought He was done in 2014 - what more could He possibly do to me?

Like a dumb animal eating a new food - yum!  The changes were real and long lasting, it was great.  But, there was no gratitude and I KNEW it was only going to be temporary anyway.  Nothing every happens for real in my life it seems.  One day I would wake up and Kris would be shafted as usual.

And in time, I had to live through 2015.  A year of hospitals, surgeries without end, and the death of Kris in all manners.  I expected in April's surgery not to live.  It was a horrible surgery and I had no support in place to help me through recovery - that too had been lost.  There was no hope.

Then another operation, worse than the first.  Dutchman commented by text that he felt God was calling someone to help - and maybe they were not listening.  Thank you so much!  Sigh ...

And then the fever, where I may as well as have died.  I expected brain damage from that one, but it seems not in the long term anyways.  And I was reduced to pleading for life, not because I wanted to live - I wanted life, but because I could see all too well where life would take me.

And then the antibiotic resistant staph ... and it was all over.  I was now broken in all manners.  Emotional, spiritually, mentally and now physically.  This means something to a German.  Being whole is not a concept it is a state of being.  If you are not whole - you are no longer a man.  And I was shattered.

But, when I regained my mind on October 17th, it was an even newer me than had existed before.  More change to experience and accept!

And that change was God gave me a grateful heart.

My nature is no longer even a shadow of what it once was.  I am truly thankful - for the first time in my life.

From wool to real food, from family to half-hearted friendships, I am grateful for what God has and is providing me.  Yeah, everyone remarks, everyone is unsure.  Like frightened squirrels, do they shake my hand or not?  It is funny.  What was I like before that people were standoffish towards me?  I can not say, I thought I was very approachable before ....

Pray for god to help you develop a grateful heart - though through means far less drastic than what I went through!

And thank you Lord for a safe venue by which I can tell of your mercies and blessings .....  Most of you I do not know but I am thankful for each one of you - even my eMail detractors :)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving can be reduced to the thought of possessing a grateful heart.

Thanks, is something you GIVE or express not just feel on the inside.

Hebrews 13:15-16

Give a sacrifice of praise with your lips
Say it!
Mean it!
Look for it!
Clarify it!

Give the sacrifice of praise with your life
Live it!
Show it!
Express it!

Walk the Talk!

Even when you do not feel like it!

Give the sacrifice of praise to the Lord
Focus on Him!
Daily!
In all things!

There are so many verses on praise and thrankfulness that it is hard not to make this a tome!  But, just a like take on a very large subject ... got to leave room for dessert here!

Its All About Marketing

I went grocery shopping at the local Krogers, aka Fred Meyers. It completely and totally exhausted me but I was using a scooter - not hopping around at all!

And this condition confused me greatly ...  What caused this?

The exhaustion was real, but I recognized that it was mental, not physical or emotional.  But how much thinking had I done?  Darn little, other than just thinking of things I needed back home for a little birthday dinner for number 2 daughter.  Dang ... I hate it when I come up empty for answers.

The party went well, daughter was over an hour later - to be expected ... sigh.  And I had to have a meal that not only was vegan, but could expand to vegetarian and then there are the meat-a-saurs that needed satisfied as well.  Sigh, my family.  However, a pasta salad with bowls of cheese and salami did the job!  And everyone was happy.  Some pie and then granddaughter was spinning like a top around the room.  Everyone was laughing at the floor entertainment and I thought:  she is wound up on sugar and soon flat on her lips and ready for bed.

And then I thought about my exhaustion the other night and how I had only been at Fred Meyers ...  Which reminded of a long forgotten college class in Marketing.  One of the most useless of all classes I ever took, the theory presented was completely wrong - as 1981 showed, and I had argued, but hey I was a kid in 1973 and obviously wrong.  But, I retained one trivia item from that class: red is used in packaging to draw shoppers attention, as well as a ton about product placement in a display.

Red ... but I have never  been sensitive to red, or any color, for that matter.  But, what if it was the profusion of color, on all of those selves?  Makes sense.  I have been in a sensory deprivation situation for the past six weeks.  So, the sudden bust of color would have been an over stimulation - just as grand daughter suffered prior to her melt down.  Of course, a nitro took care of my melt down in the end as my blood pressure went out of control.

Interesting.

And the winds began to blow and I sat and watched the trees swaying hypnotically, the branches dancing and shaking.  Then the pitter-pat of rain.  I could not hop out to dance in it, but I would have if I could have.  God blessed us with a remarkable world - colors, sights, sounds, movement.  All to be enjoyed, all to be lifted up in thanks to the Creator ...

If you haven't given thanks in a while - stop and take a notice of the world and its marvels which surround you ...

Celebration!

This is a replacement post for what I had planned for today, written and scheduled!

It is important to me that I share my victories and blessings and not just whine about life!  Victory came most unexpectedly yesterday ...

I had a series of doctors' appointments yesterday, so Swede was coming down from Everett to drive me around.  Only he never showed up and did not call either!  Most unlike him!  He is an engineer, if you looked up any aerospace engineer in a dictionary - his photo would be pasted there!  Sometime it is just too funny the way in which he is so atypical, an engineer.  I texted him and took off walking for the hospital where the first doctor, the infectious disease doctor is.

I also called his office to tell them I would be late since I was walking.  It is only four blocks to the hospital but it still took 30 minutes due to the leg problems.  But, I made it in record time - utterly exhausted.  Everything is still good with the body, no signs of a re-infection.  But, it seems that foot is now showing signs of a failure with the lymph system.  Is there no end to this!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!!

I stopped off at the Physical Therapy place, which apparently does evaluations for lymph system disorders - I have no idea as to why.  I was to learn that it is because there are so many women with breast cancer around here that they do this task and then treat in house.  I get a packet of paper to fill out am told there is an evaluation appointment available in the afternoon and I am done with them!

By now it is lunchtime so I head off to my favorite Mexican place for lunch and text the still silent Swede that I am now walking there from the hospital, a distance of perhaps a half mile.  He texts back that is already there.  And I think ... "What the heck?".  But as I walk along I am trying to remember back over 40 years ago and my medical training when I was in high school.  I was a part of Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue back then, we were the para-medics of the day in Colorado.  I had to admit there was little I could recall.

I make it about 100 yards from the door of the hospital when I see his little sports car turn on to the street I am walking down and roar past me, pull a U-Turn and then slide to a stop.  I hop in and he is so apologetic!  It seems he had written down 1:00 rather than 10:00 as my appointment time so he drove like a demon to get down to my little Burg and figured where ever I was, I would be doing Mexican food for lunch!  LOL, I guess he knows me.

Over lunch, Swede and I chatted while I fill out reams of paperwork and ate.  He had no ideas on the lymph system either and really wanted to talk about the new launch site Blue Origin is building in Florida ... perhaps he is thinking of coming out of retirement?  Certainly, he is bored enough as witnessed by his driving down to see me weekly!

The bone doctor was next.  New x-rays shot, one of his interns came in, yakked a bit and then left.  About an hour later my surgeon comes in - I have not seen him since May when he was doing the titanium structure on me that failed a month later.  I figured he was mad at me for destroying his fine work!  But, he is happy, very happy, even jovial!

So the short of it:

• The fracture of the foot is solid
• The the bone structure of the foot is solid
• I passed a bone and muscle stress test

But, the titanium beam in the foot has failed and for now should be no problem.  It just means my dream of being a ballerina will never happen now - sigh ...   LOL!

He is happy because I am the exception.  Only .5% of what I have gone through end up keeping any part of their leg, ankle or foot!  And I get to keep all three!  He even said that, "I had lost all hope for you because we started with a disaster, the attempts to save the foot and rebuild it failed, and yet - (he is waving the x-rays around now) - there is foot!  Come back and see me in three weeks."

I was walking on air as I went to the physical therapy place.  I was run through their tests as I told them about the year and its trauma.  The person admitted she had never heard of someone getting this far in the process and still having their foot!  All she ever gets to work with are amputees.  I just smiled.  In the end, she confirmed that lymph system has failed, probably damaged by the surgery, but with an intensive six week treatment program - it should be restarted.

So, I took everyone out to dinner to celebrate God's miracle and now I reek of garlic ..... hmmm, Greek food ....

A major shout out to God! 

If you have been following along, you know what I have gone through to make it this far.  Still a few more months of discomfort and pain but there is now light at the end of the tunnel - there is HOPE!

Happiness

Prior to my new nature being dumped on me, I can not say I was ever happy.  Oh, I knew contentment as a component of happiness and so that became happiness for me.  If I was "happy" that meant I was satisfied with life.  But, no, it really was not happiness.

After the huge change hit my life, in 2013, I did know times of happiness but it was equally balanced with pain.  Be happy, get slapped down by life to face reality.  Sigh.

Then there was my cryptic Saturday post that I knew happiness was coming, I just had no clue what it meant.  I had some guesses, which were rather quickly killed.  So, I was perplexed and almost a month passed.  Theb God reminded me again that I was to know happiness.  Another week passed.  I had no clue where or what this happiness was or could possibly be.

And then it was birthed within me, I suddenly discovered happiness.

But it was a happiness not based upon others or what they could do for me.  There was nothing I did to cause it to happen - it simply was there.  It was not a matter of my old understanding of contentment.  Happiness was in there, I was/am joyous and remain so. 

And today as I thought on this, I realized that happiness is not the result of an external influence, it is the result of what is in you.  I have been given true happiness.  A blessing for sure.  A gift I can share with those whom cross my path everyday.  From random man in parking lot to bouncer watching the door at the concert my youngest daughter went to last night.  From the tired worker behind a candy counter to the poor cashier trying to get done as the store closed and slow shoppers like me complicate things!  I was able to leave smiles on each of their faces.

I am not sure I have ever done anything to deserve happiness to be discovered inside of me so late in life.  But, I thank God for it.  It surely is a most unexpected miracle  ...

Its Not About You

Forgiveness Is Important
Forgive those whom have disappointed you.

Paul is remembering those whom have hurt him and/or the Church.
Paul is remembering those whom have blessed him and the Church, as well.

Demas, whom went back into the world.
Mark, whom was useful yet dropped out on a mission trip.

I think Paul's point here is that failure does not have to be permanent nor final.

Warn of Wolves
They are dangerous!

Warn others of those whom can harm them!

More than likely, all churches have a few wolves in their midst:

• Predators, those whom prey upon the weak or immature
• Anti-Christ's, those whom attempt to change doctrines or ministries

We need to attempt to correct them and then separate from them (disfellowship) if they will not submit to sound doctrine.

Our duty is to be sure that know only our church bodies know but that any other assemblies they wish to attend are waned as well!

We are told of Alexander the Coppersmith, and told to avoid.

Give Thanks
For those whom have been a blessing in your life

Encourage Others
You are not dead, yet, so keep working.  All of us need to action while there is still time!

Did you get the point of Paul's closing to Timothy?  It is not about you, it is about everyone else - from your point of view.