Mother's Day

We went through fire and water, and thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.      
 [Psalm 66:11]

A double celebration today of Mother's Day and a graduation.  Thank you, Lord. 

Psalm 124 says it best:


If the Lord himself had not been on our side, now may Israel say; if the Lord himself had not been on our side, when men rose up against us;

They had swallowed us up alive; when they were so wrathfully displeased at us.

Yea, the waters had drowned us, and the stream had gone over our soul.

The deep waters of the proud had gone even over our soul.

But praised be the Lord, who hath not given us over for a prey unto their teeth.

Our soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we are delivered. 

Our help standeth in the Name of the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth.  [Psalm 124]


Praise be to God forever.                                                                                                    

Aging

Wisdom from Clara - my elderly prayer partner who happens to be legally blind and virtually lame but who sees beyond this world and scales mountains with her prayers:

"Close relatives especially as they grow old can be especially difficult.  I remember taking a class taught by Tony Campolo at Eastern.  He said that some older people become very difficult because in the background they envision that soon death will come like a discordant note over and over again in a symphony.  If a person is fighting death, chances are that they are fighting everyone else.  They want desperately to live.  The oddity is that they often deprive younger people of the joy of living.  

Although I still miss my mother terribly, it was such a blessing when she said to me a few days before she died, 'I have absolutely no fear of death.  Jesus is my God and my all!'   As for some elderly people, I'm sure that they are angry and feel as though they are no longer in control.  The truth is that we never are.  We are blessed if we can lay all our problems at the foot of the Cross."