Date Night - Prayer and Praise

Hi Everyone:

It's Friday Night. DATE NIGHT. WITH YOU. Let's just sit and talk a while. Let's talk about you. "So, what do you think about me?" (Beaches, Bette Midler)

If you see me post a comment on my own blog that says, "getting in sideways" just ignore it because I have to hack my way into my blog so that I can post.

I need order in my life to function, and when there's not order, I don't function well. So, Jim's illness has naturally affected many areas of my life. But I keep getting used to my "new normal" as I move along. But having a prayer time and a prayer corner with praise music and my books just does not happen away from home 10 days in a strange place, 13 hours at the hopt. each day, eating ginger snaps for dinner, etc. That's why I'm all prayed out. I'm out of my zone. I can't get in. I'm not home.

But I discovered something tonight. While I can't pray, I can praise. It's the weirdest thing. I can sit and praise God on and on. Why? I'll have to think through it, but right off the top...well, it's easy to do. I mean, He's the Beginning and the End, the North, South, East, and West, the creator of everything. Praising God isn't that hard.....today. LOL. Well, lately, it's not been hard. It hasn't always been that way. But I think this is why it's easier in my life now.

I shared this with some people, but not on the blog. At least I don't think I did. If I did, well, read it again, and don't tell me my brain's going to the dog, besides that, this is DATE NIGHT, and I'm off duty.

The long story short is that a few months ago, after everything was going wrong to the nth degree, as it had been for 3 months-- big time wrong...Jim almost dying, wrong..., etc.-- I got a book out of the library, a Christian novel "Deadline" by Randy Alcorn, and it was really good. With Jim so sick, I thought I could read a bit while he was in the hospital. I couldn't stop reading it. There are 3 guys who are friends, and....well, one dies. The christian. Fast forward to his funeral, and there's his wife saying, "goodbye, my dear husband, my best friend." I almost swallowed my tongue. I couldn't stop crying. I was so darn angry, I left the hospital room and I went out into this corner and looked up to heaven and said, "Can't you at least cut me a break on a book? I wanted something fun, good for the heart. Can't you cut me a darn break even with a book?" I was crying and hurt and not as angry as I could have been in the past. Now I have gotten angry with God many times through the years, but this time, I instantly was broken hearted and realized that I was blaspheming my God, and I was attributing a characteristic to God that was bad and mean spirited. I was believing the lie that God was doing another mean thing to me. And I knew that was wrong and that I never wanted to do that again. Why, after 47 years, I finally understood that God is the good guy and is pure love, I'll never know, (I had only wanted to walk in that truth all my christian life to no avail--took long enough) but I knew I wanted to by like Job, who after everything that happened to him, endured and Job 1:22 Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God. So "Bully God" has been done away with. Oh, every once in a while the enemy tries to slip one in sideways, but I'm on to him now, and I know that God is good like I have never known before. So, was it God's doing or the enemy's that I was reading this sad book during this hard time? I don't know. It doesn't matter. I know God allowed me to get hurt by that story in the book, even if He didn't orchestrate it. And He would make it good. And He did. I finally got a hold of the truth that "OUR GOD IS GOOD...REAL GOOD" despite what happens in life. So, if it was God's, thank you Lord, and if it was the enemy, well...ha ha ha ha ha. Youuuuuuuuuu're a stinkin' loooooooooooooooser.

All of that to say this. I can't pray. I can, but it's so mechanical lately. It takes too much thinking, and too much of me trying to enter in, but praising doesn't. And before I know it, I'm not only "in." I'm "in" and feeling fine. I find myself thankful for the chair I'm sitting on, to the water I'm drinking, for the docs and nurses that care for Jim, that I can come back to this lodge and talk to a friend on the phone, type on a computer and feel very content on a cold Friday night, a week before Thanksgiving, with no clue as to Jim's future. I just realized that normally I would be playing Christmas Carols and watching It's a Wonderful Life, you'll shoot your eye out, kid--that's what I like to call it--and Holiday Inn. I just realized a YEAR AGO TODAY, Jim went into the hospital for 20 days for another biopsy that would say he did not have cancer. And I'm okay with it. That's an amazing God thing, don't you think? IT'S TOTALLY AMAZING....Which makes me want to immediately go to this thought. Wow, aren't I mature. Haven't I grown. I AM TOTALLY AMAZING....Which takes me immediately to this thought. I AM NOT. I AM NOTHING WITHOUT HIM. IT'S HIM DOING IT IN ME. And He's using lots of you guys to pray me though it to boot.

"Oh wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me." Thank you Jesus, that you have. Now, I want to immediately go to 2 Corinthians, "for when I am weak, then I am strong."
LOL. Oh, it cracks me up. I want accolades. I want...something....anything...applause, an "atta girl" a foot rub? It's date night, come on. And before you know it, well, I've gone from praising Him, to wanting praise because I'm praising Him. LOL.

It takes me back to my counselor/friend, Richard, who said, "if you're pulse is beating, you're probably sinning." Oh wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me.

Jesus.... Past, present and future.

Okay, tell the truth folks. I'm talking to myself now, aren't I? I'm so isolated, that I'm sharing my conversations in my head on the web, because I'm so isolated. This is how online affairs start, huh? I better stop talking before I take myself out, rub my own feet, or buy myself diamond earrings. I'm going to start my own website for self dating. I'll call it me-harmony.com. Oh sh-t. I'm laughing out loud with myself now, and the lady at the desk is looking at me like I'm nuts. Oh, that felt good.

Ohhhhhhhhhh, I had such a good time. Me, too. Thanks so much. You're welcomed. See you next Friday? Sure. Bye. Bye. Oh, by the way, my ears are pierced.

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