changes...

My medication is being changed to see if it will help with the nausea and dizziness.  It is very hard to think of all the money I spent just a week ago and what I will be spending tomorrow when the new prescription comes into the pharmacy.  Medical care should not depend on money.  And I do not want to be ill if I do not have to be, but I would prefer sticking with the first prescription until it is done on the chances that I will be better, since I already am better.  However, if I do not change the medication, the cardiologist cannot separate out dizziness from the medication and dizziness from dysautonomia.  I can see the logic in that even if my pocketbook is hard pressed.  I have three more appointments pending over the new few weeks, all with co-pays larger than I could wish.  I can at least hope that all my other medication will be just fine as is.  SIGH.

~~~~
Today, I learned something that helps makes sense of some of my confusion of the past few weeks.  But I do not see what I can do with the information.  I am always wont to speak.  But I am thinking this might be a time to remain silent.  I had someone offer to speak for me, which is so tempting I cannot begin to describe how much, but that would be the same as my speaking, would it not?  I do not know which way to go.  As often of late, I wish for someone to tell me what to do.  This time, even asking for direction would be speaking and therefore making the advice moot.  And so I pray. And I wait.  I bet you haven't noticed that I am less patient about waiting than I am with nausea.  DOUBLE SIGH.

~~~~
So, the hiddeness of God:

A while ago, someone gave me a paper he wrote on Luther's Theology of the Cross.  He told me I was free to quote it, so I thought I would go back to it.  Particularly because I am having a wee bit of trouble understand Forde since he tackles theses on works next.

Good works is on my list of things I wish to understand better, especially because of my ex-Protestant background.  Pastor F once talked to me about good works...or emailed, I cannot remember which.  I actually cannot remember exactly what he said, but I am thinking it was something along the lines that good works are not really about us but others.  That we do not serve God by our works, but others. for He needs them not.  I think that's from Luther.  I wish I remembered better.  But in any case, I found the next bit of Forde foggy.

Hence, I thought I would try to look at the theology of the cross from a different direction.

The first bit is from a section labeled "The Heidelberg Disputation":

The Theology of the Cross is a theology of revelation. Man should have a natural knowledge of God, through which the "invisible things" of God are visible in the works of creation. But due to sin, man fails to recognize God in His works. For man, creation does not reveal but conceals God's essence and will. Because God wants to be known, He reveals Himself in a new way, namely, through the cross. In the cross, God conceals Himself in the weakness and misery of human suffering — where no one would expect God to be — and thereby reveals Himself as the hidden God. He becomes visible as He conceals Himself. He is recognized and known nowhere else than in the shame of the cross. As God Himself is hidden in sufferings, so also are His works and power revealed in weakness and His wisdom in foolishness. (emphasis mine)

The last bit I am not sure about, not sure that I follow the "so also" part but I do understand that God's power is in revealed weakness and wisdom in foolishness.  Perhaps this means "likewise"?  I think that would make sense.  So, I guess I could easily say that I do understand God being hidden.  But the whole my life is hidden in Christ and sometimes hidden from me is what I struggle to grasp.  Why would God hide my life in Christ from me?  And what does that exactly mean?

The next is from the "Hiddeness of the Christian Life" section of his paper:

Just as God is a hidden God, and as faith is the evidence of things that do not appear, so also is the life of the Christian hidden. These three statements belong together in the most intimate way. One follows from the other. The Christian life is hidden because it is a life of faith. The Christian life can never be fully identified with the empirical life; it is always an object of faith and, as such, it is hidden. This hiddenness is so deep that even the saints themselves are unaware of their own most personal life. They have no idea about the adornment in which they stand before God. 

[Empirical:  depending upon experience or observation.  I looked that up because although it is a work I used in grad school, I really couldn't define it right now or place it in context.]

What does it mean that I saints are unaware of their own most personal life and have no idea about the adornment in which they stand before God?  Since becoming a Lutheran, I hear a lot about being clothed in Christ's righteousness.  I may not see that, but he does.  So does he not know his adornment or is adornment something else?  Is it the depth of such knowledge rather than the knowledge itself, like when Luther says that there's enough in baptism to study for the rest of your life?

The hidden life of the Christian is a reality, but it is not perceived. The new life is not the object of empirical experience, but often enough is in opposition to it. Sin and righteousness in the Christian are in the same relationship as reality and hope. His righteousness consists in God's imputation. But God's judgment on man, which alone has ultimate reality, is manifest only to faith, not to direct perception.

What does it mean that sin and righteousness have the same relationship as reality and hope?  Sin is our reality and righteousness is our hope?  But I thought hope was for things to come and is not righteousness now, even in this world, because in Christ we already have all that is Christ's

Luther's view of justification is to be understood in this perspective. In Christ the sinner is righteous. The reality of Christ is stronger than the reality of sin, but it is a reality of faith and therefore a hidden reality. In this point, Luther's doctrine of justification is a concrete application of his Theology of the Cross. 

Okay, so I am feeling quite the dunce.  Why is faith hidden?  Do I not see evidence of that faith in my own life and in those around me?  Do I not see it in the saints that have gone before us?  Hosea had a faith that was quite clear to do as he did.  Do I not see it every Lord's Day in the Divine Service at the institution of the Lord's Supper?  And does not such evidence make it empirical? 

The hidden life of the Christian is a spiritual life; that is to say, a life in the Holy Spirit. As such, it is truly real and yet hidden. The spiritual man is buried with Christ, he has died to the world and the world to him. He understands what the world can never comprehend. 
 
I know that the Augsburg Confession holds in the article on Original Sin that we cannot approach or understand God in our sin.  So, it is the Holy Spirit who gives us faith to believe, to see, to know.  I also know that we died with Christ in our baptism, but we are also risen with Him.  I get that our lives are spiritual and often make absolutely no sense to those who have not faith.  But would not that be hidden to the world and not ourselves?  How is that also hidden to ourselves?  Looking to the cross, even the trials make sense to the raised soul.  Is it that it is hidden because the sinner in us still cannot see what that saint believes?  [Crap.  I don't think that question even makes sense.]

Since the spiritual man remains an empirical, carnal man, the Christian life is a double life. The old man stands beside the new man. In this doubleness lies the hiddenness of the Christian life; for if man were unequivocally spiritual man, he would not be hidden. But for now, the new man is always hidden under the old. 

Now, given my own sin, I can get that last part.  How anyone could look at the things I have been accused of but not done though I guess the appearance is there and the things I know I have done, both deliberately and unintentionally, and the things I do not know that I have done but have still done nonetheless and think I am a Christian is beyond me.  Truly, there is a whole heap of sin obliterating all snatches of a new Adam in me.  Yet I have been told I give good Gospel (actually I just pass on that which has been given to me) and I have been told I encourage and inspire others to delve deeper into the joy that is the Book of Concord and the wonder that is the Living Word, most especially the Psalter.  Is that not seeing past the old and spotting the new?  Surely my hunger for instruction has absolutely NOTHING to do with the old man (woman) or any good work on my part.  So, the faith God has given me is not particularly completely hidden.

The double life of the Christian cannot be definitive. The tension between new and old demands a resolution. The hidden life must one day come out into the open. Here again the eschatological character of the Theology of the Cross is revealed. Just as the contrast between the hidden God and the revealed God will end when faith is allowed to attain to sight, so also the Christian life will one day shed its hiddenness.

SIGH.  What have I gained here?

I am wondering...is there another word that could be used that is not "hidden"? 

Or is hiddenness merely those times when our crosses make no sense to us or times when we, ourselves, cannot see the Cross?

Am I simply running around chasing my tail about something that is not complicated, complex, at all?


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

another day...

That glimmer has become stronger, for while the nausea persists, I have actually eaten three small meals today.  That and three separate naps has helped me to feel stronger.  I wish that I could take more time off to rest, but until I get a grasp on what has been happening, I believe I should still be frugal with what sick leave I have...even though I no longer believe I will be pursuing the repair surgery this year.

That decision means I have something on the order of three weeks vacation that I shall have to use up by the end of the year or lose it.  I can only carry over 120 hours, and I have been hoarding vacation and sick leave for almost my entire time at this job for the surgery.  With the fall grant schedule, I probably cannot take the leave until Thanksgiving and beyond anyway, but I still have to figure out how to approach my boss about letting me be away so long at the end of the year.  Maybe I could take a few days by extending all the Monday holiday weekends by a day between now and then.

I am not sure how the cardiac monitor works, but I am really, really hoping that what was happening yesterday morning was at least captured somehow.  I know at one point, when I checked myself, my heart rate was lower than I have ever seen it, but I do not know if the monitor is continuous or perhaps every few minutes.  Each time that I got up from my nap today, I immediately had to sink to the floor to keep from fainting.  I count it a victory that I was able to ride the dizziness and nausea and the shooting stars and graying vision and stay conscious.  I really cannot decide how I feel about getting answer that is so hard to swallow.

One of the things the nurse said on Friday is that it may very well be the medication may not be of help at all.  "We try to help the symptoms, but sometimes there is nothing we can do."  Not very encouraging, eh?

Another answer this is, apparently, is why I get so bloody cold and cannot warm up.  Another symptom of dysautonomia is thermoregulatory issues...as I wrote before, it is not my thyroid, as so many have thought, but never bore out in blood tests.  My "numbers" are okay on that particular medication.  Anyway, last night was another cold fest, wherein my body temperature dropped to 96.8 degrees and I blanched myself in a hot shower even though doing so makes me weak.  Lying in bed, shivering from even the merest hint of a draft beneath the blankets tucked beneath my chin, I wondered just how long this thing has been brewing.  And I have wondered just how much it has affected me without my knowing.

I mean, I have been dizzy upon standing for a very long time.  I have had at least two years, I think, of complaining about getting too cold.  I have been watching my heart rate drop for nearly a year.  I have been short of breath at least two years, just climbing stairs or walking up an incline.  I have been falling asleep, i.e., napping for the first time in my life for at least a year, maybe longer (Bettina can you remember that one?).  And I have been fainting for...well...a lot.  Of course, the thing that strikes me most is the whole anxiety thing.  I definitely have noticed that change in me, not just the woman with whom I work who commented on the same and my dearest Bettina who assures me I have not always been this way.

Yesterday, someone noted something about me that is absolutely ludicrous.  It is so very opposite of how I act, that thought at first I was shocked and upset, I actually started laughing.  To be sure, I did ask my beloved Bettina and her husband their opinion.  She finds the thought even more outrageous than do I.  Her husband quipped a response that made me chuckle.  And I asked two others who have known me long term.  It is not that I am not concerned that impression was formed because perceptions can be important; it is just that I know it simply is not true.  But the fact is that this thing is thought about me drives home something I have been thinking.

This past year (and three months actually) has been the most tumultuous of my life, by far.  It is a year in which I have been all over the map.  A year in which I have gained the greatest treasure, but I have also been profoundly hurt.  It is a year in which I was given true freedom from something that has bound me my whole life, even if I have not yet really walked in that freedom.  A year in which my communication has been horrible, not realizing how I have sounded and battling to put words together that make sense.  And it has been a year in which I have also been pigeonholed as something I am not. The point is:  it is a year of my life, not the whole of me.  I need to hold that perspective even if no one else does.

Because I dared ask a question, Vee was baldly honest with me yesterday about something that I wish to take to heart.  A going forward kind of thing.  I wish to put that with a few other things I have learned about me and hold on to them, but I am also leaving behind chasing "the why of me" things for a while.  I have too much on my plate medically.  I need to work through those things one at a time.  I am under too much strain from work, not the least of which is setting boundaries that should have been there from the start.  And who I am is not the person being reflected back to me, for whatever reason that might be, so I am confused as to where to turn anyway.

Instead of "me," I choose Walter and Forde and Bender and Harrison and my beloved Book of Concord.  Instead of "me," I choose Christ crucified and understanding what that means, to the best of my ability, as much as I can teach myself.  And I choose the colossal challenge of learning Biblical Greek.  Personally, I think the break from "me" will do more for me right now than anything else.  After all, have I not had it ground into me of late that my faith is not about me?  My goodness, if I can just but grasp that my life is hidden in Christ I shall be miles and miles and miles ahead of the game.

In choosing this, I am hoping for a better balance than I have had of late.  We'll see, eh, Myrtle?  I have been told by several people I do not have to "do" anything; I just need to "be."  I guess you could say that I want to try out "being" for a while.  I have made a wretched mess of "doing," so "being" surely cannot find me any worse, right?

In any case...I am baptized. I am forgiven.  Today, tomorrow, and always.


I did not throw up today.  For that, I can, therefore, be actually thankful for the mere nausea.  Today was a better day than yesterday.  Tomorrow might be or might not.  But that is tomorrow.  


Lord, I am Yours.  Save me!

more waiting...

The answer I got was more waiting.  "Let's see what the monitor shows us on Monday."  And...  "It can take two up to two weeks to get used to the side effects, so hang in there."

SIGH.

Actually, last night I really did feel less nauseous, so I was hopeful.  I drank a Dr. Pepper and ate some spinach.  Now that might sound like a less than tasty combination, but the spinach came first.  I did not throw it up, so I went to bed feeling as if there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.  I am not sure why I was craving spinach.

However, something was seriously amiss this morning.  It was the absolute worst case scenario I had found online.  Each time I stood up, it was as if I was right back on the tilt table and my blood pressure and heart rate were plummeting.  I had heard of projectile vomiting, but did not really understand what such a thing could be like.  I would try to stand and begin to feel that strange sensation in my neck and my hands began tingling and the dizziness set in immediately. I started sweating profusely and vomiting before I could get to the bathroom.  I tried to stand off and on for over two hours and then gave up, not even caring about the mess on the floor of my bedroom and the hallway.  For the very first time, I actively considered calling 911.  But I am the one who tries too hard to figure everything out.  How would they get in?  Would it be safe to reveal where the outside key was?  What would they do for me?  

After trying again and again to get up, I was so exhausted that I finally fell back asleep, once I positioned the pillows about me so that I wouldn't move, since even rolling from side to side in the bed brought on waves of dizziness and nausea.  When I awoke several hours later, I was still rather dizzy.  Deciding to take the wait and see approach, I talked with Vee and "Manna" to pass some of the time and then napped again.  

Finally, when I could move without being so dizzy, I literally crawled out of bed, across the messy floor, down the stairs, and on into the kitchen.  It was like I was crawling through a jungle avoiding an enemy, only my enemy was being upright.  Once in the kitchen, I pulled open the refrigerator and took out the Gatorade bottle.  For I had decided that if my blood pressure was that low, I should try and do the salt thing.  Over the course of two hours, I drank the entire bottle and ate several helping of ham, the only really salty thing in my house.

[I need to remember to buy small Gatorade bottles and some healthy and some salty snacks and put them in a basket in my bedroom.]

This morning was exactly like some of the descriptions I have read of people who have had bad episodes of the orthostatic intolerance, which was, and is, rather distressing.  Some people get where they cannot stand at all.  [Lord, have mercy.]  My only hope is that I have to be truly a quart low on just about everything after the week I have had.

Because I could not stand, I was not able to take any of my medication.  I will, once I make it back upstairs.  Perhaps I should have my medication on both floors?  I am hoping that when I do take that wretched medication again, the glimmer of hope I had last night flickers stronger and it is merely nausea and no more vomiting.

I am exhausted thinking about the utter mess upstairs.  Even though I never actually made it to the bathroom with my body, my insides did.  While I wouldn't even want another person to have to clean that up, neither am I looking forward to doing so myself.  Plus, there have been shards from a broken mirror littering the bathroom floor since Tuesday, when I broke it.  I had made a pathway to the toilet, but I need to clean those up as well.

And it is a good thing I wear many layers, for my outer layer was dirtied crawling downstairs.  But that also means laundry.  More exhaustion.

I will admit that in my abject misery my first thought was the Lord's Supper.  I missed it last week.  How will I get to church tomorrow?  It is my fervent hope that I will have enough rest tonight to feel stronger on the morrow, for I am not sure I could, in good conscience, get behind the wheel of my car if I am not significantly stronger than I am right now.  I long for His body and blood.  Oh, how I need that medicine He has for us, need that forgiveness, need that grace... 

"Manna" wrote a most worthy observation about faith on her blog Thursday (she is a fellow lover of Luther's writings), that I thought I would ponder again as I head toward the close of this day:

What is faith?

With these words, "Abraham believed God,"  Paul shows us that faith in God is the highest worship, the greatest allegiance, the ultimate obedience,and the most pleasing sacrifice.  Whoever has a way with words should expand on this topic.  That person will discover that faith is all-powerful.  Its power is immeasurable and infinite.  Faith gives God the greatest honor anyone can give him.  Giving God honor is believing him, considering him truthful, wise, righteous, merciful, and all-powerful.  In short, it's recognizing that he is the Creator and Giver of every good thing.  Reason doesn't do this, only faith does.

Faith makes God real to us and real in us. Without faith, God's honor, glory, wisdom, righteousness, truth, and mercy cannot be in us.  Where there is no faith, God has no majesty and divinity.  God doesn't require anything more form us that to acknowledge his divinity and give him the glory and honor he deserves.  We shouldn't think of him as an idol but as God--the God who accepts us and hears us, who is merciful to us, and who stands by us.  When we honor God, his divinity remains complete and intact--he has everything that a believing heart can give him.  When we honor God in this way, we are showing the greatest wisdom, the highest justice, and the best worship, while offering the most pleasing sacrifice. (26:226)

The question about faith comes up again and again.  Faith is completely inspired by the object of faith, and thus no work.  Yet, it is something in us, part of us.  Faith grows through the means of grace, where we are presented with all the teachings and gifts of God.  But in essence faith is about God.  When we say the creed:  "I believe..." it is all about who God is, what he does and has done.  Nothing in the creed is about me, except that he also saved me. He is the God who "accepts us and hears us, who is merciful to us, and who stands by us." 


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

wondering...

I awoke this morning, realizing that I had slept just over nine hours straight.  No getting up to go to the bathroom.  No rolling over.  No trying to find a better position.  No adjusting the pillows.  Nothing.  Just deep sleep.  So, I went downstairs, emailed my boss that I was staying home, and returned to bed.  I slept another four and a half hours just as dead to the world.  I have not slept this way since I before I was diagnosed with MS back in 1994.

I do not even know what to think of it.

One benefit that I noticed the second time I awoke was that I was blessedly free from the nausea.  Then I realized I had missed my morning medication.  So, I dutifully took my pills.  Over the past half-hour, the nausea has settled back over me like a cloak.

I long to go back to bed again, but in just a half hour or so, I need to venture out on the beltway to make my way to the cardiologist.  Her agenda is to hook me up to a halter cardiac monitor for a day or so to see if the new medication has raised my heart rate.  Mine...well...I would like to see if perhaps this medication is actually worth all this...or...am I just not being patient enough?

For me, time has never been my friend...if not an outright enemy, then a most uneasy companion.

So, I am wondering, if today will bring any sort of relief or any sort of answers...or if I will just be left waiting again.

Faith alone looks upon the promise.  

It knows that because of the promise, it is absolutely certain that God forgives, 

because Christ has not died in vain.  

[The Book of Concord, Apology, Article V, 27]

Lord, I am Yours.  Save me!

Right now, I have been trying to contain my hope that perhaps I might be at a turning point with this medication.  I still threw-up and I am still so nauseous and shaky that it is hard to do anything, but right now, I am ever so slightly less miserable than I was at the same time last night.  Could that be a sign?  I hope so. 

I slunk out of the office exactly at 6:00, not even saying farewell to single soul.  I have now showered and re-wrapped my left arm and am hoping to sleep some this evening.  I have not been sleeping well, being so ill, and am hoping to combat the constant dizziness that I know has to be from fatigue...and...well...losing 10 lbs as of this morning.  I cannot fathom how this medication can be helping me save for the uptick in my oxygen saturation.  I have not, in case you failed to notice, the slighted bit of patience when it comes to violent nausea.

My left arm is wrapped because four days ago, a tiny spot of poison oak rash appeared on the back of my wrist.  Two little dots.  Now, mind you, I have not even stepped foot in the yard for two weeks as of this evening.  However, somehow that doesn't matter with me.  I am slow to respond and when I do it is a great battle to conquer it.  The rash spread to the inside of my upper left arm.  One tiny spot.  Then two.  Now,  I have pustules dotting the span of a palm across that area.  I usually take a course of prednisone as the only way to stop this, but right now I was advised not to do so because of my condition.  While topical creams only abate the itch somewhat, I slathered the spot and covered it with bandage and wrap so that I might not scratch it.  As I was doing so this evening, I noticed a new spot on the back of my left hand.  Funny, it is all on that arm...nowhere else.

When I am puttering about the soil, I wear pants and gloves and then I scrub my arms with Comet when I come inside, on the off chance I might have touched the stuff. I still cannot find it, but I know it lurks somewhere about the back yard.

Don't you think two weeks is a bit ridiculous to actually be having a response to a possible poison oak contact?  

I was able to talk via Skype with a specialist, going over the realities of the surgical repair I desire.  The conversation was so very hard, yet she is one of those women who just plain exudes gentleness and kindness.  My goodness, if she were my doctor, I will willingly come in at the slightest crook of her finger and strip bare.  No avoidance whatsoever.  She was honest, though, and I did not find the situation hopeful.  Actually a bit less than what I had thought and I had thought I was being pretty realistic about the situation.  The recovery would be even longer.  I know the chances of success are only about 70%, but I did not really understand that I could actually be worse off.

I should admit that I started started crying in frustration and then found that I could not stop weeping.  The situation in itself is hard for me, but I also have been struggling to wrap my mind around a degenerative neurological condition that interrupts autonomic functions.  There is so little out there.  Some reads as...oh, okay...but some is just plan distressing.  If you stumble upon people talking about it, well, you'd be asking to have MS instead.  Oh, yeah, I got that one.  There is a connection to diabetes, but since it is an autoimmune condition, it just has to have some connection to MS as well.

Yesterday morning, I fainted when I got out of bed.  [Somehow, I need to remember to sit up slowly and then stand slowly only after I have been sitting awhile.]  And when I was talking with a woman at work, sitting in a chair, I suddenly started feeling the pressure in my neck signaling lowering blood-pressure and started seeing stars. So, I had to lay down on the floor.  Now, all the stress and nausea and lack of food just has to be contributing to that.  In fact, the vesovagal syncope can happen just from stress and fear.  But a person should be able to wake up and get out of bed without endangering her health, shouldn't she? 

So, I wept.


I would like to note that the sister of my heart shouted a great big "I love you, Myrtle!" to me last night.  While I was talking on the phone, I heard my email ping.  I try not to get my hopes up with that because I have had a fair amount of junk mail of late.  But when I checked my inbox before heading off to bed, I discovered an email from Bettina.

That dear woman, that magnificent creature, made an audio clip of the piece I posted yesterday from Pastor E on Sweet Has Christ Made the Bitter Waters!  I was right in that listening to it I heard more, that it was different to have the teaching of the Gospel fall upon my ears rather than to take it in merely with my eyes.

Do you think that bitter waters made sweet is part of the joy of trials?

You know, the world would truly be a better place would it were that everyone had a Bettina in his or her life.  It absolutely would.

After 15 years of having her in my life, I have only now just come to realize just how extraordinary, just how rare it is the gift of her friendship.  If I doubt that God loves me, in the midst of trials, I really only have to look so far as her and know that I am loved with a love greater than I will ever fathom, deeper than I will ever see, and more precious than I can ever know.

He gave me the tangible of my baptism.  He gave me the tangible of the body and blood of His son.  For anyone, these are enough.  For me, they would be.  But God loves me so much, so very much, that He also gave me the tangible of a woman who loves me, minding not that I no longer remember much of our friendship, and spends her time and energy searching for ways in which I might know that I am loved.  She simply could not do this without Christ. No one would.  No one could.

How much more, then, does my Father in heaven love me when He has lavished upon me such selfless love?

Remind me of this, please, whenever I forget....


When reading from the Book of Concord about baptism to "Manna," I came across one of my favorite bits (yes, I know, I have too many "favorite bits" to keep track of when it comes to our confessions):

For it [the Word] has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. (LC, Part IV, 17-18)

This I know to be true with a certitude that is absolute, even in the midst of great confusion.  It oft makes no sense to me other than this simple fact that the Word is Living, the Word is God.

Whenever I come across this, though, I always pause to ponder why it is that Luther chose to insert that truth into his section on Baptism.  I mean, I know that he is tackling the first Sacrament and explaining that which makes a Sacrament is the very Word attached to it (without the Word there simply is no Sacrament) and emphasizing that since it is a Sacrament that it is a work of God, not man.  However, this is such a profound teaching.  Why not insert it into his instruction on the third commandment on the Lord's Day?  For ought we not to understand what it is that we are receiving in the Service of the Word portion of the Divine Service, the Living, Saving, Forgiving, Sanctifying, Justifying Power of His Word poured upon us?  Or...why not insert it in his instruction on the Lord's Prayer?  Ought we not to understand the Living, Saving, Forgiving, Sanctifying, Justifying Power of praying the Lord's Prayer?

No!  Instead, you are two thirds and a bit through his instruction before Luther drops this bomb in your lap.  Hey, by the way, don't you forget for one moment that those are no mere black marks on a page.  They are God.  They are God given to you.  They are God spoken to you.  They are God Giving.  They are God Speaking.  They are all that which is God and all that which He has done.

Is that not, then, one of the greatest mysteries of which undershepherds are stewards?  The mystery that the Holy Scriptures are alive.  Alive!

Anyway, I know this to be true, for when I am in the depths of despair, you can read aloud to me from the Bible and I will respond, almost against my own will, to its power.  A while ago, a woman came into where I was crumpled on the floor in abject fear and sorrow and frustration, sang the Agnus Dei (from page 198) to me, then flipped to the Psalter and told me to give her a number.  Without thought, I called out 77.  By the time she finished praying that prayer for me, praying with Christ, my torrent of tears had abated, for I cannot deny the wonder that God would cause to be written the words of my heart that I might pour them back to Him.  And I cannot resist the power of His grace and mercy working in my heart as His Word falls upon my ears.

The power of the Living Word, the fact that is all that our triune God is and can do all that our triune God does, is why I happen to believe that one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given is "Manna," a woman who reads of my abject longing and utter hunger to be read to more than I am, even though she has taught me I have an embarrassment of riches in that department compared to even those in confessional Lutheran churches and even though she is in the midst of her own great trial, the loss of her son, and says, "Well, I can do that!" and does so freely, selflessly, lovingly.  A stranger in a far away land.  Literally.  Yet the instrument of God's voice to me.

Should you ever long for the same.  Should you ever wish for someone to pour out the Living Word upon you, sing over you His truth, send me an email with your phone number.  I will do the same.  How could I not?

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, 

how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.  ~Romans 8:32

19.  JESUS BLESSES US BEYOND OUR IMAGINATION.

It's true that the road is narrow; following Jesus is not a life of luxury.  But it's also true that God has numbered the hairs on our head, and that "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him," (I Corinthians 2:9b).

We can count on God's provision and blessings because He's already proven His faithfulness by providing His Son.  Because of Jesus, we can approach our days with faith and watchfulness.  We never know how God might bless us today.

Lutherans see blessings differently, I believe, than most Christians. They count as beautiful the crosses I am bearing, for Lutherans know that they are the instrument of my salvation, that God will be glorified in them, and that I will be raised with Christ by and with and in and through them.  Someone wanted to help me see this and wrote:


The Lord Jesus loves you, Myrtle. He has made Himself like you in every way, and He has also borne your sins and griefs and sorrows, every one of them. He has atoned for your every sin, redeemed you from every evil, purchased and won you for Himself, cloaked and covered you in His perfect righteousness, sanctified you by His Holy Spirit, as He daily and richly does for you by His Gospel, and reconciled you to His God and Father, so that He is your God and Father.

The things that threaten you within and without, cannot harm your life in Christ, which is safely hidden with Him in God, because that life -- via the Cross and in the Resurrection of the dear Lord Jesus -- is whole and complete, intact and perfect within Him, in His own Person, within the eternal Unity of the Holy Trinity. All of His is yours, because His Word declares it to be so. His Word gives you Christ with all His fruits and benefits of His own Cross and Resurrection. When you bear and suffer the Cross, therefore, it cannot undo you, but binds you the more closely to Christ the Crucified, who loves you. Such a Cross bears fruit in you, for your benefit and for the benefit of others, because it remains the Cross of Christ, the instrument of His great salvation. And because His Cross was His great victory over sin, death, the devil and hell, and because He was crucified for you and your transgressions was also raised for you and your justification, there is nothing at all that can defeat you forever. God raised Jesus from the dead. Therefore, you also are raised, and you now dwell with Christ in the heavenly places of His Father.



...it [the cross] cannot undo you...


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

Sweet Has Christ Made the Bitter Waters

At the Easter Vigil, we heard again how our spiritual fathers crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. The readings for the days immediately following Easter continue the narrative; freed from bondage, on the other side of the Red Sea they found themselves in a wilderness. They grew thirsty, but the waters they came to were bitter. They called the place Marah – Hebrew for “bitter.”

The people complained, blaming Moses and Aaron for their problems. But the Lord showed Moses a tree. When the tree was cast into the bitter waters of Marah, the waters were made sweet.

That event was a type, a biblical foreshadowing of what we celebrate today on this important, but often neglected, feast – the Annunciation. Marah—bitter waters—are made sweet by a tree. The blessed virgin to whom Gabriel comes is named Mary. Like every woman, her maternal waters are bitter, for every child born of woman is born under the law, born under the curse; we are sinful from the time we are conceived in our mother’s bitter womb.

But Mary – the woman of bitterness – is not like other women in her childbearing. Her Child is not born of blood, nor of the will of a husband, nor of the will of the flesh; her Child is born of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. Her bitter waters are made sweet by grace, by the Word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit that overshadows her and brings about the conception, the incarnation of the Son of God.

He was born for the purpose of coming to that tree, to bearing the awful load of the cross. By that wood, by that wonderful tree, the bitter waters are made sweet; human nature is in Him redeemed, restored. It was for this reason that He was born – that He might take man’s bitterness, lostness, sinfulness, anger, sorrow, and dismay, and by means of that tree, convert the bitterness to sweetness. The sweet thing about Easter is not the chocolate and candy, but the resurrection. By the wood of the cross, human nature is brought to the resurrection, prepared for the Ascension, where our own High Priest goes with His blood into the Holy Place, and our human nature is brought into the presence of the Heavenly Father, the Living God.

So they all hang together – conception, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. All actions by our loving God designed to turn the bitterness of our world, the bitterness of our lives, the bitterness of our hearts, into sweetness. That sweetness we taste in the blessed Sacrament. In that holy, wondrous food and drink, the wood of the cross is cast upon the bitter waters of our souls, and they are made sweet – cleansed, restored, forgiven. 

Happy annunciation day! Merry Christmas! Blessed Easter! Alleluia! He is conceived! He is born! He is crucified! He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

~Pastor E, March 25, 2008

I have been trying to take this in for a while now, oft longing for it read to me so that it could fall upon my ears not in the stumbling voice with which I read, hesitant in trying to find the meaning or the proper emphasis, but with a voice of understanding and confidence.

It is an example of a portion of the Gospel that is elusive to me.  I mean, when I hear my life is hidden in Christ, I know this to be true, but I do not really understand it.  Here, surely, I know that Christ has made our life sweet, but what does this really mean?  What does it mean that He took our humanity before the Father, but a humanity that is whole and pure and without blemish or spot?  And what does it really mean that He was fully human in the fully-human-yet-fully-god confession of our faith?

I know this sounds incredibly stupid, but, while I cannot quite wrap my mind around the concept, I have come to the astonishing (for me at least) conclusion that the sweet, sweet Gospel is not about faith at all, at least not about human faith.  The new parish pastor has a broken record with me:  stop looking at your faith.  He ought to just make up business cards and hand one out to me each time I see him.  Uhm, excuse me, Pastor, sir, but my entire Christian life, apart from this wild journey into Confessional Lutheranism, has been precisely about my faith.  How in the bloody world can you tell me to ignore it?

He is not saying that faith does not matter, I am sure.  But that my faith does not amount to a hill of beans.  The other day someone tried to tell me the same thing, but I did not understand much of what he was saying and my confusion made me more upset than I already was.  It sounded to me that he was saying that it didn't matter if I read the bible morning, noon, and night.  Doing so would not strengthen my faith.  But I cannot believe this was what he was trying to tell me.  Why can I not understand this?

Jesus.  Jesus.  Jesus.  This is all you get in confessional Lutheranism.  Oh, to be sure, the Law in all its terrible, crushing, death is there, for if we had not the Law, beneath which we fail so miserably for we (in Adam) chose sin and death over life, there would be no need for Jesus.

In thumbing through the stacks and stacks of bible study notebooks from years on end, I am not finding Jesus much.  Just notes and notes and notes about all the "commands" He gave me to live and how I might do so and where I am failing and how I might be more successful at my faith.

How, in this moment, is it that Jesus makes my bitter waters sweet?  How, in my wretched heart, my weak and weary heart, my confused and dense heart, can I actually be declared faithful?

SIGH.

Lord, I am Yours.  Save me!

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.  For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.  

But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away.  For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its  appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.  

Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

~James 1:2-12

What does it mean to consider it all joy?

Today, for the very first time, I believe, I have actually seriously wondered what this could mean.  I know I have pondered it before in passing, but never was still before God and asked Him to explain this passage to me.  Not that the Holy Spirit was going to appear, but that somehow, some way, I might learn.

The new medication is rough.  Period.  I have been nauseous since I started it.  Now vomiting and other unpleasant plumbing problems have begun.  And I have had that wretched plucked-guitar-string feeling and the shakes all day long.  It is as if I have been nebulizing constantly.  Of course, I should point out my oxygen sats have already been higher than they have in a long, long time.  In fact, Friday, during the cardiac study, the monitor kept sounding because I was dropping below 90 from time to time.  But is this worth it?  SIGH.

I know it is too soon to tell.  My heart rate has not been all that much higher, but it has crept up a bit.  But while sitting talking to the VP, just sitting down, I was fighting dizziness and seeing shooting stars!  My goodness, the medication is supposed to make that better, not worse.

I have, for a long while, been very sensitive to medications.  And, per Murphy's Law, if you can have a reaction, I do.  Except for Motrin.  That stuff bothers many a person's stomach, but I can down handfuls (four at a time) and not even notice a thing save for the relief from pain.

When I was a missionary in Africa, there was a young female missionary in another country on the continent who was scratched by a cat, did not seek medical attention, and died from rabies.  Well, in short order, the mission was vaccinating all its missionaries across the world for rabies.  I became quite ill from the shot. 

I called both the doctor's office and the pharmacist and got the same answer:  Give it time.  Allow your body to get used to the medication.

So, as the afternoon wore on and I had to keep lunging for the trash can, I admit that I was struggling to find a single reason for joy in this trial. How is it that by and with and through and under the cross that we are loved, cared for, and strengthened in our faith?  That is a mystery I have been pondering, trying to wrap my ex-Protestant mind about.  But what does it mean to consider it all joy?

Least I misrepresent the whole of this day, Biblical Greek class was blessedly free from vomiting, though the nausea was (and still is) nearly unbearable.  What was blessed, however, was that the woman who introduced herself to me last week sat next to me and we chatted and laughed and compared notes on who's who for we had both tried to write everyone's name down last week...yes, it took 4 classes for the pastor to get around to introductions!  I am thinking I might just make those placards you stick on the front of conference tables during meetings, because I realized that many people did not know the names of those around them.  I found that odd and truly surprising.

She also brought me a book to borrow on MS and fetched the pastor when he had already gone upstairs before I could talk with him.  Such kindness.

This morning, if you had told me that I would laugh this evening, I would have scoffed at you.  This afternoon, had you declared the same, I would have called you truly deluded.  Do you not see my wretchedness?  Yet, there I was actually laughing.

While I am not sure yet, but I may very well call her Sunshine, for the light of Christ shines brightly in her.  God willing, she is coming for a visit August 21st!  [So, "Manna," I have met my homework assignment for the month!]

Several people asked why the pastor does not call me Myrtle (I have to work on that since he rather firmly admonished us this very evening that by no means should anyone ever call him by the shortened form of his name, thank you very much, lest he be forced to physically correct you...unless you were his mom and dad whom he cannot strong arm in the least...though it went unspoken, I am sure his Lovely Bride would beat him with one hand tied behind her back should it come to that for she is quite bold and quick witted and goes tit for tat in his banter), so I actually had a chance to explain all my names. 

The actually class left me drowning in the second declension of nouns.  I cannot even tell you what that means.  I fear that does not bode well for my progression in this language challenge.  Yet, I yearn to still try, for the pastor blithely mentioned how there is this Greek word for child [one live or living, I believe] that actually is used for unborn children and is also used for believers.  "In learning one Greek word," he quipped, "you strike down the fallacy of Baptist's argument against infant baptism and all the pro-choicers out there."  With my whole heart, my whole being, I want to be able to read the New Testament in its original language and see these things for myself.

SIGH.

Still, despite the respite just before Greek class, I have no joy in this day, in the things that I am facing...in that I am facing them.  What does that mean?  Joy?

~~~~
In case you were wondering, a twinkie has 230 mg of sodium.

For every child of God defeats this evil world, 

and we achieve this victory through our faith.  ~I John 5:4

18.  JESUS GIVES US VICTORY

"Victory" is a good sports word.  Victory is about vanquishing a foe, achieving a success in battle.

Whether or not we've ever played pro ball, we all know about battling foes, because we all battle our sinful nature every day.  It's hard to love the way God loves and follow the commands He left us.  But with the power of Christ within us, we can overcome our sinfulness, and we can participate in God's glorious plan to conquer evil—for good.  No matter how much we may feel like the underdog, Jesus in us ensures our victory.

Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

I fetched the new prescription, on very wobbly legs, and was greatly surprised to learn it is actually an asthma drug.  Would that not be absolutely crazy if it were to help my asthma?  I just swallowed the first pill.

I have had more blunt words this day.  While I admit that I am weary of them and am an absolute poor receiver of such, I am grateful for honesty.  For how else could I learn?  But is it wrong of me to wish with my whole heart that I did not have so very much to learn?  That the one being honest did not have to labor so on my behalf?  Lord, have mercy on us both....

Last night, God's mercy continued.  How great are His thoughts of me?  I cannot truly fathom that they could or would outnumber the grains of sand.  Yet the woman from Greek class sent me an email and included such a beautiful prayer for me.  And then "Manna" called and talked for a long while and then prayed and read and sang with me.  It was as if God wrapped His arms about me and held me tightly against Him so that I could not stir a single foot in flight.

~~~~
Manna knows it not, though I did try to feebly give thanks, but the greatest thing she has done, twice now, is to follow up a night's call, a call filled with the less-than-social-contract-acceptable topics, with a cheery email filled with wonderful details about her day ahead.  She loves Luther and talking of doctrine.  She is blunt and calls a spade a spade.  She sings the sweetest of Gospel.  I could go on, but I also do not wish to embarrass her to paint her life here.  I only want to savor, to have this reminder of what a great and wondrous act of mercy God has done to send someone who, even after reading the ups and downs of my faith here, offers to read and pray and sing with me if that is what would be helpful.

The final way that I felt God's grip last night was listening to Pastor F's sermon (five times).  He does not write them out in a way I can cut and paste, but I guarantee you that if you go to his website and listen to it, you will be blessed. I almost believe it is his most fierce, most blunt, most bald sermon that I have yet to hear.  From his "notes" which he so graciously and kindly sent to me, I shall put one bit:

To say to a human "stop being anxious" is like telling a rock to stop sitting on the ground.  Therefore, Jesus is saying, “Point your anxiety towards me, because in Me it will find its end.”

Pastor F is preaching on how "ask, and you shall receive"; "seek, and you will find"; "knock, and the door will be opened unto you" are not commands, but rather actually promises from the mouth of Jesus.  Promises!  How very wild!

Still, it is a timely Word for me.  I have a choice before me, based--I must admit--on being anxious for the morrow. 

Even more timely is the 17th thing Christ does for us.  For me.

He who has the Son has life.  ~John 5:12a

17.  JESUS GIVES US LIFE.

We see death all around us every day.  Just watch the news for an eyeful of murders, bombings, and tragic accidents. And it's not just physical death that plagues us.  If we knew the life stories of the people we interact with every day, we might be shocked by the pain that infects their souls.

In the midst of all this death and darkness, Jesus bring life and light.  Where there is destruction, He restores.  Where there is death, He resurrects.  He replaces our ashes with beauty and our mourning with gladness.  In a dying world, Jesus brings life.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

Update:

I am most humbled right now.

Pizzaman called to see how I was doing after the cardiac study.  When I told him of the diagnosis, he immediately Googled dysautonomia and concurred with me regarding the whole depressing nature of the condition.  But he also pointed out how it fits so very many of my symptoms (hinting very strongly about the anxiety part) and that maybe the course of treatment the cardiologist is recommending I try might make for a better life for me.

Then, when he heard I have not eaten since Wednesday, he said he would bring me a Mediterranean salad from his restaurant.  He is even adding extra feta cheese because it has more sodium so that I can feel better sooner.

He let himself in when he arrived and fetched me a fork for the salad.  When he realized his guys had forgot to include dressing, he brought several options from the refrigerator and helped me pick the one with the most sodium.

When he left, he locked the door for me so that I could be safe.  It has been unlocked since Friday night.

Such mercy God has shown me in this man, in his family.

And, if that wasn't enough for me to know the care of my Good Shepherd, my beloved Bettina is beating me up and down at Scrabble, visiting with me via Sprint and the Internet.


Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!

The cardiac study was difficult, to say the least.  I grew quite ill from the process and I would not willingly do such a thing again.  However, the number were quite clear; the data the cardiologist wanted for confirmation of her diagnosis popped up right away.  So, apparently, I have dyautonomia.

In a nutshell, my brain is not sending the right signals to my heart.  As my blood pressure drops, my heart rate should increase, but it just drops along with my blood pressure.  So, the fainting...at least some of it...is vasovagal syncope, which is also why when I fall down I awake from the faint because the change in position allows proper blood flow.  To compound the problem, my blood pressure is low.  I didn't know that because I am usually so darned nervous in doctor's offices, that it doesn't really show.  However, it is so low now that even being nervous the problem is evident.  So, when my blood pressure drops, say with standing and the pull of gravity on my blood to my feet and my heart doesn't leap into action as it would with a normal person, there simply is no room left for error.

We didn't talk much about the symptoms and such, but if you Google and check out the Wiki entry, it is very, very interesting to read some of the symptoms:  fatigue, anxiety, salt-craving, excessive thirst, low heart rate....

Now, I think I have blogged about the Panera salad, but maybe I have just told everyone in my life, but not my journal here to remember for later.  In any case, I went online to check out the nutritional values again and was surprised to see it has 1,320mg of sodium.  Voila!  I have my answer of why it is that when I eat that salad I feel so darned good afterward.  I was concentrating on the fact that it was very high protein/low carb combination and an acceptable calorie level.

I never so much cast an eyeball at the sodium because, in general, I don't cook with salt, so any I get with the occasional higher amounts I might get with eating-out meals didn't seem to be a concern.  My grandparents all had heart disease and both my grandfathers died young from heart attacks, one very, very young.  I started taking baby aspirin at 37 and have always kept an eye on cholesterol levels.  Heart disease is the leading cause of death women, so that combined with my family history has made me try to be careful about that area.

To combat the low blood pressure, I am supposed to greatly increase my salt intake.  That is such a strange thing to hear.  But, in any case, the reason that salad always made me feel good is that it had exactly what I was needing.

This is also why drinking water never seems to quench my thirst, but drinking Gatorade makes me feel better as well.  And then there is the asparagus. I was cooking it with Bettina's Handsome Groom's homemade organic garlic salt.  I craved the stuff like it was chocolate because I needed that seasoning.

Other than salt, I am starting a new medication this coming week (the pharmacy had to order it) that should blunt the vesovagal reaction and increase my heart rate.  Hopefully, this will be enough to avoid a pacemaker.  And I have to over hydrate and wear compression stockings, both of which for different reasons will make my heart work less.  Compression stockings.  Boy, do I feel like an old woman.

Coming home alone was not a good idea.  The woman who ferried me home, a stranger to me from church, needs a knee replacement, so I did not ask her to bring me upstairs.  I do not have a bathroom on the main floor.  The choice is always up or down. I figured the basement would be better because the stairs are carpeted, but I feel anyway.  The whole day just went downhill from there.

And then there was the sad fact that I did not trust some advice I was given as I should have.  I thought the person was being over protective.  But I have come to understand that I have no real perspective of what protective is. I think any protectiveness would seem to be over-protective to me.  Learning that lesson has been very, very painful.  Very difficult to swallow.  For I was hurt again when I did not have to be.

I did not make it to Divine Service this day, much to my great sorrow.  I hunger for the Lord's Supper and the forgiveness and healing therein.

I am just so wobbly and weak.  The latter is probably made worse because I haven't really eaten since Wednesday.  Thursday was that crazy day at work doing those blasted post cards, then I slept after work, and by the time I could have eaten, it was almost in the window that I wasn't supposed to eat for the cardiac study, so I didn't bother.  Friday was the cardiac study, which made me really, really nauseous, and then the fall, and then I threw up all night, and then yesterday I slept all day, and today, I have not felt strong enough to stand and prepare something...not that there's much besides eggs and milk and tea and cheese in the refrigerator...frozen chicken in the freezer...and Trader Joe's corn, of course.  I could make a breakfast meal, but the thought of standing in the kitchen long enough to cook is overwhelming.  I could order a pizza, but that would be way too much carbohydrates on an empty stomach, the sure-fire way to plummet my blood sugar.

I want to ask the endocrinologist her opinion the next visit I have.  What triggers the low blood sugar episodes is often not clear, but I have noticed that eating carbohydrates on an empty stomach does so 1.5 to 4 hours later.  And then some types of sugar seem to be also dangerous, even in smaller doses, even when eaten with protein.  For example, jelly on a dinner roll is just plain something I should avoid.  So, I want to ask if she will test me for reactive hypoglycemia.  That would explain things better.  Because it doesn't make sense otherwise that I can go without eating and not plummet to the depths that bother me so much when I actually do eat. Of course, I should be eating.  If my dear Bettina were here, she would cook for me.  My writing student would as well...or even bring me a Panera Salad!

I am hoping sleeping enough today might help me get over the strain of the test and be able to get up and out tomorrow...or at least cook.

I do find it strange that I am not hungry at all.  I should be.

Back to sleep for me now....


Lord, I am Yours.  Save me!

Speaking of feasts, the new parish pastor gave me such a helping of Word this morning to carry me through tomorrow I could barely take in such a wonder.

I asked if he would pray with me, for I am scared about the study tomorrow at the hospital, even though I am convinced it is a good way for the cardiologists to get the data they need.  I very much would like some help with my heart.

I must admit that I was hoping he would do the anointing oil thing for healing with me.  He did.  And so much more.  He began with confession/absolution, but of a different sort.  Then much prayers and bits of Living Word.  Thrice he prayed the Lord's Prayer, with his hand upon my head.  He made the sign of the cross with the oil near the beginning and then kept praying.  I will also admit that I was a bit distracted because I could feel only half of the cross since half my forehead is numb.  That was a very strange experience, longing for something but only feeling part of it.  Because of that, I was grateful he put his hand on my forehead.

What was truly marvelous was that he prayed several psalms at the end.  I recognized two, but not the others, which inspired me to pray the Psalter even more than I do for knowing such prayers is truly a treasure.

Afterward, we talked for a bit and I shared my fears.  He had good words for them, as well as more Word.  At one point, when he started reciting one from heart, I was almost jealous.  I wish that it were not so difficult for me to remember things now.  For a while, I have been trying to learn Lord Jesus Think on Me and a few other hymns.  But I struggle with remembering so greatly that I have not been successful.  [That is, incidentally, why it is that I happen to think it is near ludicrous for me to be trying to learn Greek.] 

The prayers were a glorious way to start the day and something concrete which I can hold onto while lying on the table tomorrow.  Such a gracious and precious gift Pastor E gave me!

I am more fatigued than I could have wished before the study, because I spent nearly seven hours printing and cutting 600 postcards for an event on Saturday.  I was not the one supposed to be doing the labor, but, as always, I was the one who did it because it needed to be done.   Standing was excruciating and I eventually sat cross-legged on the conference table so that I could keep using the paper-cutter.  My neck and back are screaming still, but the task is done. 

It is not that I mind doing labor such as that, but I do mind spending whole days doing so...especially when the intern is given work that I should be doing.  Instead of planning and communications, I am a highly-paid personally assistant and general lackey.  Go here.  Do this.  Print.  Cut.  Collate.  Fetch lunch.  Despite having designed/drafted three flyers, one donor card, three registration forms, one ad, finishing off the aforementioned postcard, producing 600 of them, printing 200 registration forms, researching homelessness statistics and retirement plan options for the organization, and negotiated for weekend meals for the inner-city school in DC, apparently I have done nothing at all.  SIGH.

At least I get to lay down the mantle of work to focus on my health and will be away from that place for the next three days.  And I shall do so still savoring the feast given to me this morning, to bolster and sustain me on the morrow.  God poured out His mercy to me this day through his undershepherd, a man who lavished upon me the sweet, sweet Gospel despite all the labors before him in his own day because God loves even this wretched child and wishes the good things of Christ to be hers.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious richest in Christ Jesus.

  ~Philippians 4:19

16.  JESUS PROVIDES FOR ALL OUR NEEDS.

It came at just the right time—the check would fill in the games that month during a season of unemployment.  It was a gift from a church friend and a symbol of God's provision.

God calls us to give generously.  He also calls us to give fearlessly, knowing that He is more than able and more than willing to meet our every need.  The truth is that when we give lavishly, we're giving as God gives—He lavishes us with love and blessings in Christ.  With Him as our shepherd, we surely shall not want.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

I have been feasting upon the Word since I left the office this early evening.  God is most merciful to us to give such wretched sinners an utterly precious, holy, and unending gift!

I had 45 minutes of nothing to do between work and Vespers and debated stopping by the house to nuzzle Sam and chirp at Madeleine or just venture on over to the church.  I chose the latter.  The new pastor's wife no longer bats an eyelash when I show up early; in fact, she expects me to arrive a fair amount of time ahead of my confession/absolution appointments.  So, today, when I rang the bell, she came to let me in and headed straight to the sanctuary to turn on the lights for me.

After another day of very low heart rates, I was quite tired, so I lay down in the pew and spent that time reading aloud from my Greek New Testament.  Starting again at verse 1, I managed to read until verse 26 in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.  There were three words I had to abandon, having never figured out how they might sound.  Not once did I come across one of the twelve verbs I know.  I do believe I should have been able to get much further along, but I was glad for the opportunity to practice.  While pronouncing, I paused from time to time to wonder about the fact that I was reading the Living Word even though I did not comprehend it.  The Truth was being spoken, proclaimed (I know that verb) in His house.  Was that not the better way to pass the time?

Pastor E's sermon was altogether too brief, once more.  I could at least have wished he spoke it twice, for it was bold and full of such sweet, sweet Gospel.  He preached on Psalm 44, a psalm of anguish that brings solace.  What I found interesting, again, was how he used the prayer segment of Vespers (as he did in Compline) to pray for the church and for our world, carefully, deliberately, taking his time and modeling being still before God.  One of the most glorious parts of the service was singing the entire Psalm.  A wee part of me, part way through the 26 verses, suddenly wondered if, a few years from now, when he gets to Psalm 119, we would also sing through that from beginning to end.

Oh, I could wish there was a prayer group which I could attend that gathered together to pray the Psalter!  As much as I cherish praying the Psalter myself, having the words of my heart given to me to speak to God, I truly do revel in the opportunity to pray the Psalter with others.

Alas, but I digressed.

I came home to lie down on the couch, huffing and puffing just walking from the car.  I am not sure why I am so low the past few days, but it does make me even more fatigued.  After pondering the lesson on absolution Walther gave me last night, I turned on the tape player to continue listening to the Reverend Doctor Kenneth Korby's continuing education course on private confession/absolution that Papa Dore passed on to me.  I was feasting on that treasure before I left for my trip and have somehow forgotten about the tapes since I returned.  Two hours later, I  forced myself to turn off the tape player because I could stay up all night listening to him and taking notes.  I wish I could have met him.  SIGH.  He is most fierce and speaks with such certitude that I found myself uplifted and hopeful even as he was bewailing the plight of the LCMS and her abandonment of private confession/absolution.

But still hankering for more instruction (I am an admitted glutton), I opened Forde for another taste of Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, for I have not ceased to ponder the whole notion of the theology of the cross since opening this book.  For example, just a short while ago, my beloved Bettina commented that she doesn't understand why she has had so many blessings and I such struggles.  What popped into my mind...and my mouth...was that confessional Lutherans would have us reversed.  I am the one who has had a blessed life because I am the one who has born the cross most heavily.  I spoke the words before I truly realized what I was doing.  Ever since then, I have been thinking about their truth, even if I wish heartily to lay down a few crosses these days.

These thoughts have been bound by another observation by the blogger who has offered to read to me.  I am still working on a nickname for her, for I have barely begun to know her.  In my mind, however, I call her Manna, because she offered to bring me the Word and that will be coming from above (Canada).  However, I am not sure that would fit and I really do prefer old fashioned names or ones that denote a calling.

Manna has pointed out, oh so gently, that I have an embarrassment of riches where pastoral care is concerned, that I have had access to more than many have.  And--this makes my heart ache--she has never had a pastor talk about, teach, or offer private confession/absolution, even though many of them avail themselves of father confessors. 

I long for her to experience the joy that is the Word of forgiveness being spoken over her, while (preferably, in my book) the cross is traced upon her forehead.  I want her to know the Great Exchange, whereby her sins are taken away from her and replaced with Words of comfort just for her.  Holy absolution is so tangible, so gloriously concrete.  When the assaults and accusations of the devil seem stronger than our faith, we can point to that moment in time and say, "Aha, but I was forgiven. I am forgiven. And I will be forgiven.  Get lost, satan!"  To me, holy absolution fits with what Luther teaches about baptism and the Lord's Supper...that God gives us something we can grasp physically so that our soul can grasp the faith given to us.

So, Forde?

Tonight, I covered two theses:

Theses 3:  Although the works of man always seem attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be moral sins.

Theses 4:  Although the works of God are always unattractive and appear evil, they are nevertheless really eternal merits.

In his initial discussion of these contrasted theses, he has a line that leapt off the page to me:  It is, of course, highly offensive to have the best of our works under the law judged to be deadly sins. (32)  It is not merely the worse of our works the Law condemns, but even the best, even our Mother Theresa works fall short, are a fetid, noisome miasma wafting in the nostrils of our Creator.  There is no sweet aroma, no beautiful fragrance arising from our work, our hearts, our lives...apart from Christ.

A radical reversal in our seeing takes place when we encounter the one who "had no form or comeliness that we should desire him," the one from whom we "hid our face," who "was despised and we esteemed him not."  Especially to be noted in this proof are the many instances that have to do with seeing or not seeing, appearances and reality, discovering, acknowledging, finding, and making accurate judgments about ourselves.  There is a fundamental difference in the way reality is perceived.  The theologian of glory judges by appearances and so classifies works as good or bad.  But that really means that such theologians see through the works to an eternal standard by which they are evaluated.  Everyone will no doubt admit that the works are not perfect.  Nevertheless, it will be insisted that there is, as the saying goes, "good in them."  As such they are taken to be more or less pale or defective copies of the transcendent perfect  good and so can be trusted at meritorious--at least in a limited sense.  This means that what is bad or unattractive in them is disregarded.  It is not to be credited to God's account.  Evil, to this way of looking at the matter, is "non-being."  The intellect, Luther will say later, simply cannot see it.  This is what is means to say that the theologian of glory does not look at it but "sees through it."  Thus the works remain all the while "human works" no matter how much they are assisted by grace.  Whatever good there is must be credited to the human account. (34-35)

What stings in here is the mention of appearance.  I grew up in a household where appearance has priority above all else.  Try as I might, I often struggle with forming snap impressions upon sight, rather than take the time to see past the outward appearance to the heart God created within or to better understand the situation.  It is part of my social struggle as well, knowing how little I fit in, how awkward I can be and how that comes across.  And then there are things like my long hair, which has finally been growing back in small tufts and stays more or less attached to my head.  Right now, it is past the middle of my back, and yet I still have no desire to cut it.  I know how I wear my hair is very old-fashioned, and my weekend braids make me look more 23 than 43.  I could go on how I would be a great candidate at times for an ambush makeover, only I do not want one.  However, I do wish that my appearance were difference.

In this, I am only talking about physical appearances, but there are far more of them.  The appearance of integrity.  The appearance of impropriety.  Is not appearance just plain king in our society?  So, his words smote my heart a bit.  For I do tend to judge...in small ways...but judge nonetheless.  And I worry about my appearance and lack of social grace far more than I ever should.  I wonder, then, how much of this colors that fall-back position of works-righteousness I find myself grasping once more, even when the sight of it shames and wearies me.

Theologians of the cross, however, cannot see through the "unattractive" and apparently evil works of God.  They cannot see through such works because they have been "gotten at" by suffering and the cross (thesis 20, below).  They see God working exactly through the horror of the cross.  God's hidden and alien working in the cross is such that it reflects back on us and exposes our own lives.  Thus the works do not become the occasion of pride, but rather humility and despair.  We are led therefore not to credit our own account but to judge ourselves and to confess. The human works that once seemed attractive and good now have no form or beauty and are the cause of sorrow and despair.  If we see clearly, if we are able to "say what a thing is," we should be able to judge ourselves so that we do not come under the judgment of God. (35)

Well, I have certainly been in despair and great sorrow over my sins!  In reading this, I believe I still struggle with the theology of glory and fall short in the theology of the cross. Except...it is the cross that draws me, pulls at me. It is the cross for which I hunger, the sweet sweet Gospel of Christ crucified and all that means.  It is the cross where I stake my life.

In a sense, I understand less of both theologies, yet I understand more. 


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

Walther's Seventeenth Evening Lecture is a most lovely look at absolution.  Had I known this, I definitely would have skipped ahead just to revel in his words on this Word of forgiveness.

Reading my beloved Walther has been harder this evening for my heart rate has been so low I am struggling not to worry.  It is this strange sensation to feel your heart rate slowing.  I honestly cannot think of a single adjective to describe it, to paint a picture of the experience for you.  Even after seeing two different cardiologists, I am not sure if the pressure I feel in my neck that accompanies the drop in heart rate is magnified by MS wonky nerves or not.  In any case, I slipped on the pulse oximeter and watched my heart rate settled back down after moving to 43.  43.  43.  That is very, very low for a couch slob.  I am thinking in this moment that the test on Friday cannot come soon enough.

And then there is something that I have been trying to ignore for weeks, but just cannot seem to set aside.  There is a swath on the left side of my forehead from hair line to brow that is tingling and numb.  I know...that seems a contradiction, but the surface is numb and there is a tingling sensation crawling beneath my skin.  It does not hurt and is no real bother.  However, it is very distracting. 

But then there is Walther!  A few tidbits before the meat:

• The Spirit is not obtained except by simple trust in God's Word.  Even when void of any feeling, the person who declares: "God has said so, therefore I shall believe it,"  will find that the Holy Spirit has entered his heart, filling it with His peace and joy. (164)
• I trust that even you have passed through some spiritual experiences that have taught you the true comfort in every affliction and its only source, the Word of God, which, whenever you feel worried, assures you of your salvation. (165)
• The characteristic mark of our Church is unquestioned submission to the divine Word, while our sectarian teachers are continually tossed about like the waves of the sea and betray the fact that they are not founded upon the rock of the Word of God.(167)

What I found most interesting was set a ways into the chapter:  this exposition of the doctrinal basis of absolution!

1.  Christ, the Son of God, took upon Himself by imputation all sins of every sinner, counting them as His own.  Accordingly, John the Baptist, pointing to Christ, says: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."  John 1,29.

2.  By His life in abject poverty, by His suffering, crucifixion, and death, Christ has wiped out the record of the worlds' sin and procured remission of all sins.  no man living, from Adam to the last human being that will be born, is excepted from this plan.  For St. Paul writes, 2 Cor. 5,21 "God hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."  Even Isaiah, chapter 53,5:  "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed."  And even in an Old Testament prophecy still earlier than that of Isaiah we hear the Messiah wail: "I restored that which I took not away."  Ps. 69,4.

3.  By raising His Son Jesus Christ from the dead, God the Father confirmed, and put the stamp of approval on, the work of reconciliation and redemption which Christ finished on the cross.  For by the resurrection of Christ He has, in the presence of heaven and hearth, angels and men, declared: "As My Son has cried on the cross, 'It is finished.' so do I announce, It is finished indeed!  Ye sinners are redeemed.  Forgiveness of sins is prepared for everyone body; it is ready; it must not first be acquired by you."

4.  By His command to preach the Gospel to every creature, Christ commanded at the same time to preach forgiveness of sins to all men, hence to bring to them the glad tidings:  "All that is necessary for your salvation has been accomplished.  When asking, What must we do to be saved? do but remember that all has been done.  There is nothing more to do.  You are only to believe all that has been done for you, and you will be relieved."

5.  Christ did not only issue a general command to His apostles and their successors in office to preach the Gospel, hence the forgiveness of sin, but to minister to each individual who desires it this comfort:  "You are reconciled to God."  For if forgiveness of sins has been procured for all, it has been procured for each individual.  If I may offer it to all, I may offer it to each individual.  No only may I do this, I am ordered to do it.  If I fail to do it, I am a servant of Moses and not a servant  of Christ.

6.  Now that forgiveness of sin has been procured, as stated, not only has a minister a special commission to proclaim it, but every Christian, male or female, adult or child, is commissioned to do this.  Even a child's absolution is just as certain as the absolution of St. Peter, yea, as the absolution of Christ would be, were He again to stand visibly before men and say:  "Thy sins are forgiven then."  There is no difference; for, mark you! it is not a question of what man must do, but what has been done by Christ."  (169-170)

When you look at it that way, step-by-step, I cannot help but think you would come to believe the precious gift of absolution ought to be cherished and championed and preserved at all costs in our Church this day.  I also believe his comment about being a servant of Moses instead of Christ is key.  Always...always we humans want to do, to be responsible for our own destinies. 

When talking about Luther's remarks on the basis of the Papacy actually also including the other sects of the church, he says, "for they all, without exception, teach that forgiveness of sins must be obtained by praying, struggling, and wrestling with God until one feels the soothing sensation that grace has been infused in him.  However, that is a sheer delusion; for grace cannot be infused into men, since it is the disposition of God outside ourselves, in heaven.  It can only be proclaimed to us.  True rest, therefore, can be given us only through the Word, either when we hear it preached or when we read it.  (177)

True rest, therefore, can be given us only through the Word.  How absolutely, utterly true this is for me!  How I long to hear it.  How I long to have it poured over me.  How it stills my anxious thoughts, dries my tears, calms my soul.

Walther finishes by tearing apart the false teaching of absolution by the papacy, a teaching that bases absolution on the work of man, not the work of Christ.  Set aside the fact that they teach the power of absolution is a mystery given to priests and not really something that can be understood (that ought to be a red flag there!).  There are three parts that are simply not about faith, and therefore not about Christ crucified.  The penitent is told to be contrite, crushed, and to confess.  If his confession is not complete, he is not truly absolved.  And to be absolved is contingent upon satisfactions, penances that are works the penitent is set to do to fully earn absolution.  The system is simply about man, not God.

Lutheran doctrine teaches absolution is already given...by Christ.  Absolution is already earned...by Christ.  Absolution is already satisfied...by Christ. 


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!

This day.  This day.  Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.  Lord have mercy.  This day.

I realized some time shortly after she left that my friend's visit was a goodbye.  This was confirmed as she texted me her goodbye, sitting alone in a car waiting to die.

It is not as if I know whether or not I believe more people praying accomplishes more than fewer people praying.  After all, I am not Frank Peretti.  But I wanted to wrap her up in so much prayer that if she survived whatever she did she would know that even strangers value her life. So I called, emailed, and texted everyone I knew who might pray for her.

Everyone I called prayed.  Pastor F also texted her.  Bettina tried as well, but is not sure her technology was cooperating.  I, myself, sent a fair amount of texts just to try and hang on to her heart.  So, my friend received the sweet, sweet Gospel and love from many people through many sources.

God, in His infinite mercy, had this evening be the one during which my writing student came to mow and work on our novel together.  So, she was with me; so, I was not alone, as I waited to hear.  Such a magnificent young woman is she that she did not complain once that I spent the first part of her visit dialing for prayers.  Instead, her response gave me pause.

I had received an email from the fellow blogger who offered to pray (I am still searching for a nickname for her) in which she rather candidly talked about how her parish is vacant and she has no pastoral care.  My writing student's comment was:  how wonderful that you have access to so many pastors, not many do.

She is right.  I have been utterly ungrateful for the fact that God, in His infinite mercy, has brought to my life such men, such faithful undershepherds, who would take a frantic call from me and gladly pray for a stranger...who have been holding my heart even as I have endeavored to hold hers.  I pray for them, their families, and their flocks daily, but I have not fully considered what riches God has heaped upon me through them until, not once, but twice this day such has been pointed out to me.

 Pastor F very kindly sent me a Psalm after I had hung up with him.  .

    Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O LORD.
    Lord, hear my voice!
         Let Thine ears be attentive
         To the voice of my supplications.
    If Thou, LORD, shouldst mark iniquities,
         O Lord, who could stand?
    But there is forgiveness with Thee,
         That Thou mayest be feared.
    I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait,
         And in His word do I hope.
    My soul waits for the Lord
         More than the watchmen for the morning;
         Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.
    O Israel, hope in the LORD;
         For with the LORD there is lovingkindness,
         And with Him is abundant redemption.
    And He will redeem Israel
         From all his iniquities

                                      ~Psalm 130

The police found my friend's car and took her to the hospital.  I am assuming they were able to save her and am praying as such.  Tomorrow is a new day and His mercies will be new...for me...for her.

Papa Dore began and ended the day with me, calling for Compline before heading off to bed.  The blogger called afterward (the time difference thing) and talked and then sang Lord Jesus, Think on Me.   While I have recently posted the lyrics to this hymn, I shall again do so:

Lord Jesus, Think on Me (LSB 610)

Lord Jesus, think on me

And purge away my sin;

From worldly passions set me free

And make me pure within.

Lord Jesus, think on me

By anxious thought oppressed;

Let me Your loving servant be

And taste Your promised rest.

Lord Jesus, think on me

Amid the battle's strife;

In all my pain and misery,
O be my health and life!

Lord Jesus, think on me

Nor let me go astray;

Through darkness and perplexity

Point out Your chosen way.

Lord Jesus, think on me

That, when this life is past,

I may the eternal brightness see

And share Your joy at last.

Oh, dear Lord, my friend believes.  Help her unbelief!

Well, once again my words went awry.  If I did not also receive encouragement this day on the good which I do have to share, I swear I would put my pen down and shut my mouth forever, find that cave, and NEVER come out.  Why is it that I have become so harmful?

    Search me, O God, and know my heart;
         Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
    And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
         And lead me in the everlasting way.
                                            ~Psalm 139:23-24

Today has also be a huge dose of my own medicine.  For the past month, I have had mirrors held up to me that I find nothing short of crushing.  If they are truly mirrors, then I want to look upon them to learn what I need to learn, but I have also wondered how in the world I'm supposed to survive the process.  I think I am not always hearing what is actually being said, but I don't know how to clarify that when I cannot seem to talk about those things without making such a bloody mess that I should be taken out back behind the woodshed and shot.

Well, the mirror today is the harshest yet.  On one hand, I still have no judgment, for I believe strongly that grace and patience should be heaped upon the wounded person in such measure that there is no accounting, for I have experienced myself such a reckless outpouring of love and know the power of such mercy.  However, I am finding the burden before me quite staggering and it is a burden I have placed on others myself...not really understanding the magnitude of such until I stood as helpless and heart broken as those who bent beneath my burden. 

It is a very humbling thing to experience that moment when you realize no matter how much you long to help, to "do something" for another person, all you really can do is pour out the sweet, sweet Gospel and pray, because Christ is the only One who can "do" anything for the soul at that time.

Is there any way to know if a heart is hardened to sin verses broken by sin?  For there is hope in the latter, but only great fear in the former.

It has been a day of overwhelming sorrow watching another sheep suffer and absolute shock and horror that I, myself, caused the suffering of another yet again.  It has been a day of gentle rebuke and great encouragement from a stranger.  It has been a day of striving and a day of stillness.  It has been a day of forgiveness.  And it has been a day in which I have learned just how great is the heart of my Papa Dore, so much greater than even I had imagined.

While I long for Walther and Forde both, for an opportunity to forget my confusion and my bungling and throw myself into Lutheran doctrine, I am too exhausted to really study.  So, I opened the 101 Things Jesus has Done For You book and discovered the next one in the queue is exactly the lesson I needed this day....

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  John 14:27a

 15.  JESUS GIVES US THE GIFT OF PEACE.

While He was on earth, Jesus' hands  did many things.  They touched lepers and made them well.  They blessed bread and multiplied the loaves.  And they stretched over a stormy sea and quieted the waves.

Even now, Jesus' hands stretch over our lives, giving us His peace and stilling the storms of our hearts.  We experience His peace when we pray and when we read about Him, remembering His great power and His great love for us.  And sometimes we experience His peace in a way that transcends our understanding, in an unexplainable calm that wraps itself around us, a gift from our loving Savior.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!