“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but  a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Proverbs 17:22

Laughter truly is good medicine and unfortunately usually when we are the sickest and need the medicine the most is often when we are most fearful of what the spoon holds will taste most bitter.

I have been unable to write or really do much of anything that involves the cyber world for about a week. My computer was stricken with the dreaded disease  “Blue Screen Of Death” or BSOD as the internet help sites like to call it.

Quite nasty, my PC fell into a loop spin of perpetual death, never completely dying,trying to hold on for dear life, quickly flashing a “preparing automatic repair” message and wildly spinning for a few moments only to flash a few more dead screens finally  landing on a solid blue screen with a rather disturbing facial expression on which it announced that it could not repair itself and would need to collect information and restart.

At which point after performing all the before mentioned intentions it BEGAN the entire process over again… and again.. and again.

Kinda sounds like some of us sometimes doesn’t it? Or is it just me that sometimes finding myself  faced with “environmental variables” and situation “updates” that I just can’t process, I can quickly attempt to repair myself,  fall into that vicious loop and death spin until the realization that I may need to send out  a crash report, ask God for major help only to find myself quite prone to repeating that same process WITH those SAME issues that I had already “turned over” to God and to so this over…and over.. and over again.

No, I don’t think it is just me and then again some things just KEEP coming back. A wonderful friend told me that once, that things WILL just keep coming back until you learn the response that IS expected of you.

So many are sick and so many are hurting and sometimes faith seems so far away but you know there IS joy in the Lord and His joy is always there for us and we all know that life happens nothing is going to ever change that and all that will stand in the end IS how we choose to view those things and how we chose to let them define us and as our verse a broken spirit does truly dry the bones and can leave us with the blank, hopeless expression of our own hurt, sad, wounded “blue” screen signaling impending  “code blue” status for our spirits.

So amidst worrying about several of my church family and natural family members battles, and illness, my computers crash, no access to my email because it refused to acknowledge me or my recovery account, the subsequent three-day tech repair and another day just setting everything back up, I also had an “event” looming on the horizon, fun term.. shadowing… kinda like “walking through” this life.. “the shadow of death” the shadow, the thought the threat of things unknown, unforeseen, and expected doom.

 I had dreaded this thing for weeks, not because of the event itself but because I knew the odds on a “wolf” being there were pretty darn high and I am not afraid of the wolf.. I AM afraid of me, I fear my flesh and what would want to fly out of my mouth at lightning speed and another person that I only know could be referred to as the “wolf handler” you know a person who knows good and well what is going on and the damage that wolf has caused some innocent sheep but the wolf is a convenience for them so they turn a deaf ear and a blind eye and see it through the very obviously rose-colored glasses simply because that works for them, but in the grand scheme that only works for a while because we all eventually see the truth when opposed to God, even when we don’t want to see it.

So I prayed and prayed and had others pray and of course the day came.. and of course the wolf was there, doing what wolves do best… it is funny.. when you know that someone is a wolf and they know they are a wolf, and they KNOW you KNOW they are a wolf, it makes an interesting playing filed because they will do little things just to try to get to you and that is where merry medicine and the joy of the Lord come onto the scene.

God had taken care of it far in advance and I do realize WHAT He expects from me and I know that fighting wolves is NOT my job.. I can warn of wolves but HE IS THE SHEPHERD.. not me and once I really gave it all to Him and TRUSTED Him to take care of it.. He did and in Him taking care of it, what I had dreaded, the hurt and anger and just absolute bewilderment that NO ONE could see what was going on there, what I had been trying to repair in my own attitude had to be repaired by HIS and once I accepted that, He blessed me with absolutely, truly one of the most fun evenings I have had in years.  

I ended up making a new friend and seriously laughed all evening and I know it was truly a table in the presence of my enemy and I even realized a little something else on the way home… maybe sometimes when we hold our peace is when He will no longer hold His.

But I am so thankful, I am thankful for a God that loves all of us and when we unwittingly fall prey to the virus of believing we HAVE to fix or ourselves because as “good” Christians we should be able to love everyone and get along with everyone and sometimes we just CAN’T, that is not a crime and it is not a sin, there is nothing in our human state that God requires us to “repair” for ourselves, that is a lie of the world and satan.

This is why we when we are hurt, angry, bewildered, and just mind-blown we only need to send that “crash” report to our Father:

 1 Peter 5: 5(b)-7:  “GOD RESISTETH THE PROUD, AND GIVETH GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. 

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand (SUBMIT, SURRENDER TO HIS WILL) that he might exalt (lift you out of your distress) in due time:

Casting ALL your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

In those times when we are faced with sickness, long waging battles, wounds, and even those wolves howling in the distance we need ONLY to confess these troubles to Him, he already knows all about it, He KNOWS our hearts, our souls, our intentions, and EVEN, as the Bible says, OUR VERY THOUGHTS BEFORE WE THINK THEM.

But we have to ASK Him for help and then we can rest assured that those nasty viruses we have contracted will be cured and that medicine that medicine that we so dreaded swallowing (like letting go of the flesh) may actually taste a whole lot sweeter than we would have ever dreamed!

Peace and Love! Φλογιζω Σαλπιζω NBJ 2017