Some time ago, we made a presentation to the church's college age group about what you do when nothing in life turns out the way you planned.  We set out an idealistic young couple to be a preacher, raise a family and build churches.  Along the way came lies, firings, 90% deafness, vision problems that closed Dene's music studio, multiple job changes, being shot from ambush (I won!), multiple surgeries, and more.  Yet, we have been described as "the happiest here!" by a new member who did not know our names (to our son who they did not know was related).   This was a follow-up letter of all the things we forgot to say.
 
First was a question, "How do you keep from becoming bitter? Were there any particular passages that helped you?"
 
Some comes from support groups.  We always had a few, or at times, the non-influential majority who were there to help us.   Sometimes our help came from stubbornness.   We simply refused to let those people be right about us.   Being righteous and loving is the best way to “get even” in the face of false accusations.   Some was, as I said, the fear of hell.   Jesus was not ashamed to use plain old fashioned terror to motivate people to be good and at times, it is all you have.   Sometimes, as Dene said, we were good for the kids’ sake.   We might have given up with only our own souls in the balance, but could not do that to them.   In a lesser way, our weaker brothers and sisters can provide the same motivation.
 
Above all, perseverance came because we knew in whom we believed.   The blind man said, “One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see.”  We tried not to let our faith become complicated by the, "what if’s", and the unfairness, and “Why did this happen?”, and a hundred other questions.   We focused on the one thing we knew: that God knows what he is doing and that it is being done for his glory to accomplish his purpose in us--whether we ever understand or not.   From the beginning, we knew that it would be hard at times.   We had no clue how hard but our part is clear: faithfulness to the one who “so loved that He sent…”
 
God may not have a “better plan” for you.  Sin may have locked doors and blocked pathways that would have been better for you and for God.    Upon repentance, God will still use you.   The “better plan” sop some use when things “go wrong” can lead to a weak or lost faith.
 
Do not waste time trying to figure out God’s purpose for you or in things that happen to you.  Simply seize every opportunity to do any kind of work of faith that comes your way. 
 
We also understood that no longer being able to do certain things physically did not mean we were free to sit back and watch.   Disabilities mean you find something you CAN do, even if it isn’t what you dreamed, even if the disability makes it more difficult.   We owe God our service, in whatever our circumstances, in whatever way we can, for as long as we can.   Acts 13:36 says that David fulfilled his purpose and then he died.   To us that meant that he kept right on going until that time, doing for his Lord whatever was possible to do, which is ultimately, why we offered to talk to you as well.
 
"For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2Cor 12:10).

"But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.  ​Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” " (Jer 1:7-8).
 
Keith Ward

On November 4, 1922, Howard Carter discovered the entrance to King Tut's tomb.  He had been looking for six years and his patron, George Herbert, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, was about ready to call it off.  But then, in the debris of the tomb of Ramses VI in the Valley of the Kings, Carter and his crew found it—the burial place of the eighteen year old Pharaoh Tutankhamen.  Carter closed off the entrance and cabled his benefactor, waiting for his arrival before finally entering the tomb with him on November 26, 1922. 
            And what a tomb it was, full of all sorts of earthly treasures, including a stone sarcophagus containing three nested coffins.  Inside the final one of solid gold lay the embalmed mummy of the boy king.  The interior rooms also contained life-size gold figures of animals and gods, a large golden bed, alabaster cups, chariots, and an ornate throne.  The pictures show items thrown or shoved in, and stacked against walls willy-nilly, as if no one really ever expected to use them again, either here or in the world beyond. 
            All of this brought to mind another tomb.  Unlike King Tut's tomb, the one the disciples found was empty, even though well guarded.  It was not full of earthly treasure, just burial clothes.  Things were not thrown in helter-skelter, but Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered into the tomb; and he beheld the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. (John 20:6-7)
            And why does any of that matter?
            First, the empty tomb was in Jerusalem, right where Christianity began, right where anyone could go and look for themselves and see that it was indeed empty.
            Second, the first witnesses were women.  While that does not strike a chord with us particularly, in those days, if you were planting witnesses and paying them off, the last people you would choose would be women.  Here are some of the prevailing views of women in first century Palestine:

But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth, --Josephus

Any evidence which a woman [gives] is not valid (to offer), also they are not valid to offer. This is equivalent to saying that one who is Rabbinically accounted a robber is qualified to give the same evidence as a woman. — Talmud (Rosh Hashannah)

Sooner let the words of the Law be burnt than delivered to women. — Talmud (Sotah)
            It may set my teeth on edge, but that is the way it was, and that fact strongly argues for the reality of the empty tomb.
           
            Third, all those carefully recorded details given by John about the burial clothes speak of an eyewitness account.  Anyone who has dealt with witnesses before—attorneys, judges, policemen, even my probation officer husband—recognizes that the more details are given, the more likely the truth is being told.
            Fourth, the authorities had to make up a story to cover up what really happened.  Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city, and told unto the chief priests all the things that were come to pass. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave much money unto the soldiers, saying, Say, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and rid you of care. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying was spread abroad among the Jews, and continues until this day. (Matt 28:11-15)
            This isn't even half the evidence.  The facts about the stone over the tomb would take up two or three pages, and another few for the couple hundred pounds of spices those burial clothes were wrapped and wrapped and wrapped in.  But let this little history nugget be a reminder to you of a tomb that really matters.  Not the magnificent tomb of a king that people forgot for centuries, but the one you have your hope set on, the one that means that you, too, will someday live forever with the very King who lay in that tomb, and rose again to reign over a more magnificent kingdom than ancient Egyptians ever even imagined.
 
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. (1Cor 15:12-21).
 
Dene Ward

A look back at a difficult moment in my life, hoping this will help you in yours.

A few weeks ago, Satan finished what he started three years ago and stole my identity.  I have packed up the last of my teaching supplies: sheet music, collections, method books, assignment notebooks, theory books, technique books, concerti, history notebooks, listening labs, computer disk theory games, stickers, rhythm instruments, home made music bingo games, magic slates with grand staffs permanently imprinted on them, even my old textbook How to Teach Piano Successfully.  I have sent them on to a young piano teacher in Ohio, who is just starting out.

            I had a weepy moment or two.  This part of my life—35 years worth plus all those years learning--is definitely over now.  There is no going back; I simply cannot see the music any longer.  But I am happy to know that these things will be put to good use—that other little children will learn with them, and that a young preaching couple will have a bit more coming in to help out with a skimpy income.  But for a moment the large empty space under my piano made me feel invisible. 
            I am no longer the piano and voice teacher in Union County. 
            I no longer open my doors every afternoon to excited little faces, making sure that grubby little hands are washed before touching the keys, but still picking up every ailment my students brought my way, including parvo once, for goodness sake!  It must have been all the hugs. 
            I am no longer playing at weddings half a dozen times a year.  I am no longer meeting with my fellow teachers once or twice a month, serving as association officer or chairman of this committee or that. 
            I no longer take a dozen students to various competitions, crying with them for their losses and cheering for their wins.  I no longer spend hours on themed spring programs, gathering up suitable music, matching it to each student’s personality, then working out the details, including skits and grand finales. 
            I no longer present high school seniors in debut recitals with formals and tuxes, long-stemmed red roses, and a glittery reception afterward. 
            Satan has stolen all of that from me with this disease.
            It could have been a real problem for me.  I could have sunk into a depression difficult to come out of.  Then I remembered my real identity.
            Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God; and we are, 1 John 3:1.
            Listen my beloved brethren did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? James 2:4.
            But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, 1 Pet 2:9.
            He has granted unto us precious and exceeding great promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, 2 Pet 1:4.
            The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him, Rom 8:16,17.

            I still have my identity, and so do you.  It’s the one that counts, the one that Satan cannot steal, the one that will last forever.

Dene Ward

George Orwell once said, “The quickest way to end a war is to lose it,” (Polemic, May 1946, “Second Thoughts on James Burnham”).
            Do you ever feel that way about life?  With all the things happening to him, even Job said, “My soul is weary of my life,” (10:1).  We all experience those feelings.  Illness, financial misfortune, family problems—all these things can sometimes seem insurmountable.  Then, when you are completely exhausted, both physically and emotionally, the temptation is to end the war by simply surrendering.
            Don’t do it.  This war has already been won.  All we have to do is finish it--do the mop up work, so to speak. 
            The problem too often is that we try to go it alone, refusing to turn our problems over to the Lord.  If we insist on that, we have already lost.  We are not alone in this fight.  We have a Savior who understands everything we are going through and who will share our loads.  Look how far you have already come with His help.  Yes, you may be tired, and you may well have good reason to be, but be encouraged by your accomplishments through the abundant help you have been given.  My grace is sufficient for you, 2 Cor 12:9.
            Let Jesus carry those burdens for you.  He has already borne the biggest one, the sin that would have damned you for eternity.  Surely He can handle the others, things which may seem huge to you now, but which eternal perspective will prove small.  Some days you may feel like you are just plugging along, but that is all right too, so long as you don’t give up.
Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light, Matt 11:28-30.

 Dene Ward

A couple of times when I was young my family, together with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, shared the rent on a house in New Smyrna Beach for a week.  It was an ordinary cement block house, probably built in the 1940s, two bedrooms, one bath, a living room and kitchen.  What made it worth renting was its location—right on the beach, which was not nearly so crowded in those days.  Every morning we four girls were out building sand castles and playing tag with the waves, floating on the undulating water just past the sandbar or diving below to play shark attack on one another.  We all smelled of suntan lotion and seaweed, coconuts and salt, and only came in for lunch and an afternoon of card games and board games during the worst of the heat, and were back out again in the evening when the sea breeze cooled enough to give us a shiver after once again dunking ourselves in the brine.
            Our parents got the two bedrooms, but we girls didn’t mind sharing the floor in the small living room, the gray, white-streaked linoleum tiles covered with quilts, the floor beneath crunching with a little grit despite all the sweeping our mothers did every day.  You live on the beach, you WILL have sand.  At 8 I was the oldest and usually the last one asleep.  No air conditioning in those days meant the windows stayed open wide and I loved listening to the roar of the ocean.  Over and over and over, the steady pounding of the surf gave me a feeling of security.  I did not have to guess if the next wave would roll in; all I had to do was wait for it, and eventually it lulled me to sleep.
            Fast forward to a time thirty years later.  We were camping on Anastasia Island, a beach 60 miles further north.  The state campground was still small back then, only one section just a few feet off the dirt trail to the beach, acres of palmetto groves separating it from the bridge to the city streets of old St Augustine.  The boys had their own tent, and as we lay in ours once again I listened to the surf crashing onshore, just as it had all those years before.  Over and over, as steady as a ticking clock, as a piano teacher’s metronome, as a heartbeat on a hospital monitor.  All those years and it had not stopped.
            And then another twenty years passed and we two spent a weekend on Jekyll Island.  This time we were too far from the beach to hear it in the night, but after a wonderful meal at the Driftwood Bistro we stopped on the beach for a walk and there it was.  The wind whipped around our legs and plastered my hair across my face, gulls screamed over us in the waning light, and the waves were still coming in, again and again and again, just as they have since the dawn of time.  They never stop.  Some days they may be rougher than others.  Some days the sea may look almost calm.  But check the water’s edge and that lacy froth still creeps onshore in its never-ending cycle.
            Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name: ​“If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” Jer 31:35-36
            Jeremiah tells the people that God will restore his nation and establish a new covenant in the verses just preceding those, a covenant in which their sins will be “remembered no more.”  He uses the stability of the natural phenomena that God created as a guarantee of His promise.  Only if the sun stops rising, if the moon stops shining, if the waves stop rolling in, can you discount my promises, He says.  That guarantee counts for all of God’s promises.  He never changes, we are told.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so yes, He will keep the promises He has made to us of redemption, of protection, of spiritual blessings and a final reward.
            Are you a little blue today?  Has your life been upended in a way you never expected, in a way you can hardly bear?  The sea God made is still roaring.  Those waves are still rolling in just as they have for generation after generation after generation.  The white caps you see are the same your parents saw and your grandparents and your great-grandparents on back to your earliest ancestors.  And God is still faithful to His people.  Close your eyes, listen to that perpetual roar, and breathe a little easier tonight.
 
I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name. ​And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand, establishing the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” Isa 51:15-16
 
Dene Ward
 

My mother taught me when I was a teenager, that if you make the bed the minute you get out of it, it's done in 5 minutes and it was no big deal.  Marrying a man who thinks that making the bed is ridiculous got me out of that habit, but I still get it done eventually, and usually before the morning is half over.
            I've heard it from many:  why make the bed when you are just going to get back into it that night?  Well, for one thing, I like for things to look tidy and making a bed makes a bedroom 90% tidy all by itself.  For another, my bedroom is visible from our dining room table, which is usually where we are entertaining guests.  For another, when you leave it unmade, all those sheets that you put your face on all night long are open to catching whatever dust falls on them—and I have a dust mite allergy.           
            But as for that reason most people give, "why make it when you are just going to get back into it?"  Let's think about that for a few minutes.  Why wash your clothes when you are just going to wear them again?  Why wash the dishes when you are just going to eat off of them again?  In fact, why cook dinner when you are just going to get hungry again?  Doesn't work so well with all those things does it?
            What I am afraid of is that attitude will bleed off into something really important, like why try to overcome a temptation when you know you are just going to sin again?  I hope you can see that one really doesn't work.  Overcoming once will make it easier to overcome the next time, and then the next, and then the next, and someday you may find yourself sinning less often.  Isn't that what you are hoping for?  Not to mention, God always gives you a way out.  Try working your little argument on him after he has gone to all that trouble, and his Son has died in order to help you win those battles over Satan.
            No, it isn't a sin not to make your bed, not even if your mother said it was, but be careful with the arguments you use for the simple things.  Don't let it affect the things that really do matter.
 
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith (1John 5:4).
 
Dene Ward

I remember when they started, just barely, on July 1, 1963.  I was still in elementary school and never sent any mail myself, but I remember my parents having to memorize our brand new code—the US Postal Service Zone Improvement Plan, or ZIP code for short. 
            If you never knew it, those numbers do mean something.  The first number is the National Area.  The next two are the Sectional Center or Large City Post Office.  The last two are the Associate Post Office or Delivery Area.  It all came about because of the huge increase in mail and the new automated systems.  At first, using zip codes wasn't legally required, and actually, it still isn't, but if you want a relatively quick delivery, I wouldn't buck the system if I were you.  It works so well that it has become a model for other countries.  Imagine that (of something run by the government).
            Did you know that four people have their own personal zip codes?  The President of the United States (20500-0001), the First Lady (20500-0002), Smokey Bear (20252), and of course, Santa, who takes the Canadian postal code HOH OHO.  Not so in the US, where all his letters are sent to North Pole, Alaska, and he shares his zip code with that town, 99705.
            Although zip codes are supposed to help mail carriers and others find addresses more quickly, it doesn't always work that way.  In central Pennsylvania off interstate 80, the town of Conyngham, with the zip code of 18219, sits right smack in the middle of Sugarloaf, PA, with the zip code of 18249.  The residents of Conyngham, then, live within the zip code of 18249, but they don't live in it—like a hole in a doughnut isn't actually part of the doughnut.  You may not think this is important, but it can affect your insurance rates and property taxes, your voter registration, jury duty, and more seriously, emergency response time.  Conygham is known as the town that got swallowed up by a zip code.
            That's one thing you don't need to worry about with God.  He knows exactly where you are any time of day.  If you need Him, He can find you and your zip code doesn't make any difference at all.  In fact, His response time can beat anything man has to offer with or without the help of a zip code.
             Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,  (Ps 33:18).
            ​When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles,  (Ps 34:17).
            That can be very comforting to the faithful, but don't forget the negative aspect of this promise:  For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths, (Prov 5:21).  Not only can God always find you to help you, but He also knows exactly what you are doing, whether good or bad.
            But for today, ponder this comforting promise.  Not only will God never forsake you (Psa 37:25,28; Heb 13:5), He doesn't need a zip code for rapid response.  He will not become confused should you, like the residents of Conyngham, Pennsylvania, be lost in the middle of the wrong zip code.  In fact, it is not a matter of His "finding" you, because to Him you are never lost at all.
 
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, (1Pet 3:12).
 
Dene Ward

On June 9, 1972, the Black Hills were struck by a severe thunderstorm that simply would not go away.  Over six hours it dropped twelve to fourteen inches of rain.  Rapid City, South Dakota, was hit the hardest.  It lies along the Rapid Creek, which is usually five yards wide and only a few feet deep but it rose steadily from late afternoon into the late night.  At 10:45 pm, local time, the dam at Canyon Lake, which is on the northern edge of the town, broke, sending a wall of water running as fast as 50 mph through the town.
            A deputy reported that he had to abandon his car because a two story house was coming down the street toward him.  A retired truck driver had left his pickup to try to help someone in a stalled car and wound up being swept away and pinned against a wall by a floating tree with his head barely above water for seven hours before being rescued.  His wife and two children managed to survive in the pickup all night, rescuing one man by grabbing him as he was swept by.  Another family lost four of their five children, including a two year old, when they tried to escape their vehicle.  The water was simply too strong for them to hold on or be held onto.  In all, 238 people died and more than 3000 were injured, over 1300 homes and 5000 vehicles were destroyed, and damages reached $165 million.  Multiply that several times for an amount in today's dollars. (latimes.com)
            I cannot imagine the terror those people felt as a wall of water 12 feet high came barreling toward them.  We have only a small inkling from our experiences.
            We live on a hillside.  You don’t really notice it when you first drive onto the property.  The hill is shallow as hills go, dropping about twenty feet in five hundred.  In another climate one would seldom think anything of it.  But in Florida, in the summer, torrential downpours are common.  Not too long ago we had two and a half inches come down in less than thirty minutes.  Two or three days before we had six inches, but it took all day to accumulate that.  When nearly half that much pours out of the sky in such a short time, you feel like ten have fallen instead.
            It was as if a giant bucket were being upended over us.  We could hardly see the blueberries only a hundred feet away.  The roar on the metal roof was deafening.  The rushing water overwhelmed the culvert in the drive and washed over the road and out to the garden where it ran against the berm in a narrow creek clearly visible from the house.  We had built that berm precisely because of rains like this one—we were tired of wading “downstream” to rescue washed away garden plants. 
            Eventually we left our viewing station on the porch which was not much shelter in a rain like that—the merest breeze left us damp and shivering, even in the summer.  So we stepped back inside and looked out the windows to the north.  Now you could really tell—we are definitely on a hill.  Water ran like a river across the entire width of the yard, from the front steps to the fence, ten to twelve inches deep.  We watched leaves, twigs, and moss float “downstream” to the run on the east side of the property.  After the rain stopped, it kept running, draining the whole hillside, for another two hours.
            A week after that rain, I walked the path the water had taken.  Leaves were washed into piles a foot deep along the runnel.  Limbs hung up on some of the bushes but others, dragged by the running water, lay piled up against the fence which had acted as a sieve as the water ran through it.  Channels several inches deep marked the dried mud, and the grass was still bent over in the direction the water had flowed.  Running water is powerful.  And that leads us to an even more powerful Flood.
            The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep, Gen 7:17-20.
            The waters of the great Flood “prevailed.”  Those waters not only covered the earth, they drowned every living creature on it that was not in the ark or swimming in the newly created worldwide ocean.  Have you ever seen a flash flood?  Have you ever heard the stories of one like the one in the Black Hills?  No one can win against those “prevailing” waters.  If you try to hang on to something, you simply wear out and are washed downstream. 
            The same word is used in Ex 17:11: So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.  We are talking about winning a war with that word; that’s the strength implied in its use.  It should be no surprise that “prevailed” is also translated “strong” and “mighty.”
            So why is that important?  Because the same Hebrew word is used in Psalm 117:2.  For great [that same Hebrew word] is His steadfast love toward us.  God’s love for us is strong; it is mighty.  It is like rushing water that carries along everything in its path.  It is like an army winning a war.  Sometimes we seem to doubt that.  “But I’ve been so bad,” we say, “how can God love me?”  He can love you because His love is great. It can prevail against the worst of sins.
            The next time you doubt it, think about flood waters.  Think about an army that can win a war.  God’s love is just like those things.  It prevails over all.
 
​I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand  John 10:28,29.
 
Dene Ward

I am different from most women, I guess.  I do not enjoy those cutesy-pie sayings that sound like they came straight out of a sugar canister.  For one thing, I think they can engender the opposite feeling they are intending to--guilt, mainly.  How many times have you heard that even if you don’t feel good, you should go to the assembly because it will make you feel better when you leave?  Yes, on occasion, it does just that, mainly because I was too busy having a pity party and the services put my mind on things besides me. 
           But what about the person who is genuinely ill, or who is so old and feeble that he needs to rest after putting one sock on?  My own Daddy reached that point before he passed on.  Do I really think that going to church and spreading germs to the elderly and small children is going to make me feel better, and even if it did, wasn’t that awfully selfish of me?  Or if pushing myself too hard could cause me to collapse during the services, what great good did that accomplish for anyone else?  Yet sometimes these people do push themselves—they are in fact the ones most likely to push themselves--so they come and infect everyone else, because they have been made to feel guilty for not doing so by things I have come to call duck-billed platitudes.
            I see another problem with some of these things—they smack a little of the health and wealth gospel.  “Sacrifice for the Lord isn’t sacrifice if you really love the Lord.”  Nonsense.  Try that one on a first century Christian who is about to have his throat chomped on and his belly ripped open by the lions in the Coliseum.  Sacrifice feels like sacrifice and God never promised anything else.  What He did promise was that sacrifice is worth it.  That doesn’t mean anything if you have annulled the pain of the sacrifice.
            The things we need to hear are the true things.  Yea, and all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution...For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps, 2Tim 3:12; 1Pet 2:20-21.  What we need is to be told how to endure what will surely come if we live like Christ did, not how to avoid it or worse yet, how to make it “fun.”
            Sometimes life is just plain hard.  That was the punishment we got when we were thrown out of Eden.  Christians are not immune to that penalty, we are just forgiven for it.
            Be strong, God is always telling us in His Word.  Be courageous.  It isn’t courage to turn everything into one giant tea party.  That’s denial, and I see too many Christians living in that state.  And this is what it leads to when you finally realize you cannot platitude your way out of it—“Why did this happen to me?”  This is why:  We live in an imperfect world, made that way by sin, which, no matter how much we like to believe otherwise, we have participated in.  And it won’t get any better.  Tragedies are a part of life.  BUT---
            We live in hope of a better world, a better place that will be perfect and will never end.  That is what you need to remember, not a bunch of saccharine sayings on poster after poster after poster.  I have something much better, and so do you if you will take hold of it.  It does not tell us that everything will be wonderful in this life, that God will spare us from anything painful.  Instead it promises pain, but it also says this:
         Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8:35-39.
 
Dene Ward