Starting to See 2021!

1/11/2021 A Belated Welcome to 2021// Finished 2/26/2021

Even though we all thought of 2020 being gone as a good thing and 2021 would be exponentially better, our 2021 started off not so well as expected and desired. News from our family from Christmas eve on was that a dearly beloved niece in Indiana was hospitalized in ICU with Covid-19. And on it endured, till she became most critical and passed away January 12th. We are all heartbroken by this loss. 

Then, to our dismay, the Indiana rules for funeral services had some pretty tight “lock-down” stipulations: no more than 25 people in the facility at any one time, and that included their staff. I was asked by my niece’s husband to do the funeral service for them the following Monday, the 18th. But, due to limitations my son was the only other family member to go with me to Indiana. However, as you might expect, in spite of all the strictness it wasn’t enforced at all. The service was Zoomed over to a Senior Citizen’s center for a larger crowd to be able to attend. The celebration of her life and my message which included her testimony of salvation was heard by a good many, and kept on some family FB pages afterward. 

A few days after we returned home, we had another 2021 critical event take place: our second son was taken to the hospital on the 24th and in ICU (not covid) having had a heart attack, his blood sugar way out of whack and a couple other problems to go with it. After balancing the necessary things in one hospital, he was transferred to a more specialized hospital and a quadruple bypass was performed to set his heart back into the proper pumping of his life-giving blood. It’s been very worrisome and very much an upheaval to us all. 

Well, it is now Feb.26th, our son has been home more than a week and is progressing into some therapy to restore his strength and weight, finding a way to get back to normal living. We thank God for his privilege of recovery from those things which could have turned out a lot worse.

(Sometimes when I don’t know what to write about, I just take a few weeks off the blog writing. Hope that doesn’t bother anyone.)

Oh, it slipped my mind: all this stuff going on is just politics, right? Strangely, no, it isn’t just politics. It is a demented version of a demented segment of this demented world! 

The world may not settle down, at least not down to a low enough roar that we sane people can continue to live in it. When one political party takes control of both legislative bodies as well as the presidency, they usually gloat, gain smugness, and go about working on their agenda to tilt the nation their way. But, this time? Oh my! This time around they declared war on the outgoing president—accusing him of things he didn’t do—as well as many other members of the opposing party! Why the war? Because if they don’t declare war on political enemies they might be found out to be the perpetrators of most things wrong! That’s why! And that, my friends, is closer to the real reasons for all this happening. Free speech is being attacked at every level; in Congress, on social media, and even little voices of conservative thought. Forget about efforts to support the protection of the other 9 “bill of rights” amendments if the number 1 amendment falls prey to the party in power now.

[ Pardon the (partial) rant.]

Throughout the “pandemic” I’ve noticed a sort of futile attitude in a high percentage of folks with whom I visit. Futility should not exist. Understanding how things around us stretch our minds to the edge should re-create in us a need to know truth, THE truth. Not just our short lived truths thrust upon us in the finite world around us, but the truth which can and should be seen in God’s holy word. The truth about what is ultimately going to prevail. When the Lord Jesus Christ was here He told some men, “Before Abraham was, I AM!” They mocked Him; they said you are not even 50 years old, you weren’t here before Abraham. He said ‘Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it.” (this is in John 8)—Abraham saw the Lord in His day. How did that come about? I don’t want to sound like this is the answer to that question—but, it could be. From Gen.18:16-22, it seems Abraham was with the Lord at his tent door. The Lord was there. So, did Abraham rejoice in the day of the Lord? looks like it to me. The Lord who appeared after His resurrection, went to be glorified in His ascension, then returned to sit with and appear in more than one place to His 12 Apostles, then to Saul/Paul…why is this not “The Lord” at Abraham’s tent door? (If this isn’t how Abraham “saw it,” how then?)

You see from this how the Lord can make “…all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”? I hope you can rejoice with Abraham because you can “see” the Lord’s day found in the manner He wrote His instructions for your life to become real to you (read: Romans thru Philemon.) Would love to read comments about this blog.

Thanks for reading,

The Elder