Archive for December, 2017

Nineteen Days: Day 2

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2017| Leave a Comment »

The frenzy of the night (Nisa was born at 9:40 pm) and the flush of the first day gives way to a wash of relief. The tensions of the past nine months; the fear at each ultrasound appointment; the waiting for the pronouncement that a new cycle of loss and grief would begin; they all fall away.Nisa Day 2

We joyfully prepare to bring Nisa home.  I am not sure that my words can express Day 2 any better than the twinkle in Allana’s eyes.  This Christmas gift is probably the best that we have ever received.  The whole family rejoices at the absence of that fateful “talk” with Robert, Sami and Chayla.  Each of us in our own way process the losses of the past in the joyous light of Nisa’s arrival.  We cannot help think of the siblings in heaven, from the Crashing resonation of Josiah’s passing to the unheralded passing of Ezra Matthew.   Day 2 becomes about rest, enjoyment and blessing.  The gathering storm is still beyond the horizon.  There is no sense of the deadly changes perhaps just beginning to take place.  Still what would come does not erase the joy and peace of Day 2.  It only serves to highlight it and to make me more thankful for God’s grace than ever.

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Nineteen Days: Day 1

Posted in Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2017| 1 Comment »

Nineteen days,  who knew that nineteen days would ever come to be so meaningful to me. I am not going to digress to the back story that builds the significance of these days.  You can get a sense of the whole journey here.  It represents the realization of on incredible Miracle in our lives and the beginnings of another.  Day 1 will forever be a joyous day.  We will celebrate the birth of Nisa Faith year after year.  Day 1 is the culmination of nine months of a melange of concern, faith, fear, trust and surrender.  It was a day of arrival, of life, of completion.  It was a day of overt blessing.  December 16th of 2012 was a joyous day.  What Allana and I did not know, what we could not have known was that it was a day of provision, a day of strength given.  I would be lying if I said that I sat at this computer with a solid thesis or a planned allegory.  The reality is that this is my first opportunity to truly experience and embrace the nineteen days.  When they occurred they were simply another nineteen days in the Christmas season and in 2013 we were still too deeply embroiled the Allana’s battle against Leukemia and the recovery from the Bone Marrow Transplant for me to experience them the way that I am this year.

Day 1 was not without its difficulties, ask any mother and she will tell you that this particular joy comes with its own brand of pain.  Two dear friends who are expecting recently engaged in a tongue-in-cheek argument on Facebook concerning any man’s ability to truly conceive of the trials and eventual pains of pregnancy and birth.  I do not even pretend (or desire) to really understand, preferring to stand by Allana’s side than in her place for this particular event.  Chayla’s birth was a stroll in the park, Nisa’s was more like a kick in the gut and then a short sprint to the finish line (a race in which Nisa beat our doctor and surprised our nurse).  Still, there she was, perfect, beautiful, a miracle from the hand of God.  We basked in the joy of the now.  We knew it was day one, but not that there were only 18 days left to this paragraph of our lives.

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The Nineteen Days Series

Posted in Bible Study, Leukemia, Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2017| Leave a Comment »

19

Good Morning.

This is just a little note to say that I will be posting the entire “Nineteen Days” series today.  It was 5 years ago that we were rejoicing over the birth of our Nisa Faith.  19 days later the world would come crashing down on us, changing our lives forever.

The Nineteen Days posts are reflections on this time in our lives.

Sam

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Hupomone: The About Face

Posted in Life and Ministry on December 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

AboutFace

Had a great discussion concerning “About Faces” last week. In this pic we did not know that God had a huge direction change for our family coming in less than a year! Within two years we would move from our four bedroom colonial in a suburb of Detroit to full time ministry in West Toledo.  So many of the Hupomone men and women throughout history have also had those “about face” moments.  Abraham, Moses, David, Esther, Mary, Paul all had those “about face” experiences.   In some cases like Paul, God turned them around multiple times throughout their lives.  I would like to make some observations about these life changing events.

  1.  These functional changes in direction for us do not mean that somehow God has made a sudden change of direction.  While it is often very difficult in the moment to see the linear direction of God’s plan for us in the midst of great change, God is our ultimate example of Hupomone.  He is completely steadfast and unchanging in character, activity and plan.  Even as we are executing an extreme change in direction we can take comfort in the fact that we are simply moving forward in God’s plan for our lives.  If we truly grasp this truth the massive changes we experience suddenly become less imposing and threatening.  In fact we can embrace them as an expression of God’s love.
  2. These changes in direction are powered by God’s loving, divine purpose for our lives.  While they never indicate a change (because he never changes) in God’s character, they most certainly involve changes in us as we mature towards truly having the mind of Christ.  It is important for us to examine ourselves as we move through changes in direction to see not only what God has for us functionally but also how he desires to impact us in our very character and in our relationship with Him and with those around us.
  3. Anyone who has sailed knows that changing direction is a tricky business.  It needs to be planned out and executed with precision.  Failure to do so may find one’s sails aback and one’s momentum lost.  The heavier the seas the more dangerous our situation can become.  When we sense a major change in direction coming it is important that we wait on God and not try push the change through on our own.  It is also important that we do not balk at God’s direction.  Continuing the sailing metaphor He will guide us through the coming about maneuver.  When we react to the change with pride, thinking we can push through on our own or with fear and refuse to steer the course then we risk missing the divine wind of the Holy Spirit.  The good news is that our Hupomone God is always ready reset the sails and take us through the maneuver again (and sometimes again, and again) but how amazing it is when we follow and catch the Holy Spirit strong in our sails.
  4. Finally this kind of directional change is a direct result of your relationship with God.  While God can provide guidance through those around you, if someone is trying to mandate or manipulate a major change in your life  you need to carefully measure it against Scripture and against your relationship with Jesus Christ.  It is only through that relationship and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit that God’s Hupomone qualities will shine through.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.  Philippians 1:6

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