Roller Coaster

An Enigma...The Exception to Every Rule...
These are what Jay and my nurse Stacy have recently called me.

In August, I was given six months. In September, that changed to three months. We celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, certain I wouldn't see much of the new year. In March, I was given one month. We've surpassed the one month timeline. We have all been subjected to an emotional roller coaster and my hospice team is rather befuddled right now.
I am grateful God has allowed me more time than we anticipated. I'm so blessed to be spending time with precious friends and my family. We've had "real" talks that included many tears and much laughter.  I've seen several beautiful snow storms and crossed many items off my short bucket list.

Because my time is limited, I have worked on being more open and real with people. There are many parts of this journey that have flat-out sucked. Normally, I would never say that. I would just smile through it and say it's okay. I've been able to express to God and others that I don't really think this is all okay. It is not okay to make my husband a young widower...it is not okay to make my parents out-live their daughter...it is not okay that we have all been through an emotional wringer more times than we can count. It is not okay - IT SUCKS!

You know what? God gets it. He really does. This was not His plan. His plan was paradise - Eden. His plan was to walk among His creation, talking with them and enjoying a beautiful close relationship with them. Well - we humans messed it up but that didn't stop Him from loving us deeply. The circumstances we face may be horrible, life-alteringly sad and devastating, but that shouldn't change our love for God.

God loves us so greatly that He couldn't bear the thought of being separated from us. Imagine that! The same God who placed the planets in the universe and spoke our world into being, loves us so much, He wants to be with us always.
There's just one problem - sin. We sin-we're all sinners. It's a sad fact. It's also a fact that God cannot live in the presence of sin - hence the eviction of Adam and Eve from Eden.
God had only one choice - an agonizing choice, but the ONLY way you and I could be reunited with Him and live in His presence now and forever in heaven. He needed a perfect, spotless sacrificial lamb to take the place of our disgusting sin. The only one capable of this task - His one and only Son, Jesus. So God sent Jesus here, knowing full well what He was sending Him to do.

Throughout His entire life, Jesus showed us love, light and life - perfectly and without a single sin.
Jesus also knew the reason His Father sent Him here - to face down a punishment that was meant for me and you.
After hours of agonizing prayer, begging and pleading for God to find another way - to find another answer to our sin problem, He knew that He must be faithful to His Father's will. Instead of fleeing from the fear of this, He laid down on that cross willingly. As he hung there, every sin of every person then, now and to come, was placed on Him. Jesus - the perfect lamb of God was now being held in place with spikes and all of our foul, repulsive and rotten sin was being cast on Him. It became too much for the Father to witness.

When Jesus died and rose again - our salvation was set securely. Through His supreme act of faith, obedience and love, when we accept His precious gift of salvation, He removes our sins from us. Now, when God sees us - He sees the blood of His beautiful Son washing us clean. We can now be pure and clean in the presence of God.

Don't allow your circumstances to dictate how you see and feel about God. Allow your faith and love for God to dictate how you handle your circumstances.

Apparently, my timeline is a complete mystery. I asked a friend why God wasn't ready for me yet. She replied "you may not be ready for heaven yet." There may be more refining God has planned for me, or there are plans unfinished that He needs me to accomplish. Either way, the One who knows the exact number  of my days and set them into motion before I was born, will see to it that I have everything I need here until He calls me Home to Paradise.

Blessings,
Mandy