Living with brokenness

Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships.
How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus, our brokenness can become a gateway to new life> [Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey]

Oswald Chambers, the British Pastor/Theologian comments on "How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"
"Jesus is laying down rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit. By the simple argument of these verses He urges us to keep our minds filled with the notion of God's control behind everything, which means that the disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and seek.
Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. If once the mind is notioned along that line , then when you are in difficulties it is is as easy as breathing to remember - Why, my Father knows all about it! It is not an effort, it comes naturally when perplexities press...now the notion of the Divine control is forming sop powerfully in you that you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit, and it works on this principle - God is my Father, He loves me, I sahll never think of anything He will forget, why should I worry.
There are times, says Jesus, when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but trust Him. God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural Father, but He is not; He willappear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the notion of the mind of God behind all things strong and growing. Nothing happens in any particular unless God's will is behind it, therefore you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but an attitude of mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. "Ask and it will be given to you."

Remember, we belong body and soul, in life and in death to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ who watches over us in such a way that not a hair can fall from our head without the will of our God/Father in heaven, in fact things must for our salvation.

Aunt Mabel Jacobsen died at the age of 96 years. I did her funeral in Sheldon Iowa on July 9. Three of my siblings and their spouses were there with us. There were probably a couple dozen people in attendance. When Aunt Mabel's daughter Sue died from cancer at the young age of 28 my siblings and I were basically the only family left for her. Uncle Marv died unexpectedly from a heart attack in 1992 so Aunt Mabel was a widow for 24 years. While living in Luverne Joyce and I could visit her on a regular basis, maybe once a month or every six weeks. We played a lot of Mexican train dominoes and enjoyed her favorite dessert banana cream pie. We helped move her from her own condo too independent living to assisted living and finally to the nursing home. She seemed to accept all the moves with a positive spirit. She died peacefully in her sleep; what a nice way to die. I used the text for the funeral message from II Corinthians 4:16-5:1; "So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

"Some day the silver cord will break.
And I no more as now shall sing
But oh the joy when I shall wake
Within the palace of the king.

Some day my earthly house will fall;
I cannot tell how soon twill be.
But this I know, my All in All
Has now a place in heaven for me.

And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story - Saved by grace! [a hymn from Fanny Crosby]

By grace through faith which is a gift of God!