Graceman’s Musings

In these Last Days we are seeing the temporal nature of everything……
We buy into this materialistic culture ( Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and hat ) and then find out that stocks can plummet, real estate values can nosedive, gas prices can soar and you cannot even afford to go to the store…….But when all is said and done….all the “stuff” doesn’t matter…God matters and family matters and true friends matter. You think your kid needs
the latest “Play Station” and what they really need is to spend some time with you. I recently went with my littlest daughter to Eatza-Pizza ( kind of like Chucky-Cheese… A restaurant with a large Rodent as it’s mascot. ) We played ski-ball and to see the joy and laughter on my child’s face was “priceless”. The older I get I long to spend time with my heavenly Father, My good and gracious God. He makes me smile and is the joy of my life. I have been through loss, pain and heartache and the person and presence of God has been the anchor that has held this ship together through it all. Remember the old Ray Boltz song…The anchor holds though the ship is battered. Recently ( Jan.08 ) our oldest daughter nearly died from “Sepsis” a really deadly disease. We prayed and cried to the Lord and he answered our cries and healed her. He is Jehovah Rapha/Rophe, the Lord who heals ( Exod. 15 ) Since that day when my wife called on the cell and the sirens were in the background crying out the words…”She’s not breathing” and we cried to the Lord and he heard our cry and breath came into her….I wake every day… one thankful man. People ask me ” How are you ? ” I reply “I am fine”… my child is living. God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want him and sometimes people we love die and we hurt deeply. That doesn’t mean God isn’t Good or that he isn’t God. You see if God releases one of his children to Himself again it is just that he wants them to enjoy His Presence Personally. I mean that isn’t too bad. God created us for His pleasure and life is not all about what we want… it is about what he wants. Remember the bumper sticker ” He who dies with the most toys wins….LIE ! We are all experiencing a time of economic downturn. Gas prices are so high….Maybe God wants us to stay home and spend time with one another….What a novel idea…duh ?
Maybe if we all cannot afford to pay our power bills….they will turn off the power and we won’t be able to gorge ourselves on TV, Movies and Entertaining ourselves into stupidity. Maybe the kid’s Playstation won’t fire up and they will go outside and breathe in God’s fresh air and
realize the sunrises and sets….Maybe they will even learn to read and speak to their parents…How cool would that be ?
I remember having the time of my life during a three week long power outage due to a hurricane . I cooked all the food in the freezer and shared it with my two rottweilers and watched the world series on a 2.5 inch battery operated Casio TV. Talk about luxury. I sent my wife and kids to momma’s house…She still had power. I read today that homeless guys were living in luxurious foreclosed homes in California. Does God have a sense of humor or what ?
What I am trying to say today is no matter what is going on in your life you can count on our Great and Faithful God and the realizations of what is really important in life….God, Family, True Friends and a loyal dog….Hold the cats please ( more about that subject on another blog )God loves us unconditionally and desires that we be thankful
for what we do have………

Love ya…….Graceman