I have a serious problem lately! I keep buying salad dressings! I do like to eat salad, but this is a lot of dressing. In the last week, I have bought creamy ranch, and two limited additions that are only available for the summer (Aldis $1.69, I believe): white balsamic peach and strawberry poppyseed dressing. And, for those of you who have followed my Facebook site at Consider the Lilies 12:27 you know I’m also a BBQ sauce hoarder.

Yet I always have an excuse: “It was on sale, it is a promotional, limited item, it’s grilling season!”

How about you? What are you passionate about? For some folks it’s sports, cars, writing, fine wine, crafting, boating, painting–you name it!

Whatever it may be, we get all wrapped up in it, and we want more and more to the extent that when the activity is done, we become very down in the dumps. For example, in our household, we can’t believe it when football season is over, and there is a sense of mourning that follows the Super Bowl game.

I get all tangled up in special event planning and fundraising. Something that takes months to plan and that is wrapped up in a single day. And then, the next day, it’s as if none of it happened. Poof! It’s gone. And then it is like I go through a type of withdrawal!

Depression, exhaustion and boredom follow. The phone stops ringing, the texts slow down and I feel somewhat un-important again, and life is just not the same.

In 2015, my nephew Elijah who uses a wheelchair and therefore requires modified transportation, needed a new van. He was just ten years old at the time.

An idea formed in my head to help, and Facebook was great avenue to get people together who care about Elijah to help. Thus, from a combination of my contacts and my sister-in-law’s vast network, we set up a Go Fund Me fundraising campaign began that lasted about two months.

Other ideas were born from the main concept, and some friends caught the excitement, and local fundraising was done as well. I worked full time but was able to run on my shear adrenaline for those two months. Sleep was scarce, and energy abounded! I somehow managed to run a household, work full time, and head out nearly every day after work to pick up items for a community garage sale. We also collected deposit cans and bottles.

I was flying high.

But there came the day when the fundraising ideas had dried up and my sister-in-law really needed to purchase the van. So just like that, the project was over and I reverted to my just so-so existence.

The “high” was over. The fun was over. The enterprise was forgotten…

Life went back to normal, but it was challenging.

How did I keep from sinking low into the depths of despair?

I think back to that time period and wonder where that supernatural strength and energy came from! I know where my help comes from when I’m working for a cause. I know where my strength comes from when life is just “ordinary”. It comes from God most high! Psalm 121:2 My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

Now I suppose you are curious to know about the iguanas on the feature image. This a photo we took on vacation while in Aruba. We had just arrived and had stopped for lunch before heading to our hotel. We thought it was just a nice picturesque water and rock scene.

We didn’t see all the iguanas at first, but they were everywhere! This photo does not properly represent what we actually saw.

But one thing was apparent. All those iguanas are facing the same way for a reason, they are facing the sun, soaking up those wonderful rays.

I love sunshine, but it is really not my friend since being diagnosed with CLL. In fact, I’m basically petrified of it now, and go through great lengths to cover my pale skin and keep from sun exposure. Like this summer, I am wearing shirts with sleeves most of the time. Still I am still drawn to it, I suppose, for its warmth and its light. Like a moth to a light in the darkness…

But spiritually, I cannot get enough of the SON, Jesus Christ. He does not give me sunburn or skin cancer. He regenerates me with His spirit, like nothing else does.

I have had times in my life, when I took off on my own, and didn’t follow the Son. I wanted to do things my way and I rammed ahead with disastrous results. Like when I was in my 20’s and was “living life to the fullest”, so to speak. I was burning the candle at both ends, playing the field like my mother told me to, living to get the next exciting thing. I had not given my life to Jesus yet. I thought I had it pretty good and knew where I was going. Little did I know (until later) that He was there, watching over me the entire time, sending His appointed people to guide me, to lead me to the one who would give me the gospel message and it would CLICK, like a clasp on a belt. The difference here is that it would be a permanent click, it could not be broken.

Then, like a flash of light, I was saved. I still had many, many questions, but I devoured the challenge. It was the summer of 1996. I was stuck on denominations, having been raised a Catholic, by parents who by this point, had walked away from the church. I went to the library and took out books on denominations so I could understand what it all meant. In my youth, I had been curious about my friends’ churches, and my parents had allowed me to attend, and I knew there were some differences, but I wanted to know the history. I had my first Bible, an NIV version that was written in fairly plain language. My new friend, who would later become my husband, coaxed me to read the gospel messages in the New Testament starting with the Book of John.

We attended church together. Coming from my childhood Catholic church and then visiting non-denominational Christian churches was very difficult at first. People kept trying to hug me and trying to delve into my personal space. I had been raised in a family that lived together, but rotated in our own personal circles that only occasionally overlapped. This included showing affection…it was few and far between.

I had a lot to learn about the Christ followers, but I wanted what they had. I wanted all of it. I knew I wanted to follow the Son!

I had a long way to go, but after visiting several churches with my soon-to-be husband, we found one that taught the word in it’s full meaning which means the pastor explains a passage and cross references other Bible sections to back up the text. A lot like my technical scientific friends on blood cancer uncensored who do all the research and then explain it to the rest of us! We asked the pastor to marry us, and, during our wedding service, Pastor Chris admonished us to “Face the Son” like Priscilla and Aquila taken from Acts 18 (please note for my lady friends that Priscilla is often mentioned first!).

“After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade…Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephasus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in Spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately…” (Acts 18:1-3, 24-26)

We accepted that challenge nearly 22 years ago! We have opened our home for countless gatherings. We have given people a bed who otherwise had none. We have hosted missionaries. We have served meals and my husband has preached to the least of these in the homeless shelters. We have witnessed to people about the love of Jesus on the streets everywhere. We have started a church which expands on the portion of text above about about explaining the way of God more accurately.

Embassy of Christ Bible Church Easter Sunday 2019

The most challenging responsibility of my life started in 12/2017 when we began meeting in our home and after a few months realizing that we were a church. We kept growing and growing, and the Lord miraculously allowed us to “fit” in our dining area of our home until we were able to find space to rent. 2017 was the year I was diagnosed with CLL. We had just come from helping on staff in a church where the pastor had terminal cancer and it was a tough year in general.

Along with being diagnosed with a cancer for which one must “watch and wait”, I managed to put myself in the hospital most likely for an anxiety attack (one month post diagnosis, 2/17) and had been battling infections like bronchitis that would last longer than a month. In retrospect, the illnesses probably started in 2014 or 2015, but I felt I was just getting older; therefore, the illnesses would be more severe. It never occurred to me I was chronically ill, even though other symptoms were present (like gum swelling, strange itching on my fingers that nearly always ended in a painful blister, eyelashes always falling out, increasing fatigue…)

God has a way of using our “shortcomings” and weaknesses. In fact, one of my favorite scriptures is, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” from Philippians 4:13. Ask and you will receive. Facing the Son is a lifelong journey, and is necessary for growth and for getting rejuvenated from life’s battles.

It’s a lot like an electric car. When the battery is low, we must stop and get refreshed. It also takes persistence, as sometimes the growth from the recharge is painful at first. When it appears to be easier to just walk away from the difficult times and to hide, know that God is your strength and shield. And I am living proof that He is faithful to complete us…in His time…in His spectacular way. He has done amazing things through me that would never have been possible.

I encourage you to experience life a whole new way. Let us face the Son together and let Him lead the way.