I love beautiful things like the keys in this picture. Functional and lovely!

I told you at one point that I would write something about our other dog, Barni. In 2014 we put a down-payment down on a male Labradoodle through a reasonably priced breeder about 5 hours away from us in Pennsylvania.

I wanted to wait until the next weekend to pick him up, but the breeder was impatient, so my husband took a Friday off and drove straight there. When he got there, the owner’s adult daughter was watching the farm and she brought out a couple of puppies from which to choose. He picked the biggest, toughest one from those choices. Then he drove back with him all in the same day.

We named him Barney after a man known to be a great encouragement to people named Barnabus in the New Testament. We prayed that Barney would encourage many people. The first weekend we had him was Father’s Day weekend and my nephew Elijah came to visit and he held Barney in his lap and Elijah laughed and laughed. Elijah was born traumatically and has severe disabilities as a result. He is confined to a wheel chair and is non-verbal. So he wears his laugh on his face and especially in his eyes. It was obvious that Barney brought him joy.

Two weeks later was the fourth of July and Baby Barney was having trouble going potty, so I got tagged to take him to the emergency vet. This is where they told me he was not a he, but a she. It’s not that we wouldn’t have figured it out! It’s just that at that age, all puppies squat! And when my husband took her, he assumed that the breeder was being honest and showing him the MALE dogs. To make matters more challenging, our local vet had already seen her and had not corrected us on the gender issue.

So our Barni-girl who had entered our lives and hearts in mid-June 2014 was here to stay (the breeder apologized for the error and offered to switch dogs or refund). But her name stuck; we just changed the spelling. And Barni grew up to be a 45 pound dog who is as air-headed as Dory the fish from the Finding Nemo series. She sometimes gets frightened of her own shadow…

This has nothing to do with my topic today. Unless we decide that for boy dogs and girl dogs, they have specific anatomy and are not normally confused…just like the key that unlocks a specific lock. Individual and unique. Also, we could have taken Barni back to the breeder and missed out on this big bundle of joy that was meant for us.

This topic kind of goes along with my last two articles on Perspective and Healing.

In my last message on Perspective, I suggested that we attempt to change our thinking in how we view and describe events in our life. This does not take away from our emotions, which range from mild to super strong at times. We need those emotions. But when the wave of emotion has passed, we need a healthy way to express the event that brought on the emotions.

Yes, there are going to be some scenarios for which there is no positive projection. Like abuse whether it be physical or mental or death of a loved one. Those things can leave scar tissue that is so hard and are difficult to break through. But there can be victory and healing in time! For example, I have a wonderful friend Sarah who loves the Lord. Because of her victory over drug addiction, she now has a career in drug and alcohol counseling. Would she have been as effective if she had not been through the addiction storm? I think not.

Emotions are NOT perspective and they often interfere with our Healing Journey. Sometimes we want them; other times they come around like that great uncle from your mother’s side of the family who dresses in all plaid and has not manners what-so-ever at the dinner table. This is a lot like watching a sports event with your team and their greatest rival: it raises the blood pressure, for sure. The feelings wash over us like violent waves in an otherwise calm sea, or like when someone sneaks up behind us and scares the be-geebers out of us. Sometimes we can experience something traumatic and keep those emotions under control, sometimes we cannot.

Unexpected, uninvited, undesired, unnecessary!

I really admire folks who purposely choose jobs that have guaranteed trauma. Like emergency room staff, EMT’s, and firefighters. These folks are really the front line. They might not say they chose this field of work. They might better say it chose them. If you are not cut out for that line of work, you will quickly find out because your emotions will get the better of you.

And for the people who work in women’s domestic abuse shelters, my hats off to them for using their skills in a valuable way (and honestly not getting much pay for it).

But how about the rest of us? How do we cope? Why do we look at people in high-stress professions and get distressed just thinking about what they do? Do we do yoga and breathing exercises? Perhaps. Therapy? Maybe. Self-help books? A lot of people do…

So how do you feel after doing all of that and then you still find yourself slipping down the emotion slide? Especially when the slide appears to have no end?

How do you cope when you are being bombarded with feelings that you just cannot control?

Two basic schools of thought prevail here, and you may be part of one camp or another, and some of you switch between the camps. One is: you try to control it all on your own with self-talk and self-help and self-control. The other is: you believe in a higher power who helps you handle all of life’s events.

I prefer to believe in the latter. I work in an industry where I observe. I see people slaves to therapy and medication and years upon years of counseling. And they still do not get any better. It is absolutely heartbreaking! After so many years of mankind ruling the earth, all our knowledge, experience, and wisdom, why does it seem that people are more desperately in states of despair, depression, and hopelessness? Is it possible that these things cannot really be cured while we live on this earth without finding the key that fits the lock to unlock us from our prison cells? A friend with bi polar schizoaffective disorder recently gave me perspective on this. She said, “It is tricky with chemical imbalances. We can only hope that we learn to recognize the signs of when we are going into a spin. And I pray. A lot.”

In the beginning, God created a man and a woman who were in all ways perfect and without sin. What is sin? It is a transgression, which means, “an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offense” (according to the Oxford dictionary). In nearly every society, there are rules and laws that are in place to keep order. With God, He has the ultimate authority and has placed His laws in the hearts of people all over the world. People make decisions based on their free will of whether or not to follow those innate rules. We can even chose to reject the existence of God.

And free will was no exception to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In due time, they made a fatal decision. At that point, there was only one rule to heed: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

I do not see where Eve and Adam paused for reflection on the punishment: THOU SHALT SURELY DIE. But they should have. They broke the one and only law they were commanded to follow.

And now the gates of destruction, illness, trials, trauma, deceit and all things horrific have free reign in the land. Adam and Eve are banned from their paradise Garden and forced to live off the land and are destined to a difficult life of hard labor which will end in death.

The hounds were released to show people that God means business. There are consequences to our wrong decisions. And it appears to be cumulative.

Which brings us to today.

We are miserable, inconsolable, desperate, suicidal, wretched, devastated, overcome seemingly without a way out of all of this.

Jesus is the answer. God did not leave us orphans without providing a solution, once and for all, that there is a way to peace. And He did not do it without great cost to Himself. He sent His son to be the sacrifice to rectify the damage that was unrolled in that garden long ago.

Jesus is God who took on human form and lived on earth to show us the path of correction and way to the desired final resting place: heaven. He held no punches. He was blunt and to the point. But He was also kind and compassionate and defined Peace like no other kind.

John 14:27 says “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” and John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Jesus’ first coming was to show us that He is the savior and the key to stopping the cycle of destruction caused by that first sin in the Garden of Eden. But sin is not completely wiped out yet. Because people have free will and the ability to chose or reject Jesus, the world we live in is still riddled with sin and pain. This cannot be avoided.

But we can walk through this world with assurance that the situations we encounter, the difficulties we face, are all temporary as Jesus has stated in the verses given above. Jesus is the key to our peace.

Many of us have experienced death, and have realized that the time we have on this planet is short. Some of us are older and look back on our lives and say, “wow, where did the time go?”. But the afterlife is eternal. This means that is goes on and on without an end.

Part of the reason we are so distressed in this life is because we put our stock in things that will pass away. We strive and beat our fists into the wind to gain what we cannot keep. If only we would focus this much on the eternal!

It is simple to me and other people who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the key that we have been searching for amongst all the misleading keys that only look like they will fit the lock of our hearts. The only one that opens the door to everlasting life with God. Does this mean our journey here on this earth will be easy? Does this mean that our depression, blood cancer, blindness and past and present afflictions will all just disappear? Probably not. But if you are wondering the reason why some people are able to float through life with peace even amidst troubles it is because of the Key, Jesus. When we fix our eyes on Him, the circumstances around us become so much easier to bear.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30

There is an interesting passage in the New Testament from Mark chapter 9, verses 14-29. Jesus has just returned to where he asked his followers to wait and a man is there who is clearly disappointed in those apprentices. His son is tormented by an evil spirit and that child’s life is extremely difficult. I do not know if anyone reading this would know what it is like to be cast by a contrary spirit into a bonfire and then into water over and over. Sounds like a prisoner-of-war practice. From the passage, it is possible that this man’s son is older, perhaps a teenage or young adult, and this have been happening since his childhood. He begs Jesus to do “something” with compassion. Jesus says, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” and the man says with tears, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!” Jesus speaks, and commands the evil spirit to leave the young boy. And it does. The disciples ask Jesus incredulously, “Why couldn’t we do this?” Jesus admits, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

Why would we pray? At first, we pray to start a relationship with God almighty. Sometimes we pray even though we do not believe He hears, us, “Lord, if you answer my prayer, I will believe in you”. And as our awareness of God grows, we continue to pray to strengthen that relationship. Sometimes we will have very godly, Biblical prayers, “Lord, your will be done” and other times, we will pray for things we want and need. All are important.

And then there is fasting. That is done as a kind of inside spirit renewal or “detox”. This is not something to be taken lightly. It is recommended by Jesus in our passage to his closest followers. They had studied under him for awhile, and it is a natural progression that they would have some spiritual maturity. Yet, God knows all things that are happening. Therefore, he knew that the man would come to them and ask for healing for his son. God knew they would fail. And this opened the door for Jesus to show his power when he is able to speak to the evil spirit and tell it to “get out” of the young man AND to teach his closest followers an important lesson on prayer and fasting. And it is widely documented in the gospel records of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that Jesus practiced what he preached by often going off by himself to pray and in other references he refuses food, alleging that the Holy Spirit (the 3rd part of God’s being) has provided for him.

Here’s a quote from Adrian Warnock: “If you decide to fast, it should be something you decide to fast from. It should be something you will notice, something that will remind you of the hold certain appetites hold over all of us. Fasting should help us to reignite our appetite to know God. We are saying to God though fasting, “I hunger for you and your presence more than I hunger for anything else.” and
“If fasting at the beginning of his ministry was good enough for Jesus, we should follow his example, as well as his explicit command, and fast too” from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/2018/01/jesus-commands-fast/  on prayer https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/tag/prayer/

We cannot treat God like a genie in a bottle which we rub when we need something. It is the other way around. We are like little children, dependent on our parents for our food, clothing, and shelter. How much better will God provide for us when he has endless resources at his fingertips? Are you ready to try to open the conversation with God? Let us help you choose Jesus as the solution? You have just been given the Key….now it’s time for you to use it.

Already a believer but need prayer? Please inbox us at bloodcanceruncensored@gmail.com