Tick, Tock

Tick, tock...
A new year! We had a white Christmas and I am staying inside a great deal. This week I have been trying to go through my father's personal papers - boxes and boxes. There were birth certificates and death certificates from relatives that I never met; pictures and letters from people who knew my parents or my grandparents but these things mean nothing to anyone who is living now. So I am left exhausted again and the urge to eat overtakes me.

It is a hard thing to do but I have to stop and try to figure out what is causing this "hunger". I really think that today I am facing the sense of my own mortality and loneliness. I have not children. I have very little family left. My extended family (that are still alive) never contact me. Every time I have contact with them, I make the effort to connect but we just don't have anything in common and I find it difficult when they buy into the disfunctional family system and the lies told about the abusers in the family. The wall of denial that they put up when I am around seems to be impossible to cross. So I am left with no family to visit during the holidays.  I know that the greed and lies in my family system are smokescreens for the sins and secrets that the family wants to hide from. So they look for a scap goat. There is great evil at work in that family system; suicides abound in each generation and nothing gets better - just worse.
So today - with all of this - I want to stuff the loneliness, the anger, the disappointment, and my personal insecurities about growing older. I do this by numbing out with eating and more eating. Holiday candy is every where- and on sale!  So with all this sadness weighing on my heart causing a black hole of hunger... I go to the only place where the truth can be found. I go to the scriptures:

Psalm 90:10 and then I read another passage: "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." Gen. 3:19

 

 Whoa! Not a very encouraging thought... but as Paul Harvey used to say:

"And now for the rest of the story". Romans 6:5: "If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection!"

 

From Genesis on ~ every birth comes with Satan's deliberate signature of death written across our souls. I have to face it - I am destined to die. The older I get, the faster the years seem to fly and every month I am hearing of the death of someone that is my age or older. Now I live in a senior community and the siren sound of ambulances pierce the air every week. It is human nature to do anything to escape the tick, tock of my own doom's day clock - even as I mark my mortality with yearly celebrations such as birthdays or another winter holiday season.

 

 The rest of the story is: Christ is waiting to place his signature of life on my soul chained by death's chiming. Christ's signature erases Satan's handwriting. To get His signature, there are no long lines, no game levels to conquer, no payments and no one can stop Him from writing His name on my heart - no lies told by family can take it away. He gives His signature freely. He writes the signature with His own blood and grants me a never ending life stamped with God's own spirit.

Am I ever glad that I went to His word today to help with my depression, my fears, my anger, my sorrows!

Did it help with the eating and hunger? Yes, today it did! I passed by the aisles of candy and got some bottled water instead. I could not have done it without God filling my life, placing in my mind and heart His love, His healing balm. Thank heaven that my sins have been forgiven so that God can touch my life today and fill my every day with His glory. What do I need that the Lord has not already provided?!?

"Don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more. ...People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself. " Luke 12

Lord God, thank you for helping me through another very rough day! Lord watch over those members of my family and guide them to the truth. Help them to overcome their greed and open their eyes to the truth. Lord, let me go to your word, which continually reminds me that no scheme of man can pluck me from Your hand. Lord, give me patience and love and help me to know what to do when it comes to my family. I have tried all my life to open their eyes to the truth but they are floating around in a grey mist trying to deflect the truth of abuse with secrecy and lies. If it is Your will that I keep on trying, please guide me in that direction and give me the strength to once more take the abuse, the slander, and the pain that comes with it. It hurts so much Lord, and it opens the memories and wounds of physical, sexual, verbal, and mental abuse. Lord thank you for your promise of eternal life with You. Without that vision, I would perish. Thank you for giving me all I need. In Christ's name I pray, Amen.