8/31/2022 The last weeks have been gruesome. Time seems to run together and I depend on my pill holder to tell me what day it is. This is just when hope and grace are essential. I need the grace of others to do what I cannot and hope that it will get better or there will be enough strength even if it doesn’t.

 

8/22/2022 I have been in a lot of pain and agony lately. Even when I sleep I feel the pain and my dreams are about the pain. During times like these I wonder if people think I am faking and that makes it worse. Last night Rebecca’s dog Rosie spent the night laying against my legs even when I jerked from the pain and when my muscles jerked. She has slept with me a lot over the last week. Rosie has been such a source of grace to me over the years and last night especially. Rosie seems to know when I hurt and will come in to comfort me. Hope and grace comes in many different ways and from many different sources and like Balaam’s donkey Rosie speaks grace and hope in the midst of my need.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

8/15/2022 Is there hope for the world? God must think there is for Jesus to die for us!

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Grace is treating people like I want to be treated. Maybe that is why grace isn’t used more often.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

8/14/2022 Sunday morning rising of the sun reminds us of the Son rising! Every sunrise can enrich and strengthen our hope in the face of the day we have to face.

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Everyday at 3 PM is a time to have grace renewed in you. Rev Tom Ballard has his watch set for 3 PM so he can celebrate the crucifixion of Jesus and God’s grace.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

{I have over 1,800 entries to my blog. It is amazing to think of the time I have spent with this blog. The time thinking, writing and posting has been an investment which has really given a return in blessings. This started as a promise to God and even lost I will keep that promise as long as I can.}

 

8/13/2022 When my pain reduces the weariness sets in and they form sort of a tag team and I only have brief respites between the rounds. The last few days have been the weariness part of the team and I find myself nodding off. What does this have to do with hope? A good question. I need hope is the answer. In what at times seems a punch drunk state I need hope to believe I can make it to the next round. I need hope when the pain rips through me and it is easy to believe it will never end. I NEED HOPE! YOU NEED HOPE in the midst of what you face!!! Hope is as essential as food, water and air.

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

I need grace when people tell me to not worry I still have a long life ahead of me. Do not talk to people who are in severe pain about longevity for they may punch you. I need the grace to not punch. Thinking I have a long life when I am hurting intensifies the pain and weakens hope. It is not that I want to die or to kill myself but I want the pain to go away. When you are with someone who is in pain have the grace to try to understand their pain and say what you would like to hear.

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

8/12/2022 Weariness wraps around me like a funeral pall on a casket and leaves me at times catatonic or like I am dead. Feeling is peeled away like the layers of an onion with nothing at the center. I want to is lost without energy to nourish it. It is like depression but it is not. It is not depression but a hole I at times do not care enough to get out of. I must find hope beyond hope or I will fall into existence and never leave or care to leave. To be whole I must have hope to get out of the hole.

Is this from my mind? Thoughts I probably shouldn’t have. Or should I?

 

8/11/2022 Yesterday was group meeting and though I felt so bad and even took a short nap (sorry guys) I am so glad I went. I could tell you after group I just felt so much better but in truth I left still feeling weary and even a little lightheaded. BUT I AM STILL GLAD I WENT! We can be so used to instant gratification we miss the long term blessing and healing of any kind of therapy. We will not have a short term healing for something we have let destroy years of our lives.

Is this from my mind? Thoughts I probably shouldn’t have. Or should I?

 

8/10/2022

“For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts.”
― Gertrude Stein

Evil grows gradually on us and we become acclimated to it and then accepting. When people we love become part of what is wrong it becomes harder to continue to see the evil as wrong. Our love becomes emotion and we “feel bad” declaring evil bad because then we are calling them bad too. So we declare the evil to either not be bad or even worse we declare it to be good! Hope and grace are then left out because we do not seek grace for something that is not bad and hope is not needed to help them battle the evil. Evil makes grace and hope seem unnecessary and leaves us defenseless as it destroys us.

“Quotes aren’t something we use when we are lazy or can’t find the words but are to be used when they say something better than we can in our own words.” Me

 

8/9/2022 Why do I keep writing to celebrate the glorious God? I am so far from God as I chose pornography over God. Over the last months I have started personal and group therapy but this is to help me not hurt Bonnie and our family as much. I have come to realize it had nothing to do with how I hurt God. Why do I keep writing to celebrate the glorious God? Because God is glorious!!!

 

8/8/2022 Today is my wife Bonnie’s birthday and our son Jonathan suggested rather than each of us sharing five things we are thankful for we share five things we are thankful for Bonnie. It was a time to celebrate hope, grace and love Bonnie brings into our lives. Bonnie liked it so much we are planning on doing it for each person on their birthday. It is a time to celebrate each other and to see how God uses them in our lives.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.

 

8/7/2022

I recently saw a sign saying remember the sabbath which is Saturday. God ordained the seventh day, which is Saturday, as the Sabbath and the Jews and early Christians used this day as a time to gather for worship.

As Christians and Jews separated over the years and more non-Jews became Christians Sunday, the day of the resurrection of Jesus, became the day to gather to worship God. Sunday as a day of worship continues among most Christians.

Over the years America came to see Saturday as a day of rest, a sabbath, while using Sunday as a day of worship. From this we have the weekend.

The Bible teaches every day is a time to worship God but Sunday is a time for corporate worship. God calls us gather to worship which is necessary for us and for God. God loves it when His children gather and play well together!

 

8/6/2022 Hope and grace are gifts from God that can also be received through creation. But God shows true hope and faith by allowing us to reject them.

“To give a gift, we think that someone must receive it. But possibly the greatest gift is granting the recipient permission to reject it, for then we have freed that gift of every agenda that would render it as less than a gift.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Quotes aren’t something we use when we are lazy or can’t find the words but are to be used when they say something better than we can in our own words.” Me

 

8/5/2022 I hope….. What do you hope for? What do you hope about? Who or what is the source of your hope? Write down the source of your hope and list what you hope for. Does your list reveal anything about you?

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Do we think people are out to hurt us? Do people plan on hurting or inconveniencing us? It is important to realize we are not important enough for the world to plan on hurting us!

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

8/4/2022 Why do you not have hope and grace?

“And there’s also ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can’t give. Perhaps your own passion temporarily destroys the capacity.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Quotes aren’t something we use when we are lazy or can’t find the words but are to be used when they say something better than we can in our own words.” Me

8/3/2022 After years of pain why should I cling to hope? Should I just give up and whine about the pain? Will that help?

“Serve no whine before its time!”

This is an entry from my Hope Journal which helps me hope, beyond hope.

Where is God’s grace when I suffer? Where is grace when I am wrongly punished? Where is grace when I am persecuted for faith in God? Is grace only real when times are good or are times always good if I have God’s grace?

From my Grace Journal to remind me of our need not for agreement but grace in our relationships.

 

8/2/2022 Today is my birthday and I am 64 years old. I find myself of two minds about living to 64.

First, at the age of 19 I was told I only had 3 months to live but God healed me and I have lived one of the longest 3 months.

Second, I have never really known a time when I have been free from a great deal of pain. The last seven years were five years of growing and disabling pain and the last two have seen a small reduction in pain. Could those 3 months be too long?

My answer would probably depend on what day or time I asked myself but I do belief life is a gift from God to each of us and so on my best days I would say just right.

Is this from my mind? Thoughts I probably shouldn’t have.

 

8/1/2022

“For God to prove himself on demand, physically, would be a grave disappointment, and the strongest Christians should be considerably grateful that he chooses not to do so. The skeptic endlessly demands proof, yet God refuses to insult the true intelligence of man, the '6th sense', the chief quality, the acumen which distinguishes man from the rest of creation, faith.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

 

7/31/2022 This may surprise some who read this but I realize I do not know everything and at times wonder if I know anything. Hope and grace are very elusive and the more you think you understand them the less you really do. Most important things in life are beyond human understanding but not beyond appreciation.

This is a combination of my Hope and Grace Journals.