Live until you die

There is a popular song that tells us to “live like we’re dying”. Yesterday we spent the day with my sister-in-law, Julie, who is doing the opposite. She has been miraculously battling cancer for the past two-and-a-half years. She is at the point of hospice coming in once a week. We don’t know how long we get to have her here on earth with us, but her grace is making these days precious in a way. She is “dying like she’s living” so nobly. Yesterday we visited her at home, arriving about 3:30 and left around 8:30. Also there were six of her children with their families. She had been resting until we got there but was up the whole time. When I say up, I mean on her feet, in the kitchen which is where I will always picture her. We had a wonderful time together; children playing, big kids playing volleyball, others just sitting together visiting or making guacamole in the kitchen. It is always so nice to be at the Charlesworths. So normal.
The past few days Julie hasn’t been able to eat or even drink without vomiting. That’s the reality. But she continues to put others first. She is very open about what is going on, and when her kids ask her how she’s doing she’ll tell them but as she and Allan are experiencing they just don’t really know. There isn’t anything to tell them what to expect. She is writing her own ending the way she wants it to go. Later in the evening she disappeared for a little bit. Allan mentioned that they were expecting a call. I guessed it would be the doctor returning their call. It turns out that she had started vomiting up blood. As with everything else they don’t really know what that means. It is a change and can’t be too good but they really don’t know what it means. I guess I said that.
I am getting to the age where I think about my own death. I hope that I can live until the day I die. I am glad that Julie is able to live until she dies, at least so far. I also hope that I can live like Julie lives. She has taught me so much about loving and taking care of others. She is a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, daughter, sister, and sister-in-law. All of her family knows it and appreciates it.

There is a God

The argument is over…there is a God whose name is Jehovah. He is the God who created the heavens and the earth, and chose Israel as His own. From Israel came the savior of the world, Jesus Christ.

How, you ask, can I say that with such certainty? I have been listening to the reports of recent conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians. Following that the unabashedly anti-Semitic comments from Helen Thomas. (By the way, why has she kept a lid on her true feelings for so long? Could it be that anti-Semitism is gaining favor in Washington and she didn’t fear reprisals?) That any reasonable person could take the side of the “peace activists” who brutally beat the Israelis who boarded the ship is beyond me. When the UN Council on Human Rights ignores gross violations of human rights by followers of Mohammed and routinely cites Israel with human rights violations it seems that the world is upside down. When Israel is blamed for stopping the peace process in the Middle East I ask “what peace process”? Peace in the Middle East has been fought out for my whole life, and I am not that young any more. Consider this, if Palestinians would stop throwing bombs there would be peace in the Middle East. The promises of peace for land have not been kept.

In my naive little world I don’t understand anti-Semitism. Why do people hate the Jews so much? I personally don’t know a Jewish person that I can think of. The only reason that I have heard why people don’t like Jews because they are bankers. Whaaaat? Are bankers evil? Are gentile bankers hated? If you hate a whole race because some are bankers, you must hate all races to be fair. If you don’t like bankers you don’t have to have much contact with them. I know a few bankers, and they are not evil. I wonder if most anti-Semitic people could give a good reason to hate Jews. I met an anti-Semite once. He was an 80-year-old Czechoslovakian man in 1984 and he blamed WWII on the Jews. Funny, I always pictured them as the victims of WWII.

Anti-Semites can’t give a logical reason for hating Jews. That’s when I realized that anti-Semitism is a spiritual thing. It must be true that Israel is God’s chosen people and is opposed by the enemy of God who is Satan. People hate Israel because Satan hates Israel. The enemy of our souls uses people to display his wrath on the Jewish people. Somehow this realization gives me peace. Not peace that the treatment of Israel and Jewish people today is okay; just peace that now the world makes sense again. Now I understand why we are instructed in the Bible to pray for the peace of Israel “…for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty for the tearing down of strongholds…” If Israel ever needed prayers for peace it is now.

2 Corinthians 10:4