Your Dying Spouse 294 - Famous Last Words - Jesus, The Cross, And You {FMF}

We're back again with Kate Motaung's Five Minute Friday, the timed and keyword-themed writing challenge. Please drop bu for some really great faith-filled essays!

Once again I have to write ahead of time, but I'm trying to stay in the spirit by estimating what would have taken me five minutes before. I can only manage a couple of sentences at a time these days. But I will try to work in the word when it's revealed. (It's ENOUGH, and it fits the coda perfectly.)

The past days have been really bad, both physically and in other ways. The blows to morale have been, if anything, worse than the pain, and I thought about giving up. Morphine or a bullet, and the latter seemed a reasonable course.

However...before making the fatal choice I decided to revisit Jesus' last words on the Cross, and to try to make sense of them, for me, and, I hope, for you.

So, here goes:

Luke 23:34: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. - We all face betrayal in our lives. We've been betrayed, and we've betrayed those who trusted us. We have to find it in our hearts to forgive, if we expect to be forgiven.

We have to move on past betrayal, and center or hope in the One who will never let us down.

Luke 23:43: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. He needed the hope for a future, and if you're facing death, the hope that you have is that there's something beyond this life, somewhere...a place where all the hurts are healed. Without it we're Darwinian automatons, looking to our temporal advantage while we're here. But with it, there is a purpose to our lives, and our trials.

And our trials have meaning, purpose, and value in God's Eternity. What we suffer here will be glorified there.

John 19:26–27: Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother. This is all abut legacy, and an affirmation that the only legacy that's worth leaving is love. We will all die; but as Celine Dion sang, "My Heart Will Go On." Our achievements will be eclipsed and forgotten; they will fade to nothing. Our wealth will be dissipated, as we try to pass it on. But our love, and only our love, will carry forward as an inspiration and a hope, and as the only possible reminder we can leave that, Yes, I was here. I lived, and I loved.

Love with all your heart, without reservation; live as though love is the only thing you have to offer, because it is.

Matthew 27:46 & Mark 15:34 My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? This is tough; this cuts to the heart. We want to live in perfect faith, but the fact is that we can't. Jesus couldn't, and His despairing cry rings down through these two millenia to sear our souls. And to comfort us, because He, in His human form, shared our weakness. We are not unworthy if our faith fails us; we are not disloyal if we question God's love. This is part of being human. And it's OK. Jesus walked this road first; we are in very good company.

Don't despair because you despair; despair is the shadow that provides the contrast for the Glorious Light.

John 19:28: I thirst. Jesus was thirsty, yes; severe pain creates an almost desperate thirst, and I can well attest to this. But there is a deeper meaning, and it's found in Psalm 63.

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is...

"I thirst" is nothing less than an affirmation of faith, a statement that even though God may have turned His Face away, we are still calling out to Him, knowing that He' there, and hoping that He's listening. It's the admission that we can't do it without Him, and that He is the only answer to our despair.

The world provides much, but the test is pass/fail, and only God's love passes the test.

John 19:30: It is finished. Though this is sometimes translated as "It is accomplished" or "It is completed", I rather like "It is finished", because it more clearly connects to our experiences in this life. So often, we are just 'finished'; out of time or resources, and it's all we can do. Few of our lives have neat bows tied on our accomplishments; certainly my death will eve a host of uncompleted projects. Thins I wish I could have completed...but my death will have merely finished my work on them.

And we have to be OK with that. We live on a continuum of experience, and that includes the 'messy undone'.

So in the end we down tools in the twilight, and whatever we leave undone, we leave undone. We're finished here.

Do your best; but what you think of as unfinished may completely fulfill God's plan for your life.

Luke 23:46: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. At the end of all of our ability and hope, the only thing left is to take that leap into God's Hands. It's the Hail mary pass, the acrobat letting go the trapeze in the faith that the catcher will do his stuff, the paratrooper stepping out the door and trusting that the chute will open.

And it's knowing that all we have and are comes down to one word - TRUST.

You've got to 'let go and let God' sometime; why not now?

What do you think? How do you apply Jesus' words on the Cross to your life?
Are they ENOUGH for you?

In the face of all the pain, all the fear, all the dread prognostications, I'm deciding, day by day, to choose fun as a metaphor for my life, so it seems appropriate to let Dire Straits' Walk Of Life be the musical theme...enjoy!

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.