Your Dying Spouse 739 - Face The Fear {Five Minute Friday}

And so, coronavirus.

Being in the top part of the high-risk group, I guess I should be scared. There is a nontrivial chance of death for people like me.

Except, I'm not scared.

COVID-19, to give it its proper name, is a respiratory virus in the same family as many others, including the common cold. It's a bit more lethal, not much, but it's not an unknown quantity. The World Health Organiation says that over 80% of those infected will experience only mild symptoms, and the vast majority will recover quickly.

Its spread has peaked in China, and the rate of infection (even given massive screening) is slowing in the US.

It's not, as the media likes to call it, a 'killer virus'. It's nasty, but it will eventually go away, like H1N1, SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, and a host of others we can't even recall.

It's not a judgment on a sinful world, and while it's certainly no boon, there are blessings contained within the dreadful...

...like the bodies we are given, which have the ability to fight a broad range of infections...

...like the leaders who are willing to step up and implement policy that will protect us, and preserve our economic health from panic...

...like the health-care professionals willing to step into harm's way to care for the sick and comfort the dying...

...like the scientists who have already developed potential vaccines against COVID-19, which are now in testing. (The 'architecture' of COVID-19 is similar to MERS, and has lent itself to a genetically-engineered vaccine similar to that which proved successful for MERS.)

So I'm optimistic...this is not the harbinger of the End. It's a tooth-jarring pothole, to be sure, but our road goes on.

And beyond that, and more fundamentally, I'm at peace. I take every precaution I can, and so does Barb, but if I get the thing, I get it.

If I die, I die.

One thing cancer has taught me is that if I base my joy on the permanence of this earthly life, I'm hitching my wagon to a soap-bubble star.

Happiness can't go far, with that kind of transportation.

I may die, but I won't be gone.

I'll just be starting over, in a brand new, grand new game.

They say doom is upon us,

and we can do nowt but cry;

fortitude's tossed beneath the bus,

and we're all going to die.

They say that we are helpless,

and God won't show His face

to a people now so feckless,

so government is grace.

They say...oh, this is stupid,

and shall not wreck my day,

for they aren't even lucid,

and who are 'they', anyway?

Half full, not empty, is my glass,

and I know this, too, shall pass.

Music from Casting Crowns, with a cool live performance of The Voice of Truth.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 738 - Petitionary Prayers {Five Minute Friday}

So often when we pray, we're asing God for something...

Heal me!

Heal my spouse/child/parent/friend/pet!

Heal my relationship!

Heal my finances!

Heal my faith!

Notice a pattern here? We're almost always praying for healing, of one sort or another.

These are good prayers, the kind that we're supposed to pray.

All the more reason for it to break God's heart when He has to say, No.

We almost never know exactly why God says no...we're in the position of the good kid who works hard in school, gets good grades, saves money...and wants, at sixteen, to buy a Corvette.

As a parent, you've got to put the kibosh on that one. Not because of a lack of trust, but because of a knowledge of temptation the kid's going to have, with all that horsepower to call his own.

And seeing the disappointment, you've just got to hurt for him.

And for yourself, too, because you want to give happiness.

But sometimes good and happy are not on the same page, and you've got to go with good.

And sometimes healing isn't good, either.

For me, well...I would have loved to have been healed in years past, but it's become clear that finding and sharing both joy and hope along the Cancer Road is what I'm here to do; I've touched people in a way that I could never have dreamt of, have found my own faith strengthened by trial (when I thought the reverse would happen), and have found, indeed, the happiest days of my life.

Would I want all that 'healed' away?

Not likely.

But I do figure that God is, Himself, heartbroken over the sincere prayers for healing of one type or another to which He has to say, No.

So I figured I'd cheer Him up.

The sonnet below first appeared in Joe Siccardi's blog post, Pray As You Go.

I know that God really cares,

and I bet He's crying after

all those intercession-prayers,

so I think I'll pray some laughter.

"Dear Lord, You know that I can be

a pain unto the neck,

so make me more like Donkey,

as seen, You know, on Shrek.

Let me make the groans take wing

with jokes that are so awful,

that to quiet me, all will bring

tall stacks of syrup'd waffle.

And dear God, if this be Your choice,

please give me Eddie Murphy's voice."

Here's Donkey, singing La Vida Loca from Shrek 2.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 737 - Tail of a Mouse

For a couple of days it was all hands to the pump to try to save an injured baby mouse, one of its hind legs badly crushed.

We kept it in a pail, next to a heater, and gave it bedding and food. At first the little one rallied, eating happily and chirping, moving around on three legs with no care in the world...

...and then it died.

I buried it with dignity, and said a small prayer for a small living piece of God's creation.

And Ladron the Heeler, who had found it, lay down by the grave and cried.

Ladron the Heeler gave a yelp

just outside the house,

demanding that I come and help

a small and crippled mouse.

Its leg was badly shattered,

wrecked beyond repair;

why should this have mattered?

Why should I have a care?

It might be that I feel the pain

and it’s that which I impute,

or maybe, when I think again,

it was so doggone cute.

It lasted two days, then it died,

leaving no-one here dry-eyed.

Music from the Carpenters, with Bless the Beast and Children.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 736 - Deconstruction of Faith

I really resent some politicians, these days.

They seem to think that faith is a buffet line, and that they can throw out what doesn't fit their own 'moral code', or their poitical definition.

This is a problem on both the left and the right, by the way, and I won't name names or issues. Pointing fingers isn't the point.

The thing is, if you're a Christian, you've got an instruction book, and Jesus didn't come to toss it out, but to confirm it, and bring it to active, vibrant life.

This is important, because when the government starts to legislatively erode faith, it also burns away hope, layer by layer, until all we're left with is a social-hour Sunday and a memory of when we were animated by what we once believed, what we were once allowed to believe.

What does this have to do with cancer? Well, everything...it's my faith, and my faith alone, that keeps me upbeat and cheerful. It gives me purpose, a hope, and a future.

No political animal has the right to try to take that from me, or from anyone.

They push, the haughty public men

for our faith's deconstruction,

banishment from public square, then

we might be open to instruction

of that which we are to believe
against the pain of fiscal loss;
if their approval we receive
we must then renounce the Cross.
We're told to push the Christ aside,
and parse the Bible's teaching
for if we don't, woe will betide
any attempt at preaching
the Word of God that contradicts
that which modern thought would pick.

Music from Andrew Peterson, with You'll Find Your Way.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.