- Not The Only One!
- Post# 141
- 26 Jun 24
- ” The Phoenix “
- Howdy,
- I have love for you guys, some I know and others, not so much!, but yet here we are together. It’s a journey and the road that we travel is not always smooth. It often has dips or pot holes, that sometimes feel much more like craters☺️☺️. Sometimes it’s sharp turns or low or no shoulders at all, yet we are required to move on and travel through. Life is often attempting to push us down into a ravine , and hopes that no one will come along to rescue us. We wonder if there really is any such thing as a good Samaritan. Most of us love when good overcomes evil. We love it when someone gets what’s coming to them, or what some would call the Karma effect. ☺️☺️ We just crush it on those happy endings and when everyone is wearing their best smiles. We also know that life doesn’t always work that way, and that sometimes when we are down, it’s really hard to get back up. There is this mythological creature known as a Phoenix. It’s a fiery bird that burns hot and it is known for rising from the ashes. Fire is often used and known to be something that can purify things. It can be used to burn a field to prepare it for new growth or it can be used to forge metals and to draw out impurities.
- When we are in the fire for whatever reason, how do we know that we will rise above the ashes and soar like a Phoenix? Honestly!, I don’t think that any of us actually know at the time. We may be really, really hopeful, but it’s not a guarantee of success and redemption. Some people have overcome great obstacles in life, whether it be their fourth bankruptcy, or overcoming some crippling health scare, like having to learn to walk and speak again after suffering a stroke. Truth be told, sometimes these situations in life just lead us to one of those ,” Why God moments “. It’s when the baby dies after so many prayers have been offered. Perhaps it’s and elderly person who looses their entire life savings do to a scam, or someone loosing their home after doing all they could do to make ends meet. There are a thousands of other ways to get here, but we just wonder what the heck God was thinking to allow this to happen. Where is God in the heart ache? In the deep sorrow? God tells us that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts much greater than our own. Even if I don’t believe that or buy in on that, the evidence is one again overwhelming and undeniable.
- Sometimes the pain seems to great to bear. Often it feels like a kick to the gut or the gonads. When it’s really intense you feel as if you are trapped in a horror movie or a sci-fi plot with aliens and they just reach right into your chest cavity and rip your heart out, but they aren’t satisfied that is pain enough. You find yourself to be a balloon and you just can’t keep the air from slowly slipping out, just deflated. I’ve had a few really painful moments in my life that have left me dazed, confused and not sure of my orientation. One of the most memorable ones, if I care to frame it in that light, was when my kids mom and I split. When she took off, it just sucked all of the oxygen out of the room and my life at the same time. The beginning of this blog was another one of those situations, where someone crushed my heart into tiny little pieces and then just blew them in the wind. They were over a dozen years apart, but they both had a bitter sting, that left a hemorrhaging spirit and life just leaking out. It’s just crazy to go through life and not to learn from our mistakes and try to put some kind of safe guards in place. God tells us to guard our hearts because of its sensitive nature. Our hearts will at times lead us astray and we will at times offer our hearts to people who should never be in possession of something so sacred and precious. Some people are just incapable of handling something so fragile and open towards purity. It’s not that our hearts are pure because they are absolutely not, but it can open itself up to another individual in a way it meets them with pure intentions. God said that the heart is deceitful and wicked and that’s an absolute fact.☺️☺️.
- There are things that I know , I will now go all out of the way to avoid, and one of those things is heart trauma. I’ve been really careful about to whom I put out the welcome mat for☺️☺️. Desperately trying to avoid the kick to the gonads or the heart being ripped out of my chest, and yet, I find myself once again in a place of great pain and agony.
- I may have mentioned this before, I can’t remember, but I had a really gifted pastor at the place where I attend worship most Sundays . I’m going to be upfront and tell you that I don’t know any real specifics, and other than to pray for him at a difficult time in his life, it’s really not my business. However, back in February, he appeared before the congregation and said that he was dealing with some personal issues and that he would be taking a leave of absence. Well , he has been greatly missed and other staff members have been rotating and filling in for him. He spoke about himself and his son, but nothing about wifey. I’m sure in a church of any size there would be whisper and speculation, and our church runs around twenty five hundred between the three services, so I’m sure the gossipers were in full effect, ☺️☺️but I never heard anyone bringing it in my direction. It’s been mostly an out pouring of grief and how much that he’s been missed.
- Well….this past Sunday morning, again before the congregation and resignation tended. There it is , the kick to the gut. This is a man that I love. This is a man that I respect and trusted. This is a man who was an inspiration to so many. This is a man who always treated God’s word with dignity and respect. This is a man that so many of the young couples in the church looked up to and thought of as a mentor and how a family should look. My heart just failed. He’s trying to be strong, but You know that there is just an ocean of pain and embarrassment behind his facade . People feel sorry for him and they love him , but very few people have to deal with something like this on this level. God said to guard my heart, and I never thought that it would be necessary in this part of my life. I can’t even say that I’m deeply disappointed in him, because all I really know is that his wife took off. I’m not going to throw her under the bus either and I know none of the particulars that got him where he finds himself and ultimately, where his church family now finds ourselves. I don’t know and I don’t need to know.
- It’s a deep pain that you feel when someone close to you dies, and not just dies, but it was unexpected. It’s like everything was fine, you had lunch with them on yesterday and today you get a call about their demise.
- He’s an incredible young man. I say that but he’s in his mid forties and I believe that he is a forth or fifth generation pastors. So he’s a PK” preachers kid”. He’s charismatic and he really can spin a dad’s joke, which he often opened his messages with. He loves basketball and he played in college, and he was very proud of the fact that he was a walk on☺️☺️. My heart was ripped open and I had to remind myself that it wasn’t about me, but that someone else that I love has had their entire world turned upside down. His resignation comes on the heels of a few other high profile pastors being wrangled from the pulpits across the nation. As he spoke his farewell to the congregation, he said all of the right things, if there is such a thing for a time like this. It reminded me of when an athlete is leaving one franchise to go to the next, you want to be cordial and leave on a good note, again if there is such a thing under these circumstances .He tried to convey how much he loved the people and what an honor it was to serve for sixteen years. There were a few memorable memories for those who had been on the bus for his entire administration. He said that he was trusting God for himself and his eleven year old. He said that he didn’t know what the future holds , but he knew that he was not done with preaching. That’s where today’s title comes from. He spoke with confidence that he would again somewhere be preaching the word of God. His life is in shambles, but he is vowing to rise like the Phoenix. He didn’t say it arrogantly or in a proud way, as much as it was about knowing that God has a plan, even though he has no idea as to what that plan looks like or how it will come into play. He knows that God is not done with him. These are the times when we just have to know that God has something incredible in store for us and to trust that there is a purpose for all of the pain and heart ache . I can only begin to imagine how hard this must be for his kid . And yet, God is doing a new thing.
- My daughter and I are very close and so she was aware of the situation and she asked me if I was going to leave the church. My response was, I certainly hope not. The beauty of the church is that Christ is the head of the church and we follow Him and not one of his movable players☺️☺️. Yes, some will undoubtedly move on, and maybe their roots aren’t very deep, and I’m not talking about a particular building, because that is not the church. The church is made up of people and each has a role to play. The man that has been my pastor for the last five years is not a disgraced clergymen. He is a dear brother whom I love and will continue to love and pray for, even though God is moving him to the next chapter of his story.
- It’s called “Faith”, and I think for all of us who are professing believers, will have water shed moments, or rubber to the road, or However you wish to put it. These are the times when we will either draw close to God or we will crumble do to weak or none existent faith. It’s something that no one in their right mind would ever ask for. Who hopes that their wife will walk out on them.?…well that may be the wrong phrasing of that question, because I’m sure there are some takers out there☺️☺️
- There are things that are way out of our control and it’s nothing that we can do but trust God for the outcome. There are just so many things in life that we go through, that is out of our control, and the best that we can do is to control our response , to what is often a difficult segment of life . It doesn’t have to be this scenario, it could be a sick child, a parent with memory issues or I will just leave it blank for you to institute your own personal desperation there. Sometimes we just have to believe for it. We don’t know the when, where, or how, but we are just trusting and relying on God to do what only He can do. That is what I heard my pastor say on Sunday, that he was going to believe for it. This is not the prosperity gospel, where you just name something and wait for it to fall from the sky or into your lap. ☺️☺️ It can be really tough when we can’t see God working, when we can’t feel it , or when we have to preach it to ourselves over and over again, that God is good and that he can take an evil and use it for good . God can take the broken pieces of our lives and produce a masterpiece. He can redeem the things that we can’t salvage for ourselves.
- Another heart break and maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. It wasn’t a promise as much as it was a proclamation, when Christ stated that in this world we would have troubles , trials and tribulations. He further went on to say that He has overcome the world. If we live in Christ and with Christ, that same victory applies to us as His followers. Sometimes we forget that and sometimes we just have an unbelieving spirits about us. Perhaps we are to close to a situation, or it’s just so fresh of a wound, that we can’t even begin to think how something good can come from something so painful and dark, and immense suffering. We have to take comfort in God’s sovereignty and know that the fiery trials of life, somehow purifies us or builds in a new toughness to prepare us for our next assignment. That has been my story, one trial to prepare me for the next. The journey can be seen as moving past the ” Why God moments “, or the whoa is me, to asking God, what does He want us to learn from a particular situation. We then just have to believe for it…..having and exercising faith, and wait for God to raise us up as a Phoenix, blazing hot , as we rise from the ashes. One final note, October is what is usually known as pastor’s appreciation month. They have a truly hard job and I want to encourage you guys to pray for them on a more regular basis.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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