Blog 2018 05.  Several times personal health events caused major changes in life priorities because I realized, again my life is just a vapor. Each time I would commit to spend as much time as possible on eternal things.

Almost 40 years after becoming a Christian, God again called me to consider His great mercy in Christ.  Now living in Carlisle, PA., on March 3, 2107, I had a minor heart attack.  Triple bypass surgery was performed on March 20, 2017, forty years to the day from my conversion.  God gave me a new heart in 1977 and renewed my heart again in 2017.  Both heart attacks were God’s calls to draw me to greater commitment to Christ. 

This most recent call was Saturday 1/27/2018.  Returning home for lunch from a meeting at the Bosler Library, in Carlisle, I suddenly doubled over in severe pain like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I have been studying with some Christian brothers the connection between Romans 8:28 and I Thessalonians 5:18. “ALL things work together for good” and “Give thanks in ALL things.” A sudden reality confronted me: “Could I give thanks, NOW.  The pain was overwhelming.  My highly inflamed appendix burst.  A normal 1-hour surgery took 2 ½ hours because of all the clean-up it required.  I came home 24 hours later, and healing is finally complete three months later.  BUT the most important lesson I learned was to see up close and personal my mortality and the connection of ALL things in His purpose.  In Christ, we need to be thankful even in the darkness and pain.  All things DO work together for good and I WILL thank Him in ALL things

So, when you get discouraged, in pain or depressed, PRAISE GOD.  Give thanks in ALL things and ALL circumstances.  God is working for your GOOD in those hard, dark, painful times.  Find help in the Hymn lines:

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

It is well, it is well, with my soul.