Trapped

I've always wondered why I dread going places in the car with Dean. Nine times out of ten when I've lost patience with him, it's been while we are going someplace in a car. He may have been an excellent truck driver before his injury, but that also seems to qualify him as the worst "back seat driver" now.

Today was no exception, as I really came unglued just as we entered the parking lot of the eye doctor's office. This was our fourth time there in the past week, by the way. It's a long story, but needless to say, I wasn't calmed down enough to do anything but sit in the car while he went in and got the new lens for his glasses.

I got to thinking about why car trips were so difficult for us--especially for me. The thought came to me that in a car, we can't get away from each other. You can't go to another room, or take a walk around the block to cool off. You are stuck in the car with someone you can't deal with and don't want to deal with--and it isn't fun.

Satan loves us to feel trapped like this. He tries to arrange our lives so that we have no way out, so we have no where else to go but to be with him, to follow him, to be miserable with him. He wants to "take us for a ride".

God, on the other hand, bids us enter His house, where there is plenty of room to deal with our sin problems, whatever they are. We need this freedom to grow our patience, heal our anger, and understand our trials.

Next time Dean and I find ourselves in the car, I refuse to feel trapped. I'll just keep focused on the freedom that awaits us at home.

The Pill Organizer

Having just retrieved Dean's new pill organizer that his nurse filled earlier in the week, and replaced it with the empty one I am reminded that today, Sunday, is truly the start of a new week. When you look at most calenders I also find that Sunday does not come at the end, but at the beginning. It's even referred to as the first day of the week in dictionaries.

When I read the Ten Commandments, it's like having a pill organizer. In the very center of it, we are told with great detail to remember something that involves a weekly reminder. The Sabbath reminds us of our Creator. The world was created in six days, and we are invited to share a time of rest with the Creator of the universe. We are able to rest on that day, because it was the day God blessed.

Daniel 7:25 speaks about a world power that will change times and laws. Don't underestimate the power of the master Deceiver. I believe he has been at work on this for a very long time, with much success.

Forgetting to Remember

I have come to the conclusion that it is a waste of time getting DVDs for Dean at the library. I painstakingly chose some today that I thought he might not have seen. He is on the second go-round for one of them that I brought home. I told him when it started the second time that he had already seen all of it. He said, "Oh, well, I can't remember it."

That is just one change in Dean's dementia. There are other subtle things, but fortunately it is all very gradual. He used to notice if he had seen a video within the last year or so, then it was anything in the past week or day. Now he's watching them back to back!

Isn't this how we fall into sin though? Rather gradually? It can creep in without our knowing it, but not without our permission. What a careful watch we must have on our senses. Satan is looking for a way to cause us to forget God. That is one kind of dementia none of us can afford to have.

Calming the Storm

I just heard about another disaster to fall on a niece of mine. She has four beautiful little daughters, but the two-year-old recently survived a dog attack, with multiple stitches on her face. Very traumatic for the whole family, as they were all there when it happened. But then tonight, it seems that they have had a house fire, destroying a large portion of their house.

We wonder when trials like this just seem to keep happening. If you have a belief in God, these bad experiences can shatter your image of Him. Let alone reduce your trust in Him to protect and keep you.

I've come to the conclusion that even God can't (or more correctly, won't) prevent all disasters though, simply because this is a planet that has rebelled, and Lucifer is temporarily in charge of as much mischief as he can muster. Let's be careful not to blame God for Satan's handiwork.

God, on the other hand, has promised to be with us in hard times. He doesn't always calm the storm, but He is always there to calm us. The comfort and strength He provides may be just what we need to carry us forward, even after the storm subsides. I pray my niece and her family will look to God as the means to survive these ordeals and that they can soon have some normalcy back in their lives.

Ants in the Kitchen

 

No one likes to see ants in the kitchen. For some reason, they have infiltrated mine this past week. First I saw one or two, then three or four, and I don't even like to think how many are at this very minute marching on the wall behind my sink and faucet.

At first I sprayed from a can of ant killer that I had from a few years back. Then my nephew sprayed them with a bigger sprayer we got recently for indoor and outdoor bugs. But we are still seeing them. These are little and persistent little pests. They may be small, but are mighty in numbers. And that's what I worry about most--the fact that soon there will be a vast army of the little critters.

We are tiny creatures too, when you think of the whole, big universe out there. Our real strength is in our numbers. God created us to populate the whole earth. He made us the social creatures we are. But Satan has launched an attack on the human race. He's the great exterminator, and only with God's power can we withstand his assaults.

You've got to admire the tenacity of those tiny ants. So far, they have survived us. Will we survive Satan?