Journal: getting results

That's what it's all about, making the right things happen and the bad things go away, isn't it?

Today has been excellent with God-given opportunities, answered prayer and weird happenings with the Internet - who could ask for anything more?

I feel like this week has been one of corners turned and opportunities emerging where before there was only dark clouds in the horizon; and the reason? Prayer.

How many of us live in the land of 'I wish' when we should be in the land of 'He is able and so therefore am I'. Too many times I hear of the failings of someone else when people speak of their failures and missed opportunities, but the reality is that we are often so taken up with the people we can blame that we forget the God who is able - and that is a major sadness for the Church and the world it is supposed to be serving.

But this week, some people have moved forward and for my part in it I thank God!

Today I am thankful for the encounters He has provided for me and still sorry for the person I might have been and yet was not.

I thank God for the sinner who repented today and the 'far off' who came near.

Lord, as I turn in I thank you for my daily bread, my sins forgiven and Your love and life made real in me. Bring on tomorrow Lord and let us conspire together to show your love made fresh in the new day to come.

Lord, I love You,

Wow! Hallelujah!

A day in which just about everything has shone. Good news on the pastoral front. Another amazing funeral that saw the Gospel preached and the bereaved blessed. God's love was made real in a number or ways to a number of people: And I got to be part of it all"

The only words I can think of are: Wow!  and Hallelujah!

Going to bed with a smile on my face and praise on my lips - can this get any beget that this (without the return of Jesus)?

Today started with Isaiah 55 - so many nuggets in it: 'seek God while you can, and 'God's word never returning empty' with the cherry that is 'going out in joy and being led back in peace'. And I was, and I did and I am and ... Wow! The psalms underpinned all that and the nod to Lot and judgement and stuff just made the task before me more important still.

Lord for the places my feet were found I thank you.

For the times when I was aware of your presence in my life today I bless you.

For the presence of your Holy Spirit acting in those I saw I worship you.

Today and its labours have come to an end - give me sleep and make me to rise tomorrow with added zeal, increased courage and a gentleness of spirit. 

Help me to bring peace where there is none; understanding where there is ignorance and confusion: love and acceptance where there is rejection and pain. Help me to be your man and to take Jesus, the Christ, into all that I do and am.

And a postscript: be for those who have needs today the God who answers by fire.

Bless you God - Marantha. 

40 Acts - Open Up

your thought for today

Hear my prayer, O Lord! Listen to my cries for help! Don’t ignore my tears. For I am your guest – a traveller passing through, as my ancestors were before me. Leave me alone so I can smile again before I am gone and exist no more.  Psalm 39: 12-13 (NLT)

Ask my friends to describe me and they’ll say something like ’Sorted. Together. Always smiling.”’ I like to be all of those things, and quite a lot of the time I am. However, 2014 was a pig of a year – full of stress, a couple of nasty betrayals and, worst of all, unexpected bereavement. My natural inclination had always been to bottle everything up and pretend I was fine. Last year, I learnt the painful lesson that sometimes you have to let your slip show.  By September, anyone in church asking how I was would not always get the auto-answer of ’Fine, thanks.’ Sometimes I would actually tell them. It was outside the confines of church, however, that I was most honest. I spend a lot of time with the mums at my children’s primary school and I’m involved in Messy Church and outreach. They don’t see a benign plaster saint, but more of the real me. This year they’ve seen someone who is finally able to cry in front of others, admit she’s struggling and ask for help when needed. I would rather have plucked my eyebrows with a pair of pinking shears than do any of those things once upon a time.  I thought that letting sadness show indicated weakness. Turns out it doesn’t. Relationships have strengthened and grown, prayers have been answered and opportunities have appeared which I would never have dreamt of in my ’I’m fine’ days. God’s been at work, quietly, in the background.  I don’t know what 2015 will bring. I hope it’s better than 2014. But I’ve gone into it with God at my side, my true feelings much more accessible and a feeling that the best may just yet be to come. Take Action Don’t over-use that catch-all phrase ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Take a deep breath and admit it when you’re feeling down, or burdened, or unsure. You’re not saying ’I’m weak.’ You’re giving others an opportunity to help and build a friendship. Ask God to prompt you next time someone asks how you are. You might be surprised at what he says. Ruth Leigh

To see today's web page - Click HERE

Choices

There are some words that once spoken
will break the world in two
never to be one again
Unless the blood of Christ is made real.

Some acts that once committed
turn lies to truth, truth to lies
turning the world to dust and ashes
Unless the love of God is made flesh.

Some songs that will never be heard
that will never break the chains
nor see the ministry before them breathe and fly
Unless the Spirit of God dwells in the heart.

There are some songs that once sung

turns life into living

bringing colour into the greyness

As God sings over us, with us, for us.

Acts that, although committed,

are washed away by acknowledging and simply turning away

taken from us by our standing at the foot of the cross

As Jesus, the Christ, pays the price for us.

Jesus,

Risen Lord

Christ

Saviour

Friend,

God - made man - incarnate

makes us one with Him

and the Father,

through the power of the Spirit.

The offer is laid on the altar

the price is paid

the debts are cancelled

the doors, once closed, are open,

yours for the taking

The choice is yours

The Bethesda Boy

If you knew how many days, weeks, months and year;
How many people, with their friends, who made it into the pool.
How the bottom falls out of your guts,
every time you realise you've missed out again.

Bethesda, just up the road from the Sheep Gate,
the House of grace, pity, mercy -but only, it seems, if you've got friends.
All I needed was a friend - one would do.
Then up comes this bloke who asks, 'Do you want to be well?'
I ask you, is the Chief Priest a Jew?

'Sir,' says I, 'That's what I'm here for,
Been waiting thirty-eight years for
(used to call me the 'Bethesda Boy' when I started you know).
what do you reckon?'

'Best get up, roll up your mat and walk then,' he says.
And you know what? That's what I did - got up, rolled it up and went home,
Walking on my own two feet for the first time, ever.
And as I did, you wouldn't credit it, but I got stopped by the religious police!
It was the Sabbath you see - against the law to work - and that's what carrying your mat was.
I hadn't been cured for more than five minutes and I get done for 'working on the Sabbath!'

So I tells them me story, about how the bloke what healed me told me to do it.
'What man? Who is he, and where is he now?' they ask me.
But I didn't know who he was nor where he'd gone - he was just a bloke.
And they let me go with a warning as it was me first time;
Think they missed the point a bit myself.

But being the Sabbath, I take myself off to the temple and who do you think I bump into?
Yes, you're right - it's the bloke that healed me - Jesus, it's Jesus,
The rabbi people have been teaching about!
And he says to me, 'Now you're well stop sinning or next time . . . ,'
But there ain't going to be a next time - I'm gonna live right with God from now on.
And then I pop back to tell them I've found out who healed me,
Told them it was Jesus - and they didn't look too pleaded
So I chucked the mat and legged it - after all, I could, couldn't I?

John 5. 1 - 15

Triumphalism - is there ever a place for it?

I'm one of those sad people who believe that God really is the 'Lord of All' and that with one word (although I prefer Jeremy Begbie's 'one chord' or 'one note' - how great to think God 'sang' it all into being) caused everything that is to be. After all, if the Big Bang was 13.7bn years ago then the scientific question has to be what or who caused it! (I'd also be interested to hear how we find ourselves in the right place (as the third rock from the hot thing) to live with all the conditions (temperature, gravity and more besides) to actually support life and the chance of that life being is another great issue to discuss one day too!).

But, what really gets me going is those people who love to greet their neighbour with the:

'God is able'

cry in the morning;  for if a loud shout is a pain and a vexation I'll leave it to you to guess at what order of magnitude this is magnified by!

'Our God is able, ALL you need to do is merely rebuke satan and he will flee,' they cry.
'The power of God is in you to rebuke illness, just claim it and you will be healed!' 

And the sadness is that in all reality that words are true, but not as they understand or use them!

I believe that God heals - in fact in my time as a God-botherer I have prayed for blind people and they saw (I'll have to tell you that story some time) and I believe that when we call upon the LORD, He hears and acts. The problem is that more often than not it is the Christian who 'live with a thorn in their side' who more often than not will quote the Hinns, Meyers, Cerullos and others of the glam Christian Evopersonality types that cause me the most trouble, for they take authority over what is with (or within them) when they should be letting it humble and temper them. They live in victory and yet exist in chains!

You probably know the type - one minute they are limping along and the next they are singing hallelujahs and claiming everything in sight - binding this and claiming that and living in the freedom of God for a few minutes before they swing back the other way. The problem is that their problem wounds others and  makes God look like a woman buying a hat (I know this first hand as my mother usually left with the same thing she cam in with!).

Let's be just a little rational about this and understand that:

i. The Apostle Paul had his problems and so too, will we. I don't think it is always valid to rebuke stuff and bind, cast out or claim in the name of Jesus' to overcome all of ours. What we need is to pray for peace, acceptance, solution, people to come alongside (it's called being a paraclete) and (most of all) God's presence, inspiration and strength.

ii. People die because that is what we do - it's a human condition! When people ask why 'n' died, especially if they were Christian, I have to explain that:

a. If being Christian meant we didn't die a mortal death, then everyone would be in Church.

b. All the time we get is what we get and we need to live it well for tomorrow we may not be here - so 'carpe diem' (or as my predictive texting once had it: 'Carpet Firm'). Be the best you can be today for tomorrow might not come!

c. Death, and illness, are always with us - now I have prayed and seen healings that can only be regarded as miraculous - and I have prayed and watched people make promises, claims and be disappointed (and wound many). 

We need to pray intelligently, listening to God and praying with Him - not ordering Him to do as we command (the clue is that He is God not a blessed genie!).

The trite -'All you need to do is claim it in God's name - rebuke it and it will be gone!' is great, especially when you can see the reality of it in the witness of the person making that statement - but sadly, too often that is rarely the case. 

Our God is able to do the very best for us at all time and in all situations - but when we place ourselves in certain places, the outcomes are limited and the opportunities for redemption when we have painted ourselves into a corner are few an far between.

Now I really like to remind myself of the 'Pain in the flesh' personified - the Apostle Paul and his words in 2 Cor 2.14 (ish - using the Message): 

'In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God.'

The over-reached and realised eschatological wonderland that is triumphalism is a curse.

It is a curse spoken over those with problems because obviously they name it, claim it and yet never feel it and this begets the question, 'Why can't I live up to being a Christian and stand in the victory?'

It is a curse spoken out against God for when these well-meaning (aren't they always?) people call upon God and nothing happens they make Him out to be like Baal in 1 Kings 18 with the result that others ask where He might be - 'Is He on the toilet or otherwise indisposed?' they mock.

In Jesus the final victory is won, but this doesn't mean we won't have to face battles now. We do have authority but we also have discernment and wisdom and the Word (living and written) and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and these (and more besides) come together to make us a force to be reckoned with, unless we shoot into the air (and wonder why some around us fall)!

One of the biggest buzzes I ever had was to realise that anyone can resist satan but we have even more clout and authority because 'He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world! We have riches in heaven and riches on earth and we need to discern which we store up where. Too often our possessions possess us. Although we stand before those who oppose us, in ALL things we are more than conquerors (and I've buried a number of obviously healed people - they just still had the disease that killed them!) and we indeed will overcome (as the spiritual tells us).

We aren't fatalistic or defeated but neither do we proclaim, or claim, what obviously isn't.

It is OK to be depressed.

It is OK to be ill.

It's even OK to have terminal illness (and I have had some good teachers on this subject for my role is to help people die well).

BUT

Where people make great claims in the lives of others when they don't come near in their own - when they preach about walking in the light when it's obvious they aren't - when they don't see how they don't have a job, or a partner, or a house or a new car or whatever when they are 'a child of the Living God', then they've lost the plot and are in need of a size nine commando boot up the bum!

AND

When they do as for the wrong thing OR tell God what He needs to do OR claims what isn't as if it were in His name - they are wrong, wrong, wrong! (was that clear enough?)

We are indeed in a perpetual victory parade - a parade which I am led to understand relates to the parading of one's defeated foes - and one which has before it an empty cross and a broken and powerless sin (for if the penalty is gone so too is the power!). we live to demonstrate that the hold that sin had over us is no more we lead in triumph (sin behind us and satan humiliated) with Jesus before us (for we know who we follow) for we too are His friends AND servants (hallelujah?).

We have much and many blessing are ours but we need the maturity and understanding (which I don't think the glam Christian Evopersonality types will always make ours - well not unless you send a donation anyway!) to understand what is in the overarching and what is in the now. You can rebuke your headache or you can stop drinking or have an earlier bedtime or stop banging your head against brick walls (real and metaphorical) or just take an analgesic. I'm not against praying - just what, why and how we do it and it hands power to anyone but God, if it wounds others, if it causes others to doubt their salvation or faith than all I can says is this:

STOP IT!

I pray that we will all develop the maturity and discernment to learn when we should be praying for something or claim something as if it is when perhaps that's more about us than God; I pray we will learn to learn that illness, weakness, loneliness and need aren't signs of defeat or oppression - after all what gives us the right to prosperity or healthy lives - we were only promised an eternity of being whole and with Him and if you can read this, it hasn't started yet ;-)

Pax

Church - our core is . . .

Loving others with a love like that which Jesus (the Christ) has shown us to form relationships with those with whom we come into contact (and whom we, like Jesus, seek to serve). Relationships which enable us to come alongside just as the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, does with us by revealing, reconciling, inspiring, motivating (and mobilising) and bringing healing.

This is our individual and corporate calling.

The gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit as He reveals those things to us which separate us from God and one another is no different from that which we are called to do also and this cannot be done from a distance or with those who are distant from us (or vv). It only comes through having a relationship and this means that we need to be accessible and outward facing.

Reconciliation is not what we do but who we are. Reconciling man to man and man to God.

Inspiring people to think, live and respond rightly. So often we fail to respond to others the way that Christ calls us to do and yet it is by our example that others will learn and if they're not in relationship with us, how can they see the examples we are [Mind you knowing the example I can be at times it might be better if they didn't see me ;-) ]  ?

Motivating (and mobilising) those around us, especially those who are distant from God in oh so many ways, is something that we do by being contagious Christians. People see the difference in us and the difference we make because of that difference and want to be part of it. We have had some people who have come into contact with us because of the things that they see and they want to make a difference too! Motivation comes from two directions but we take our model from the Great Shepherd (Jesus) rather than the Western shepherd.  The difference?

The sheep follow Jesus because they know His voice and trust Him whilst with the Western model the shepherd walks behind the sheep kicking them up the behindside until he gets them where he wants them.

Now there's a challenge for some who would be leaders!

Finally we come alongside and bring healing to those around us. Whether it is by affirming them or standing with them in their troubles; taking their part in courts, council offices, social services, debt agencies and the so many other places where being broken, beaten and worthless becomes heightened and despair reaches its lowest point. In weeping with those who are dying or just holding a hand and being a friend. Church and healing are synonymous but of course only where we have the the ability because we are alongside!

So, just to recap, the core business of the Church is:

BEING THERE WITH THE OTHER PERSON

BECAUSE OF CHRIST!

After all - Jesus didn't shout at us from a pulpit but got in the poo and, coming alongside us, swam with us to lead us out of it. New life in Christ comes about by obedient and sacrificial lives in Christ.

Pax

Well - does God heal or not?

I see that The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has got itself involved regarding a leaflet from St Mark's Church (Woodthorpe, Nottingham) which claims God could actually heal. They acted after the head of Nottingham's Secular Society complained after being handed a flyer bearing the words 'Need healing?' while shopping.

An ASA spokesman said, "We are not here to stop religious or faith-based organisations from promoting what they believe in. But if they are making absolute claims about curing serious conditions then we have to see that evidence to back it up."

The man bringing the complain, Dennis Penaluna, was apparently shocked and outraged over the leaflet, "I couldn't believe the overarching, ridiculous, unfounded claims they were making. They can't be substantiated, it's a dangerous nonsense. People who are ill or vulnerable can be easily persuaded. They will grasp at anything."

Jumping to the church's defence, Canon Ed Pruin, who advises people in the Church of England diocese of Nottingham and Southwell on healing, said he agreed the leaflet was "Less than helpful, but I absolutely do believe that God can heal. I have no doubts. I think that one of the ways God heals is through medical science and the care of healthcare professionals. But I don't think that he is always in the curing business."

Canon Pruin is also a member of the Healing and Wholeness committee which has advised the church to amend the leaflet so that 'healing on the streets' is changed to 'care on the streets'.

Pick up your bed and walk, you are 'cared' for doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?

The overarching question is this: Can God heal and if the answer is 'Yes', does He heal?

I encountered a few people yesterday and having been told of their ailments, I prayed for them that God would indeed touch their bodies and bring them healing. Some of my colleagues tell me that healing is always there, but not generally physically, it's about healing mental and emotional stuff and therefore, even when the symptoms (and cause) persist, the person is healed.

Should we expect more?

Should we claim God (Jesus) can heal or should we just 'Care'?

Perhaps we should alll become secularists and live in the vacuum of self and be happy in ourselves and then again, perhaps not! After all, the ASA turned down my complaint about mobile phone betting because it made gambling 'fun and exciting' and that's what the advert' was all about!

Whoo Hoo!

All Sins can be forgiven . .

We just can't deal with the mental health issues!

Outside the 'unforgivable sin' and grieving the Holy Spirit, I have always been taught that regardless of the sin, there was always healing, forgiveness and renewal available to the sinner, should they repent. The problem is that in the United Kingdom, one in every six people is affected by a mental health issue, one in every four has been (or will be, mentally ill at some time - varying degrees, but identifiably mentally ill) (ONS 2007 UK Census - 23%).

Following the 2007 census, the then Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, spoke about the situation:

"At any one time, one in six people will be living with a mental health problem. One in four will experience an episode of mental illness at some point in their lifetime. If this statistic were applied to some of this country’s most venerable institutions, it would mean that at least one presenter of the Today programme, one of the Strictly Come Dancing judges and around six players in the current England football squad, have experienced or will experience a mental illness at some point in their lives"

I am concerned at a number of levels and for a number of reasons. The first being that I find Christians who are so excited by an issue like homosexuality, which affects four to five percent of the population (globally or locally, take your pick) . They rant and rave about something that affects one in twenty people tops. These same people studiously avoid an issue which affects one in four (or perhaps one in six, depends upon the definitions used).

Now I know I'm treading on dodgy ground here because some will accuse me of comparing apples and pears rather than 'like-for-like' (worse still that I am lumping both together as a 'illness' - which I am not). What I am trying to do as I open this discussion is to show the scale of the issue before us and the inordinately skewed focus regarding it (so it's not a discussion about homosexuality - O.K.!).

So hopefully I have put in some context and a datum from which to work regarding the man spoken of yesterday.

One of the more compassionate people regarded the issue as one that the man's pastor needed to address 'decisively'. Another spoke of the man needing to be 'locked up' and another was angry and upset because the bloke had (basically) 'spoilt his Good Friday religious bit!' (my words, his attitude!).

The problem with mentally ill people is that they aren't rational. They are disruptive and often controversial, noisy, aggressive, frightening, weird, and more beside. they just don't make sense and cannot see sense when it paraded before them. Rational conversation aimed at them produces fluffy bunnies, a world that is out to get them, half a dozen other personalities popping out to say 'hello' (sorry - 'sound of music' gene problem) and totally ridiculous responses (ever tried talking to me?).

The problem is, that 'they' (for it seems that the mentally ill lose identities and become that wonderful, anonymous, 'they') just don't do anything towards making church comfortable and 'they' can be disruptive and do need to be managed such that our services run with a degree of decency and decorum. BUT, there has to be latitude (not lassitude) shown, a degree of accommodation and acceptance along with the managing (AKA 'lock them up somewhere away from us')

Another issue is that having these 'nutters' (a word used to describe the mentally ill 'they'recently) going around telling people they're Christians isn't good marketing. Even if we let them come to our services, it would be good if they didn't support the idea that to be Christian, or even religious, is the province of the mentally ill, after all, we claim to hear voices and have a God fixation (two of the signs when I was training).

And then we have the 'demon' brigade. The wonderfully weird and often certifiable Christians who see mental illness as merely 'demonic' and, because "Demons are their ministry and calling!" (which is actually tosh!) look for a gunfight with the demonic causes of the illness. Now here's a bit of gained wisdom that I have built up over the years, your for free. Demons might not cause mental illness, but things demonic can use mental illness, the lowering of mental and emotional barriers caused by the illness and amazingly the medication and can sign up to make issue worse.

I have learned that what is presenting before me is more often than not (I've seen and dealt with less than twenty truly demonic mentally ill people in a quarter of a century of ministry)) a medical issue. At one stage I was the man who was called out to support a fair number of people under a section 4 admission and these were generally people who had felt better and stopped taking their pills. Some of them were 'demonised' (but the term is demon oppression, not possession) and although I have had my share of the funny voices, weird contorted faces, odd smells and even a levitation (I kid you not!) - we speak too often of demons as a cause and not enough as a parasitic entity (now I bet I sound mad myself!) and an effect.

That mentally ill people can be manipulated is often seen by the timing of their appearance. Often, just when stuff is trying and testing along comes someone presenting and I don't think this is coincidence. But it doesn't just interfere or distract, it also causes us to reject, deal with in a summary fashion or even condemned as 'knowing what they are doing and being disruptive or damaging' to the proceedings. Of course, what is often at stake is the comfort zone of the observer (cruel, but it has been true of me and I assume I'm normal).

We move on to the issue of 'WWJD'and this always raises in me the question, "Well, what would Jesus do?"

I think He'd take the person and their situation seriously. He'd afford them the chance to talk and would find the point where He could bring them to a place of awareness, stillness, realisation and peace. He would address the person rather than be drawn in by the illness and He'd bring healing. healing which would deal with the spiritual as well as the physical (after all, I was taught that mental illness is often a physical cause manifesting in the behaviour of the ill person).

Jesus would bring about a physical healing and would mop up any attached demonic followers as well. And so, the question nearly always comes, often in a statement. "Well, we don't have the power jesus did. Or perhaps we don't have the faith or it's not a gift I have, perhaps one day!"
But as we focus on Jesus, as we rejoice in the empty tomb, didn't he appear yesterday and give his Shalom? Didn't he breathe on those present and pour upon them, and us later at Pentecost, His Holy Spirit? Isn't the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, that is Christ (homousios) within us and therefore what stops us from healing (another issue for another day) as He healed?

Is it faith? Or belief? Or our sins? I don't know - but I do know that I have prayed and seen blind eyes open (six of them) and have prayed and seen healing that defied my logic or experience and yet my faith was low, but my obedience was high.

Perhaps the first step is to start regarding the 'mentally ill' and merely regard them as being 'ill'. No different from any other physical illness, other than the fact that they enter into our comfort zones, that they are often embarrassing, difficult to deal with, obvious and apparent to all who see them. The manifestations are more obvious than a rash under clothing, for rashes don't shout out or wave their arms. the manifestations are more pressing and so therefore is the need to love and accept them as Christ would - not second class, not an embarrassment but as fellow humans with a more obvious affliction that our own, physical or spiritual.

Would would jesus do? Got an idea, then share it and do it!

Pax

ps. as an aside, please pray that as the mental health units and support centres close under the current financial cuts, that more churches would open their doors to provide support groups with spaces to continue their essential support work. That's one of the things jesus would do, I am sure.

Jonah Jim's modern day miracle story

Paula writes:

On Sunday 20th March our son drowned in the rain water that had filled our previously drained garden pond. Incredibly our dear friend (a paed nurse) was at our house for Sunday lunch. She battled and eventually resuscitated him.

The amazing paramedics took over and fought to keep him alive until we got to the local hospital
where a very large resus team took over and battled for seven hours to stabilise him.

The expert CATS (Children's Acute Transport Service) took over and transferred him to the Intensive Care Unit at Great Ormond Street.

We were told two weeks ago today that Jonah was brain damaged. He was in a coma for over fifty hours which felt like a lifetime to us. When he eventually came out despite initially appearing very distressed and a very different little boy he quickly went from stength to strength once on the Neurology ward. We were told that his expected stay on the ward could be anything from three months to a year depending on his severity.

Less than six days later we were transferred back to the local hospital and only remained there for a further three nights due to the blood clot which is a side effect from the coma.

Today we rejoice that Jonah is one hundred percent the cheeky and mischievous little lad that he was when he woke up on that Sunday morning. His restoration to health has baffled medics and for this we give all the glory to God.

We thank you our friends and family who have held our son in your hearts and prayers and passed it on to your family and friends to do the same. We estimate that over 10,000 people lifted our little boy to Him. For this we thank you.

Who says I only do 'doom and gloom'?

The words of John's Gospel (chapter eleven) sum it up nicely:
"This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

Praise the Lord or what?