*Edited for typo..I know it’s way past when this was published, but I saw it and just couldn’t leave it that way! For those of you who get this via email, sorry for the duplicate!

It has been a rough few days. My sister-in-law called about 7:00 last night and said she had just left my brother at the emergency room again. Bless her heart! She was so upset. She had to take their four month old home and feed him, so she called me to come sit with my brother at the ER. Besides being concerned for my brother, I felt so bad for my sister-in-law. She so wanted to be with her husband, but she had to take care of their child as well.

He had had a very stressful day at work and had been having pain on the left side of his chest since about 4:30 yesterday afternoon. The pain ran down his left arm, and he was also having tingling in his arm and was experiencing some numbness in his fingertips. Needless to say, they were scared and very concerned. They called the doctor and were told to go to the ER.

By the time I arrived, my brother had been taken back to have an EKG done and sent back out to the waiting area to be seen. The EKG was normal so I guess he got bumped down on the list of when to be seen. Truly, the place was a zoo! I’m praying none of us end up with the flu now! The good news is, my brother is once again okay, but we sure had a scare again.

The events of the past few days have reminded me yet again how short our time here is. I have also been reminded of how important family is.

In the One Month to Live book, I am in the second section titled Love Passionately. It talks a lot about relationships. I took a survey on the One Month to Live website and discovered in answering the questions that one of the things I would change if I only had one month to live is there are some relationships in my life that need some work. There are things that have not been said that need to be said. Feelings that have been hurt that need to be mended. Forgiveness that needs to be given whether I feel like it or not because God commands that we forgive just as He forgives us. One of the points the authors make in the book is that we have difficulty comprehending the full measure with which God has forgiven us. If we could truly understand it, we would better be able to forgive others.

My family is far from perfect as are all families. Actually, we are quite dysfunctional. There are many issue-laden dynamics that take on the “elephant in the living room” syndrome. But, they are my family. They do the best they can, and I love them. I am far from perfect myself and will forever be a work-in-progress as long as I am on this earth. God has pulled me out of a number of pits, and while I am aware of much for which I have been forgiven, I am sure there is much more that has not even penetrated my consciousness. From now on, I hope to make more of an effort to have that awareness and to forgive as I have been forgiven.

Blessings,

I did it. I signed up today for the 30-day One Month to Live challenge. I am moving forward. I’m tired of being afraid, and I am ready to start living the life God has planned for me. We are not promised tomorrow. I want to live as if I really do only have one month to live. I want to see what God has in store for me.

What about you?

Blessings,

4I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. John 17:4 (NIV)

Something very unexpected and unsettling happened last night. It was about 10:00 pm, and I had just gone to bed. The phone rang. I knew it was either a wrong number or something was wrong. When I looked at caller id and saw that it was my sister-in-law’s cell phone number, I knew it was the latter. I answered the phone with my heart pounding waiting to hear what she had to say.

She told me there was a “low-grade emergency,” and she and my brother needed my help. I asked what was wrong, and she told me that my brother had gone outside to reset their hot water heater because the hot water wasn’t working. He removed the panel to get to the reset button thus exposing electrical wires. He accidentally touched the wires and was shocked. Two hundred and twenty volts of electricity. Thankfully, he was not knocked out and was able to go inside and tell her what had happened. However, he was light-headed, felt “spacey,” was feeling pressure behind his eyes and was having trouble focusing his vision. They called their doctor who said while my brother was probably okay, the doctor would prefer they go to an urgent care center. They did and were told they should go to the hospital.

My brother and sister-in-law have a four month old baby, my darling first nephew, who they were dragging out at 9:00 last night to do all of this. They called me to come and stay with the baby while they were at the hospital. I, of course, threw on my clothes, grabbed my pillow, my slippers, and a book and headed out the door as quickly as I could.

We live about 35-40 minutes apart, so it was going to take me a bit of time to get there as it was. Then, I got caught in construction traffic on the way! I was trying not to lose it, but I found myself feeling overcome with the emotion of it all. I knew that my brother was most likely okay, but I nonetheless called my best friend and asked her to pray and then spent the remainder of the trip over praying myself.

Fortunately, my brother is fine. Thank you, God! But…this could just as easily have gone the other way. I have been wrestling this afternoon and evening with the emotions all of this has evoked. We are not promised tomorrow. As a matter of fact, I am not even promised that I will have the opportunity to finish typing this post.

All of this has really gotten me to thinking. I have been posting recently about the book One Month to Live and the struggles I have been having with moving forward in faith towards the purpose for which God has called me. I have realized that part of my problem with the 30-day One Month to Live challenge is the idea of only having one month to live and what I would do differently. This concept just has not been real for me. I haven’t been told that I only have one month to live. But after what happened to my brother last night, I am rethinking this concept.

Jesus spoke the words in the verse at the top of this post. He did not begin His ministry until He was 30 years old, and in three years’ time, He was able to say to His Father in heaven that He had completed the work God had given Him to do.

I realized today that if I saw God face to face tonight, or tomorrow, or even next week, that I would not be able to say that. I have known that I wasn’t moving forward in all that He has called me to do. I have been afraid. Now I’m afraid not to. Not because I’m afraid God will punish me, but because I know He has a purpose for me. That purpose is why I am here. It’s what I was made for.

And after the events of the last 24 hours, the concept of how would I live my life differently if I only had one month to live is not so foreign to me. It’s actually quite real and in my face now. No, I haven’t been told I only have one month to live. But then, I haven’t been told I have more than that either. Suddenly, the fear I have been feeling seems very minor and irrelevant now. Suddenly, I feel a sense of urgency about moving forward in God’s plan. My success or failure does not depend on me. It depends totally on Him. And with God behind me, hopefully, when I do see Him face to face…whenever that may be…I will be able to say that I completed the work He gave me to do.

Blessings,