Just over 2 years ago, Claudia (CJ to many of you) sat at our kitchen island counter and got a phone call from our local doctor’s office. She had been having some stomach soreness, and they thought she may have gall bladder problems or ulcers. The CT scan came back and the message was “you are full of tumors, and we’re sending you down to the cancer center in Grand Rapids”.  She hung up, fell into my arms sobbing, and cried out “I’m going to die!” We called our sons and other family that night, and they were all as shocked as we were. A week or two later, the cancer doctor told us she has stage 4 metastatic cancer, about as bad of a message we could have heard. After we started telling friends and asking for your prayers, CJ decided to create a Facebook page called Updates on CJ Keef to keep you informed of how the journey was going. Little did we know it would grow until today there are 212 members on that page. CJ did her own updates most of the time, and when she got too sick and confused at the end, I would do them.

    This will be the last update I will post on that page, and I’m sharing this on my blog page as well.  I will shut the Update page down after Easter. On behalf of CJ and me, I can’t begin to express how thankful we were for all of your prayers and support on this page, as well as the many cards, messages, emails, and calls we got over the 18 month journey. You folks were used by God to keep us going, give us strength and hope, and help us all, together, finally “walk CJ home” to her heavenly Father, where I know she is now more alive than ever before, free from sin and a cancer-ridden body, and enjoying the beginning of an eternal life that is so wonderful it is beyond our imagination. 

    By sharing this 18 month journey with us, you helped CJ and me both experience new truths and actually grow stronger in faith through suffering. C.S. Lewis famously said that in prosperity God whispers to us, but in adversity he shouts to us. We knew well Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”. But knowing it with your mind is one thing; experiencing it with your heart is something very different. Many of you shared amazing prayers and scripture, many shared from your own struggle with cancer, and all of that brought comfort and strength to us. And as we shared our thoughts and growing faith with you, it encouraged others as well. That allowed us to see God using our suffering to help and encourage others, knowing nothing is wasted if we trust God in the midst of pain.

 I have decided to close down the Update page after Easter this year for a specific reason. Claudia was a wonderful wife, mother, gramma, teacher, and friend to many.  Like all of us, she was not perfect, and certainly had her flaws. But what made her the person she became, and why she was so endearing to so many, stemmed from her intimate relationship with God. She drew close to God as a young teenager while experiencing a crisis in her life. She discovered then that Jesus loved her more than she could ever imagine, and she fell in love with Jesus and grew in that relationship for the rest of her life. I know if you had asked CJ, she would have said that I was the “love of her life”, and I was blessed to be that person. But knowing her better than any of you, I can confidently say that Jesus was the ultimate love of her life, and I was more than OK with that!  When she was deeply involved in prayer, Bible study or meditation, I knew it was a sacred moment between her and Jesus and I was wise not to interrupt! And I quickly discovered that the more she loved Jesus and let him love her, the more she was able to love me with that same love, more than she ever could have without knowing Jesus. So, for my great life with Claudia, I can truly say “Thank you, Jesus!”

    Claudia was wonderful at relationships with family and friends, and many of you can attest to that. But anyone who knew CJ well knew that her ultimate passion and joy in life was singing! I believe God gifted her with that beautiful voice as a means of blessing others, and she loved to sing all kinds and varieties of music. But when she sang songs of praise to her God, it was like a love song, and her eyes focused beyond the people in the room, and her voice became stronger and clearer, and she sang the words from the depths of her soul. She loved Christmas, and allowed me each year to accompany her on the piano as she sang “O Holy Night”. But I know the most important day for her was Easter, and the words of the Easter songs were the most meaningful to her. This Easter, as you sing the familiar songs in church, I want you to remember that Claudia is actually living out those hopes and promises that we sing about that day! I know that if CJ could speak to us once more today, her message would be to accept the message of Easter in our heart and trust Jesus with all of our life, now and forever!

   You see, Easter is the greatest message humanity has ever experienced: God did the unthinkable to offer us a gift that is unimaginable! Being Methodists, Claudia and I both always insisted on beginning the Easter service with the old Charles Wesley classic “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”. The middle verses say “ Lives again our glorious King; Where, O death, is now thy sting? Once he died our souls to save, Where’s thy victory, boasting grave?… Soar we now where Christ has led, Following our exalted Head, Made like him, like him we rise, Ours the cross, the grave, the skies!  Alleluia!”  You see, the Easter message recognizes that we are all dead in our sinfulness, and we can’t save ourselves. But God loves so much that he sent his son Jesus to earth to exchange his life for ours. He was fully God and fully human, but he gave up his power and rights as God in order to take all of our sins and punishment on himself and die for us on the cross, in our place. He was buried and dead, but God raised his body to life 3 days later, and now he lives forever and invites us receive his forgiveness and power to live with him now and forever! Death has been defeated by Jesus, and we can rise with him to an amazing, sin-free life that we will someday (hopefully soon) live out with Jesus on a newly restored Heaven and Earth combined, and we will have new resurrection bodies that will never get sick or die! That’s a gift beyond our wildest imaginations, and it’s yours for the asking if you will trust your life to Jesus. ⁹“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”–1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

  My fondest Easter memory with Claudia was in our Clawson church, where for at least a couple years we would end our Easter service with a duet with CJ and our dear friend Phil Paonessa. Phil and CJ shared in worship together, and they both had wonderful voices. They would sing the popular song today called “You Raise Me Up” ( not originally written as a Christian song, but it captures the Easter message well).   Phil would sing the first verse, starting slowly and then building in intensity with his deep voice, then CJ would sing the next verse with her soprano voice, and they would go back and forth until they joined their voices in full power on the last verse. It would leave us with goose bumps and tears in many eyes because of the power of the words and the singing. The words are:

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary
When troubles come and my heart burdened be
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence
Until You come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders
You raise me up to more than I can be

My friends, all of us have many moments when our souls are tired and weary, and our hearts are burdened, and we may think we have no hope. CJ and I certainly felt that way at times during her 18 month battle with cancer. But the Easter message of hope is that God will not only sit with us and comfort us, but that he will raise us up to victory over even death itself, and in his future new world we actually will be able to walk on mountains and even stormy seas. I pray that if you haven’t yet, you will now trust your life to Jesus, let him raise you up and give you hope, and empower you to truly enjoy life now and forevermore!

The Final Update on CJ is this:

– she is alive and well, and having the time of her life with her first true love, Jesus!

– and she is saying to each of us, “Trust your life to Jesus today, and everything is going to be wonderful in the end. And when the time is right, come and join me in this amazing life that is beyond your imagination!”

Happy Easter, and may God truly bless you all!

Tom

(P.S. You were all wonderful friends of CJ, and we both are so grateful to you for your love and support over this journey. We could not have done it without you! After I close the Update page and CJ’s regular Facebook page after Easter, you are welcome to keep in touch with me if you would like by following my Facebook page (Thomas Keef). You can also follow my blogs at www.boomers4jesus.org . And if you want to be on an email list that I have that I send my new blogs to, send me your email and I will add you to that list. Thanks again for everything!)

It should be no surprise to anyone who has read my blogs for the past year or more that I am lonely now, as it’s been just over 4 months since my amazing wife CJ, the love of my life, died of cancer. I’m not writing this to get any pity or sympathy from you, although I always covet your prayers for God to direct my future. The point is, at this season of my life, loneliness is the biggest challenge that I deal with, all day long. But ALL of us have challenges, trials, burdens, and anxieties that we face, and yours may be much harder and more difficult to deal with than my momentary battle with loneliness. So I hope you will tolerate my rambling for a few minutes, because the 2^nd part of my blog, “anticipation” is God’s answer to so many of our trials and challenges in life, and hopefully it will encourage you as well!

LONELINESS

Loneliness, for me at least, is no fun. I enjoyed immensely being married to CJ for 42 years, and in that time I came to think of myself as ½ of a couple in life, a very grateful and blessed couple. Most of our life was about “us”, our faith, our family, our careers, and how God was using “us” in his plan, and we had a wonderful 42 years in that mode! I saw my responsibility to care for, protect, and help CJ grow into the woman God meant for her to be. And she did the same for me (and undoubtedly did a better job!) But now, I’m no longer ½ of a couple, I’m single. (One of my grandsons asked me, “Grandad, are you a bachelor now?” I laughed, and realized I am.) On forms, I now check “not married” or “W” (which does not stand for winner!)

A dear friend sent me a very helpful book entitled “The Tender Scar” by Dr. Richard Mabry. He lost his wife about 15 years ago, and has some great insights. For example, in one chapter he said that in his prayers he realized that his wife was in the loving care of Jesus, and now he was to “resign my job of protector/caregiver/husband and let it go. I have to assume that God will keep his end of the bargain. I know that she more than kept hers”.  I am also trying to emotionally and mentally remember that CJ is with Jesus now, and to feel good about that. After all, she is now with a much better man than me, and I certainly can’t compete with Jesus! In a more challenging chapter, he reminds us that the culture we live in is set up for couples, and I am now single. He says our “couple” friends will invite us out for dinners and try to support us, but won’t often know what to say, and in many groups we will feel like the “5^th wheel”.  I have found that to be my feelings at times. My sister-in-law described how she felt when she lost her first husband to a tragic accident over 3 decades ago now. She said when she went out with her young friends, they acted like nothing had really changed, but she felt like screaming at them that she felt like half her body was gone!

If you are presently married, please realize that one of you is going to experience the loss of your spouse at some point in the future. We all know that, deep down, but we really can’t prepare for it very well. I think we guys mostly assume, and hope, that we will “go” before our wives! I used to tell CJ that I wish it was me who had cancer and not her. I would much rather have gone through the suffering than watch her go through it. And selfishly, I admit, if I would have died first I think she would have handled the grief and loneliness better than me!

But this experience is not all bad, either. I have reluctantly discovered that loneliness is not the same as being alone. Loneliness is a feeling of missing someone you loved very much and feeling a great emptiness, but being alone can be helpful. Many people who lose their spouse learn to enjoy being alone, and find it an opportunity to focus on their new life and perhaps do new things they could not do before.  Many people decide to never remarry, and find fulfillment and purpose in life as a single person.  For me, being alone has helped me re-focus my relationship with God and more intimately trust him with my future, and that has led to a strange yet welcome sense of peace and even anticipation about what God has for me in the future.

ANTICIPATION!!

For those of us who have put our future in Jesus’ hands, anticipation of what lies ahead will help  us overcome any challenge we face now, and give us joy and hope, knowing everything is going to made right some day!  Consider the following verses to give you hope for the future:

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him for the help of his presence! – Psalm 42:5

His anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning… You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy!  – Psalm 30:5,11

For me, I know that this challenge of loneliness will only last for a season, and then it will end. I pray that God will help me to find the right Christian woman to be my companion for the rest of my time on earth, hopefully within this year! My part is to patiently listen to and wait on God’s guiding and not just take matters into my own hand. And if for some reason that is not his plan, I trust him to give me peace and fulfillment for my life in other ways. He has taken care of me my whole life; why wouldn’t he do it now? And the same is true for you! Whatever challenge you face today or in the future, it will not last forever. God will see you through it in time, and  at some point in the future you will experience deliverance and “joy in the morning”!

Paul says in II Corinthians 4:17, “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”.

When you can see your trials and challenges in the light of what God offers us for eternity, they suddenly get smaller. There’s an old saying that goes “Don’t be too Heavenly minded or you won’t be any earthly good”.  My friends, that is entirely false and backwards! The more we understand the future, the more we can see this present world the way God sees it, and we are no longer afraid of anything that can happen to us here.

What does this mean for us, if we trust our lives now and in the future to Jesus?

– We will never die! Yes, our physical bodies will die, but WE will live forever!

–  And someday we will, as believers, live on a New Earth and New Heaven combined, a place much like this, but with no sin. (See some of my previous blogs for more on this.)  We will have new bodies that never get sick or die, we will be in God’s presence, and we will enjoy life together forever. I will see CJ again, and you will see your Christian friends also. We will laugh, sing, rejoice, eat great food, talk with Jesus, and create, build, grow, explore, and enjoy life forever, the way it was meant to be originally for us!

Paul says in Romans Ch. 8: 31-32 35-39
³¹  What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  ³⁵  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whatever you and I are going through right now, it won’t last forever.

Trust God, and he will give you strength to get through it!

And if you remember the future He promises us, you will not fear the present, and you can look forward with great joy and anticipation to a new life forever, with God, on a New Earth and New Heaven combined!

One of my favorite verses through this long journey with CJ, and beyond, still holds true and brings me comfort, strength, and hope:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my right righteous hand.

Isaiah 41:10

May you find this same comfort, hope, and strength for your journey as well. God bless you all!

One of the myriad of things I miss about having my wife CJ with me now is her joyful personality! CJ enjoyed just about everybody, and they enjoyed being around her. I benefited from being with her all the time. Because people loved her and were comfortable around her, they also seemed to be more comfortable around me as well. Now, since my personality isn’t as outgoing and social as hers, I have to work a lot harder at those relationships, something I don’t naturally enjoy. Something else I noticed about CJ and her friendships: they included folks of every political persuasion, every economic station in life, and even many different expression of faith or even no faith at all. And as we would talk to those folks, I noticed that that they all wanted pretty much the same things for their family and friends, and deep down certainly preferred that we could all get along and live in peace. So, why is it today that we are so anxious, stressed, divided, forced to see each other as opposing camps of belief, and reduced to labels that we can dismiss as “those people” who are always wrong and don’t deserve our respect?

I certainly don’t have the wisdom to answer those questions completely, and looking at the chaos of our culture, nobody else does either! But I do think one of the keys to our dilemma is the answer to the question “What is your source of Truth?” Most people would answer that question today by saying their truth comes from major news or cable networks, pundits, educational elites, scientists, “fact checkers”, and God forbid, Facebook or Twitter! We are told to follow one political party or another, or one system of finance such as capitalism or socialism, and on and on. And, because our choice is “true and right”, everybody else is now wrong, evil, and not to be trusted!

Well, we Christians ought to know better, but we too often fall into those same traps above. Let me suggest an idea that should be obvious, but is missed even in the Christian community today:

God is our source, and only source, of life and Truth!! There are many “resources” around us, and God may use some of them, but God is our only Source.

The Bible teaches that God created the universe from nothing, and created us on earth as the crowning achievement of his creation, made in his very image. We were designed to live with him and love him and enjoy a wonderful relationship with him and each other, forever. It also says that God is infinitely smarter and wiser than we are (go figure!):

⁸  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. ⁹  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV)
Jesus, God come to earth in human flesh, told us:

⁶  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the Truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”  – John 14:6-7 (ESV)

God also gave us a written instruction manual, called the Bible today. It was inspired by God, and tells us how he relates to us in the past, present, and in the future, and how we are to live in relation to him and each other. The Bible has the power to expose our hearts and motives, showing us where we need to repent and turn back to him for restoration and peace. Hebrews 4:12 says,¹²  For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

So, what does this mean for our culture of “fake news” and “misinformation” today? It means that God’s thoughts and ways are the only real truth. Everything else is just human opinion, and where it differs with God’s truth, it is false. It means our first source for truth should be God and his Word, not politicians, pundits, professors, doctors, media, entertainers, or even your favorite local pastor. So, READ YOUR BIBLE DAILY! That’s not to say that all human ideas are wrong or bad. Some are better than others, and some are evil and destructive. That’s one reason why free speech is a blessing is this country. And this present trend of “cancel culture” and censorship is dangerous for us all. If all human ideas are less than God’s ideas, and some are good or bad, we need to hear all sides in order to discern the best ideas and those closest to God’s ideas, which bring hope and peace. Plus, historically, whenever there is an effort to control speech (like the Nazis or Communists, for example), one of the first books banned is the Bible. Why? – because God’s truth is antithetical to any movement to control and manipulate people into a path leading to evil and destruction.

I want to leave you with two major thoughts in this struggle for truth today. (Yeah, they’re just my thoughts, but I think they are Biblical as well!)

1) WE ARE NOT EACH OTHER’S ENEMY!

¹²  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  – Ephesians 6:12 (ESV)

We are barraged daily with deceptive lies that our battle is conservative vs. progressive, Republican vs. Democrat, black vs. while, poor vs. rich, America vs. China or Russia, and on and on. The Bible says we are in a much deeper spiritual battle, beyond what we can see, that affects us on every level and dictates how we see all these divisive issue today. This battle is a battle for our very souls, and is between God and Satan, who is a powerful but fallen and evil angel that God allows, temporarily, to manipulate and control this sinful world and us. The Bible clearly teaches that Satan wants to kill us all, physically and spiritually, and that he is the father of lies. (He must have been a politician at some point- just kidding!) This means that the “systems” of this world, politics, education, and everything else, including our thoughts, are under the influence of Satan. That is where this conflict, hatred, confusion, and division come from.

It’s interesting that Vladimir Lenin, founder of the Russian Communist party, used the term “useful idiots” to describe his youthful, energetic followers in the west who wanted to promote Communism in America and Europe. I’m sure they sincerely thought these ideas were good and would create a better society, but Lenin probably already knew better and just wanted power, control and domination and was fine with the idea of using these “idiots” to get what he wanted. In today’s culture, I fear we Christians can sometime unknowingly become “useful idiots” for Satan when we fall into these camps of hatred, division, and accusation. I am guilty of that myself from time to time. We Christians need to remember who we belong to and that Jesus wants to give us the power and wisdom to effectively be his ambassadors in this dark, broken and struggling world.

2) CHOOSE TODAY WHO YOU WILL BELIEVE AND SERVE!

The Bible makes it clear that the ultimate battle is not all the ones we hear about daily, but the one between God and Satan, God’s Kingdom verses Satan’s rebellion. Make no mistake about it, God has already won this battle when Jesus defeated Satan and death on the cross. Satan, his demons, and all humans who refuse the free gift of grace and salvation through Jesus,  will all be banned from God’s future Kingdom and spend eternity separated from God in Hell. All of this division, hatred, rancor, mistrust, anxiety and fear we see today are all Satan’s distractions to keep us away from God and his forgiveness, redemption, and power to be transformed and live as we were intended to live!

The Bible has numerous passages that describe the gulf between these 2 opposing views of life, but let me share one of the best from Galatians 5. Here the word “flesh” doesn’t mean our bodies, because God created them to be wonderful, originally. Here “flesh” refers to the sinful state and thought pattern of sinful human beings, often presented as evil power in opposition to God’s Spirit. Read this passage and decide which way you would rather live. I think the choice is obvious!

¹³  For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵  But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

¹⁶  But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷  For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. ¹⁸  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

¹⁹  Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰  idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ²¹  envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²²  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³  gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.²⁴  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵  If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶  Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. – Galatians 5:13-26 (ESV)

Jesus’ Kingdom is sometimes described as the “upside-down Kingdom”, because it is opposite to the values of today’s world. We read daily of people who want control, power, money, and domination, and will use any means and hurt anybody to get it. Jesus calls us be like him: humble, gentle, forgiving, a self-sacrificing servant leader, putting others’ interests above our own, offering God’s mercy (not getting what we DO deserve) and God’s grace (getting his salvation, new life, and eternal life in the Kingdom, that we DON’T deserve!).

There are times since CJ died that I look at this world and grow weary of the daily headlines, day after day, of the same hatred, divisions, blame for the “other side”, and blood-thirst for power and control at any cost. Sometimes I long to take the easy way out and just die in my sleep and join CJ in Gods’ Kingdom in the next phase, free of the sin of this world, basking in the light, beauty, power and love of God’s presence forever. But then God seems to give me a “spiritual slap up-side the head” to remind me of why I’m still here. It’s not for me; Jesus has already rescued me from sin, forgiven me, and given me a place in his eternal Kingdom! No, I’m here to serve him and try to show others the amazing option of accepting God’s gift of forgiveness and new life in his Kingdom forever, where there will be a new Heaven and Earth and we will have new bodies that will never get sick or die.

Jesus said,

³⁵  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. ³⁶  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? ³⁷  For what can a man give in return for his soul?  – Mark 8:35-37 (ESV)

Christian friends, it’s time we stopped playing by this world’s rules of power, control, and death. Jesus has rescued us from this world, and we will live forever with him on a new earth, restored to the way it was meant to be, and even better. We have nothing to fear from this world, and nothing to lose. We will never die! So, will you join me in trying my best to live like Jesus, being humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, putting other’s needs above our own, praying for those who wish us evil, and loving our perceived enemies? And most of all, telling them about Jesus, the God-man who loved them so much that he died for them, so that they can have new life?  This strategy has changed the world for 2000 years, and it can again today. Will you join me in being part of Jesus’ upside-down Kingdom? Our broken, fearful world really needs to hear from us, and that’s why we are here!  

A couple of days ago I was wrapping gifts for the grandkids (something CJ always did, so fortunately they are kids and not too concerned with how pretty the wrapping job is!) I took a break and sat down at her study desk upstairs. I glanced through a women’s Bible study she had been working on up until the last 2-3 weeks of her life, when her confusion got worse due to liver failure, and she was no longer able to do anything with her hands or a clear mind. Out of the book fell 2 cards marked “My Prayer Strategy”. The last prayer she ever wrote was one was for her kids & grandkids, which I will share with them privately. The other card said this: “Oh Lord, as I exit your Earthly Domain, I will not forget the discipline of a thankful heart. It is the first step to TRUE worship: “Enter His gates with a thankful heart and enter His courts with Praise!” Help me, Lord, as I walk through this pathway of worship, to understand the procedure of coming into your presence.”

Now, please don’t misunderstand what she was praying for! She was NOT seeking some mystical path to get into Heaven. CJ knew, as any Christian should, that the ONLY path to Heaven is through Jesus, by believing he is the Son of God, that he died and rose again, and that as we trust Him with our lives he will save us from sin and resurrect us from death to a new and amazing life with him forever. And that’s where she is now, because she believed that! 

Anybody who knew CJ well knew that intimate worship was central to whom she was, and what made her the person she grew to become. She learned that worship is about God, not us; and once we rightly understand that God is God and we are not, then we can recognize there is a biblical path to enter into God’s presence correctly.  Why is it so important to get into the presence of God? Because that is what we are missing in this sinful, dark, and broken world! We were created to live WITH GOD is this world, but sin separates us from Him. CJ understood that the closer we get to God and experience His presence in our daily lives, the more peace and true fulfillment we will experience. And NOW, free from the curse of sin and her decaying, cancer-riddled body, she is experiencing true peace, joy, and just plain fun with Jesus himself!

 For all of us still here, there is unanimous consent that 2020 was a horrible year! Whether you lost a loved one as I did, or had other losses and trials in your life, we all seem to focus on COVID as the prime evil of 2020. And it was a horrible virus, killing many and causing massive destruction not only physically, but emotionally, spiritually, and materially as well. And with the vaccines coming out, we all have great hope. But as Christians we should understand, even though 2021 will hopefully be better than 2020, we still live in a world under the power of evil and sin, and that will not change until Jesus returns to destroy Satan and evil and restore the world to what it was meant to be! As awful as COVID is, thankfully less than 1% of the world will actually die from it. On the other hand, we are all under the curse of sin, and 100% of us will die of that!

Paul says in Romans 8:18-21:
¹⁸  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹  that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Pastor Timothy Keller, in his book “Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering”, reminds us that this present world is broken and is NOT the world we desire deep in our hearts! He says “Human beings were not created to experience death, pain, grief, disappointment, ruptured relationships, disease, and natural disasters. The world we were made to live in was not supposed to be like that! A frustrated world is a broken world, in which things do not function as they should, and that is why there is evil and suffering.”

Christians who understand the story of God’s plan in the Bible know two main truths:

1) This present world is a hot mess, under the power of sin, and no human solution or government is going to change that. And even though we love much of life here and find joy and fulfillment at times, we all know something isn’t right, something is missing!

2) God offers us a new future, a new hope, when Jesus returns, destroys evil, and re-creates a new heaven and earth the way it was originally meant to be. In this new world, there will be no more sin, and we will again dwell WITH GOD all the time, every day!

OK, I think we can all agree, whether you’re a Christian or not, that this present world is messed up and you would like to live in a better world! Let me suggest three areas to focus on as you enter into 2021. This doesn’t guarantee you won’t struggle, suffer, or even die in 2021. But it will help you see God’s bigger picture, recognize that He is with you and will strengthen you no matter what you face, and realize that no matter what happens, there is a great new world coming for believers in Jesus, and nothing can take that away from us!

1) Ask God to help you see your life through His eyes, every day of the year!

 In Ephesians 1:17-18 (ESV), Paul offers a beautiful prayer for all of us, saying…
¹⁷  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸  having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

– “having the eyes of your heart enlightened” means that God would focus your desires of heart and mind on what he has for you, which is far better than what you may think you want or need! Ask God to help you see your life and others the way Jesus sees them, and you will see hope and good even in the worst circumstances of life. CJ and I experienced this mindset time and time again in her 18 month battle with cancer, and it made life much more bearable.

2) Seek and look for God’s presence in your life every moment of every day!

Even though sin separates us from God, he promised us that when we trust in Jesus with our life, his Holy Spirit will come and dwell within us! Whatever you are doing each day, consciously ask God to help you and guide you and strengthen you. One of the names of the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, and his presence has greatly brought comfort to me in these past months, even though it’s still difficult.

3) Live each day with a Kingdom attitude of joy and thankfulness!

Going back to CJ’s last written prayer for herself, I’m amazed and so proud of her that her goal was to have the proper attitude as she knew she was leaving this world and going home to her Father’s presence! I remember that last 2 weeks watching her sit quietly on the sofa, her hands folded in prayer, quietly asking God to take her home. She had learned through practice to approach God with thankfulness for all that God had done and promised to do for us in the future, which naturally leads to praising him for his power to help us overcome even death itself!  

It’s easy and natural to succumb to having a “pity party” for yourself when circumstances are difficult. CJ and I both had our share of them, and I still do from time to time. But the Bible teaches us to keep our hearts and minds focused on Jesus and what he has done for us, and that moves us away from pity to thankfulness and even rejoicing, because we know God is always with us! Paul exhorts us in Philippians 4: 4-7,
⁴  Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. ⁵ Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; ⁶  do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This afternoon, a friend sent me and others a wonderful quote by Christian author and theologian Henri Nouwen called “JOY” :

Joy does not come from positive predictions about the state of the world.

It does not depend on the ups and downs of the circumstances of our lives.

Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that,

while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness,

God has overcome the world.

Jesus says it loudly and clearly:  ‘In the world you will have troubles,

but rejoice, I have overcome the world.’

The surprise is not that, unexpectedly, things turn out better than expected.

No, the real surprise is that God’s light is more real than all the darkness,

that God’s truth is more powerful than all  human lies,

that God’s love is stronger than death.

I pray for all of us that 2021 will be a wonderful year in many ways! But most of all, I pray you will seek God’s intimate, daily presence, and that His presence will bring you unspeakable joy, even in the midst of trials and difficulties. And may that joy lead you to an attitude of humility, thankfulness, and unending praise for God and his great love for you.

God bless you all! Have a wonderful Christmas, blessed New Year, and never forget that God loves you more than will ever know!