Blessed to be a blessing

Thanks to all of you wonderful friends that continue to pray and encourage me. I was amazed at the number of responses I had from my last blog. I am doing well thanks to a loving Lord and encouraging friends.

Thinking ahead to Good Friday and Easter I was reading Isaiah 53. Referring to Jesus, verses 3-5 tell us that “He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed!” How amazing that He was rejected by those around Him, but then I am reminded of how often I too have rejected Him in numerous ways during the busyness of my day.

I believe that Richard Foster said it well: “Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence.”

I trust that this Easter season will be a time of drawing nearer to Jesus for each of us. My plans are to spend a long weekend at our lake house with as many of the family members as can make it. It seems like an extremely long time since we were all together at Christmas!

Please continue to pray for dear friend Ross. Major surgery is scheduled for April 9 to remove a large tumor wrapped completely around his colon and attached to the top of his bladder. Pray that the six weeks of 24-hour chemotherapy and thirty radiation treatments have reduced the tumor, simplifying this delicate surgery. Also pray that biopsies of lymph nodes will be negative and that recovery will be complete.

How blessed we are to have such a loving and caring God! Freely work in and through me I pray!

Love to you all,

Chuck