lord jesus christ

Will You Marry Me?

~ Good Grief! by Shelley Brandon ~ Leave a comment

2 Peter 3:11

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.

 10 Therefore, my brothers and sisters,[a] make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Message version of verses 3 & 4 read:

3-4Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust. o the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I don’t know about you, but I love invitations.  Most of the time.  Weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers (especially if the baby is there too!).  I love all of these life events.

Seventeen years ago I received the most exciting invitation this side of heaven.  On March 3, 1995 Larry Brandon invited me to be his wife.  I was living in Denver at the time and one night during our daily phone conversations Larry asked me why I hadn’t moved to Michigan yet.  I informed him that I had not yet been invited.  A week or so later he flew me to Michigan for the weekend and in the parking lot of the Bay City Saginaw airport Larry gave me an invitation that he’d made on the computer and printed out for me.

It read:

Although we haven’t known each other very long

My feelings for you can’t be wrong

Please agree to be a part

of my of heart

and of my life

Take this ring and be my wife

Love,

Larry

I was so excited.  This wonderful man who I’d only known 5 1/2 weeks (no I don’t recommend this, but….) was inviting me to share his life in the most intimate way possible.  Two months later we were married and the nearly 15 years that we were together we the best years of my life.  Our love for each other was the stuff that Fairy Tales wish they were made of.  Yeah, it was that good.  Until cancer cut our happily ever after too short.

This intimacy is only a foretaste of the invitation we have received from Jesus Christ.  Jesus loves us so much that He paid the ultimate cost, the ransom required for us to have a relationship with God.  He longs for us to know and desire Him as much as He desires us.  Jesus is inviting us to know His Father as He does, up close and personal.  Not just for a few temporal years on this earth, but for all eternity.  Happily Ever After has nothing on this invitation!

This picture was taken right after our wedding ceremony. When Jesus looks at us, there is more love in his eyes than there is Larry's eyes. WOW!!!

Lord, can you just hold me?

~ Good Grief! by Shelley Brandon ~ 3 Comments

Epiphany! 

1. a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi; Twelfth-day.

2. an appearance or manifestation, especially of a deity.

3. a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

1 Peter 1:3-12

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

January 6, 2009…it was a “normal” Tuesday afternoon.  Larry was done with chemo and radiation, and we were hopeful that he was improving.  The steroids that he was still on made it difficult for him to sleep though so Larry had decided to go to bed and try to nap.  I was upstairs in the office getting caught up on the book work and trying to keep the dogs quiet so Larry could rest.  I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what was happening in our bedroom just below me while I worked.

About 30 to 40 minutes later Larry came up the stairs.  I was so disappointed for him because this meant that sleep had once again eluded my exhausted husband.   However, when he sat down in his desk chair and turned toward me I was instantly alert.  Something had happened. His face was red, but glowing.  There were tears flowing down his face.  I’ve never seen such amazing humbleness and awe.  While he was lying down God had come to Larry and gave him his own Epiphany.

Larry told me that as he’d been laying in our bed he physically felt God’s hand under his own elbow, holding him up.  Larry said that he had felt as if he were lying on water and God’s hand was keeping him afloat.  God told my husband not worry anymore about the company that we owned, HE would be taking care of it.  God also told Larry that everything was going to turn out just the way it was supposed to.

I don’t remember the exact words anymore, just the look on Larry’s face ~ the look of all-consuming love.  For days afterward Larry would say, “I don’t want to lose this feeling.  How can anyone experience what I did and not be changed?”

Eventually the glow left and the nightmares of his disease returned in the form of a seizure while driving us home and more surgery followed by more chemo.  The glow returned weeks before Larry’s death when he could no longer communicate with us.  Instead he communicated with angels who were sent to comfort him.

Everything did turn out as it was supposed to of course, just not how the rest of us wanted it to.  How comforting to me it is though, that my beloved husband experienced moments that I can only dream of.  Moments that I cherish.  Moments when I could not comfort him, but God could.

We are never ever alone.

Todd Agnew ~ Sit With You A While