Well, a good friend of mine received some news that her dad may have prostate cancer. This is such a devastating blow for the family. Here is a litte background about the family.
My friend's dad s a Lutheran church pastor. My friend and her siblings are preacher's kids and as far as I know, not the bad kind. Several years ago my friend's dad took a leap of faith and embarked on a journey that lead him to Cameroon Africa as a missionary. He and his wife have been there for years ministering to the locals. My friend even spent about a year there as a missionary.
While working on a project at work with my friend, I had the pleasure of being welcomed into there home for about 4 weeks. I had never seen christian folk like this before. These were real christians. These people were the christians I had always hoped existed but had never seen. I had never seen individuals who truly understood Jesus's message about love. Yet here it was, right in my face. I also had the pleasure of meeting the pastor and his wife as they were on a rare visit home from Africa. I immediately became part of the family.
So, here you have this loving christian family, true servants all their lives, and bam!!! In walks prostate cancer. When most humans get hit with blows such as this they tend to ask God why he has forsaken him/her at some point. And that question is completely understandable. However, when a man such as my friend's dad goes through something like this, you definitely look up at the Big Man and say, really? Like, really? Even him? Your faithful servant who has done nothing but devote his life to you and sacrificed many things for himself and his family. This is how you repay him? Damn, that's fucked up!
I don't know this pastor that well. Maybe he had those thoughts, maybe he didn't. But he would be wise enough to know the troubles Jesus went through. There were moments where it seem like Jesus was forsaken (um, beaten and put on cross). I know this pastor would use those moments to find strength.
I learned something years ago about how our souls write our life charts when in Heaven (maybe I will blog about that later...it's pretty deep). These charts are the plot of our lives with many paths to choose from, all designed to teach us soul lessons while in the school of hard-knocks aka planet earth. What an amazing soul this pastor has to take on such an endeavour.
I believe the soul lesson here is just the opposite of feeling forsaken. When souls decide to take on such hardship in this lifetime, it makes a huge statement about the strength of those souls. [I hope I didn't just blow your mind too much with the idea that yes, my soul decided to be molested as a child to teach me a soul lesson and your soul decided to have all that bad shit (and good shit) that has happened to you too. It's hard candy to swallow at first but after a while, you accept it and use it has a source of strength...once gain, I will try to blog about that later.] The tougher your battleground, the tougher your soul. Most of the things people feel are unbearable are actually huge achievements in soul university. I know it all seems hard when you in the middle of the storm but coming out of it makes you soooo much stronger than you were before you went into it.
Although this man has devoted his life to the ministry, there must have been some huge soul lesson he has yet to hurdle. Or, he could be just taking part in the chart of his friends and loved ones to build their soul strength. Either way, this faithful servant is not forsaken. This faithful servant knows something the rest of us don't. This faithful servants knows that his body will remain in this world but that his soul has a place in Heaven with the Lord. He has known this his whole life. And when he comes home, the Lord will tell him, well done faithful servant.
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