Hard Fought Hallelujah And More

Post 308

If I had not come across the below YouTube clip last night, I probably wouldn’t be writing. If another Christian substacker had not angered me yesterday, I probably wouldn’t be writing. I haven’t had anything new to say about dealing with my grief over Morgan’s passing since the last time I wrote, which is one reason I haven’t. The other reason I haven’t is because for the whole month of February we have been dealing with bad medical news for my hubby, which I’ll get to later in the post.

First, please take a few minutes to listen to this song by Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll, from a live performance at the Grand Ole Opry on February 19th. As I may have mentioned, I only learned about Jelly Roll last summer, and on my walks, I listen to many of his tracks from his Beautifully Broken album and a few others. His walk and the way he sings speak to me and many people. Brandon Lake is also wonderful. I hope it speaks to you powerfully.

Hubby spent several days in the hospital at the beginning of February and then about a week later, we found out he has pancreatic cancer. At this time, it appears to be stage one, which we are genuinely thankful for. My husband has been a healthy, disciplined, long distance athlete (marathon open water swimming), who eats better than the typical American diet. We were completely shocked. It has taken us the rest of the month to choose and get appointments with the treatment team, and now we are on our way to success with a plan in place. It has been an emotional rollercoaster waiting and acclimating, and he is sometimes in a decent amount of pain and fatigue. He immediately began a diet completely void of sugar or any processed food. We are determined that he will beat it, and he does have a good prognosis as of right now, even though this is one of the worst cancers a person can get statistically.

We are very grateful to God for helping hubby to be intimately aware of his body. Because he has taken good care of himself and isn’t on masking type drugs, he was able to notice his digestion being abnormal. Some pain began to set in, a difficult night, and then a decision to forego the long route of personal physician, who would likely refer to a specialist, while they rule out the many things it “could be” and give you drugs for things it “could be” (trial/error and trial/error like a lot of people go through.) Hubby made the decision to go straight to the ER, which gave us a very very big head start.

We are also extremely grateful for the friends and family who know, who have been supporting both of us with prayers and love. Just like when Morgan passed, I can truly feel the prayers holding us up. Satan wants nothing more than to make us think we are being punished in some way, or to split our marriage up so it really ruins our health and maybe even kills us. Satan knows positive attitudes must be maintained, and it is impossible without support and prayers from others.

So THIS IS WHY the above song feels powerful. I will NEVER stop praising God, even when it hurts.

Yesterday on substack, I came across some Christian writer who said something to the effect, “I would never pay a therapist good money for advice. I have everything I need right in the Bible.” It made me want to puke. All I could think of was, “You need to be down on your knees thanking God that you have not experienced anything tragic enough that you needed even more than Scripture can offer, you little S***.” Somebody nicely told her that might not be a great thing to say, although many others agreed. I calmed myself enough to write something like, “Sometimes tragedy strikes and God uses other people to get us through it, when only the words of scripture are not enough. He’ll use people, he’ll use nature, he’ll use songs. I would never wish ill will to you or anybody to find this out, but you might want to think about it.” The writer did not reply to the comment.

And this all takes me full circle back to Jelly Roll. Uppity “Christians” who have been blessed with the “good life” look down on the way Jelly Roll looks or talks or, oh my gosh, maybe he still drinks a beer, or even possibly gets drunk! They cannot relate, even for a second, of having enough trauma that it causes bad decisions to be made. The hardest or worse thing that ever happens to some people is they don’t get the X they want. (Boyfriend, job, apartment, car, spot on the sports team) Believe me, I’ve been there, and it makes me want to puke at my old self. Pretty much close to God because He gave me somebody to pray TO for what I WANTED. Sure, I was occasionally pretty grateful for my family and friends, I loved reading certain passages of the Bible, and I strived to “do better.” I intellectually and emotionally knew His ways are higher and better, but I never really cared ENOUGH to do the very hard work of imitating Christ to the best of my ability. It was not until Morgan died that I understood the Bible, and God’s love for me like never before. Unfortunately for me, it took that. She wins, and that’s the only way I can be grateful.

But you know what? The whole process is called sanctification. God chose me and I chose God, and it has taken many many years and circumstances to lead to sanctification. The substack writer will look back someday and realize how wrong she was. She is being sanctified. God still loves her. God still loves all of us, all of the time, but lady, your sins are NO DIFFERENT, than the sins you probably perceive me or Jelly Roll to have. You don’t see yours, but he sees yours and his own.

If you have been a regular church-goer your whole life, how would Jelly Roll (or me?) see the way you portray your “Christianity?” That brings me to one more Jelly Roll song that points this out, so take some time to listen to this one, too, if you’d like.

The final thing I wanted to write about today is to request your help. I could not be more grateful for the people who have read, subscribed to, and written reviews for The Rebel’s Hike. If you haven’t subscribed to The Rebel’s Hike Continues yet, would you? Would you like and share posts? I post audio chapters on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I have believed strongly that this book is a way to help change the way the younger generations view life. They don’t have to see it as ‘Christians are on the outside.’ They can take the lead to culture saying, “We love God and each other. Just watch.” And they’ll be different. They’ll have no desire to take part in the current culture which is really so disgusting now. It’s going to take people sharing the book, getting it into the hands of the right kid, or teen, or whoever the Holy Spirit picks to take the idea and run with it.

I will be busy taking care of hubby for the foreseeable future. I have committed to God to do at least one small thing every day to try to advance The Rebel’s Hike, and this request is today’s. Here is the link to our other substack. Please click and subscribe, and “like” and share posts if you feel called to help. If you want to but have difficulty, please let me know.

The Rebel's Hike Continues click on the title of the sustack and it will take you there.

I used AI to create the picture for the most recent post, Chapter 26, which was actually a lot of fun. I’m going to continue to do it that way from now on. I don’t know when I will write again, but it sure feels good to get all of this off of my chest! Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you.