Can you believe that today is the 33rd anniversary of when I came to know Jesus as my Savior? I had planned on writing something about being grateful that He was there for me in the hospital, only to find out that I already had....http://1ncisfan.blogspot.com/2010/07/salvation-how-it-helps-in-hospital.html
But a verse that I'm thinking of on this day is Numbers 23:19-
“God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
The reason that I think of Numbers 23:19 is because of "The Fat Man" (my nickname for my sinful nature and the subject of a couple of my blog entries). With many of us, when someone disappoints us or does something to hurt us, it usually takes a while for them to forgive us (if they do) and to restore fellowship with us. And sometimes that restoration seems to be conditional...But in this verse, we read that God is not like us and that is the greatest thing to think about in our relationship to Him.
Because we KNOW that we are going to fail Him, sometimes as early in the day as a couple of minutes after we get up in the morning, but unlike us when we ask forgiveness, as he tells us in 1 John 1:9-
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
And when we do, the restoration comes and the relationship that we have with God is made whole again. I know the danger is (and it has been discussed by minds greater than my own) that we abuse this privilege, by just asking forgiveness and then moving on like nothing happened. But if we truly love God and don't want to do things that hurt him, asking for forgiveness is not just a "get out of jail free" card, but rather should be a starting point for us to reform our lives and making it more like what the Lord wants it to be.
Isn't that what being in a relationship is all about (being single, I've never really been in a relationship [therefore the question])? In a relationship, when it is restored (whether it be friendship or marriage), shouldn't the goal then be to improve it and make it better? And we, whether single or married, young or old, whatever our state may be are in the greatest relationship of all-a relationship with the Lord Jesus-so shouldn't we make it our goal to make that relationship the best that we can make it? I know in 33 years, mine hasn't always been the best, but hopefully it's one that reflects the verse that I chose years ago as my life verse-Philippians 3:14-"
14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Sunday, July 14, 2013
interesting book
Getting back to the post that I wanted to do a couple of days ago...
This past Monday, I was at my local Barnes & Noble just looking for something to read. I wasn't thinking of buying anything, but just to see what was interesting. All of a sudden, one book caught my attention, entitled Destiny of the Republic-A tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a President by Candice Millard.
Those who know me know that I love history, especially Presidential history, so I decided to buy it...well, maybe she should have picked a different title for the book, but the content, however made the book worth reading. It became a mix of history, politics and medicine; put together in an entertaining and interesting read.
Most people know about the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations because of the extensive writings that have been done about it. But very little has been written about the second Presidential assassination in US history, President James Garfield. This book does a bit to cover that oversight. However the part that intrigued me was the medical mistreatment of the President. And to understand that, you have to go back to the state of medicine in the 1880's. If you saw Ken Burns' The Civil War miniseries, you saw how medical conditions were at that time. Well, very little if anything had changed in two decades.
If the shooting of Garfield had happened a few decades after it did, the President's life would have been saved- there would have been a X-ray to find where the bullet was and in a safe operating room, there would have been surgery and the bullet taken out and the President would have been back on the job in a few days. However none of those advances had taken place in 1881, and the medical abuse of the President started just after the shooting when a physician starting probing the wound with unsterilized fingers. From there it got worse, starting with a doctor who became the dictatorial head of the President's "care team", then continued with American arrogance against a new technique by an English doctor by the name of Joseph Lister (yes, the one they named Listerine after),where the operating room and instruments were sterilized to prevent germs from getting into the patient (the though of American doctors was "if we can't see it, it doesn't exist"), and finally the semi-sabotage of the best chance that the bullet would be found, an device that was basically a medical "metal detector" invented by Alexander Graham Bell (yes, the inventor of the phone-and if you read about him in this book, Bell was a very driven and dedicated man), that ended up in reality working, but was unsuccessful because of the limitations placed on Bell by the dictatorial doctor. There are so many other things that the President was subjected to in the 80 or so days that he went through this ordeal, but if I put them all down, you wouldn't read the book, would you?
In reality a statement made by the assassin (in today's society, he would have been locked up and put away) during his trial was closer to the truth than people realize..."General Garfield died from malpractice."
If you get a chance, get this book and read it. It may only take a day or two to read, but it is well worth understanding all the events that made up what happened to a President who shouldn't be as obscure as we have made him out to be....
This past Monday, I was at my local Barnes & Noble just looking for something to read. I wasn't thinking of buying anything, but just to see what was interesting. All of a sudden, one book caught my attention, entitled Destiny of the Republic-A tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a President by Candice Millard.
Those who know me know that I love history, especially Presidential history, so I decided to buy it...well, maybe she should have picked a different title for the book, but the content, however made the book worth reading. It became a mix of history, politics and medicine; put together in an entertaining and interesting read.
Most people know about the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations because of the extensive writings that have been done about it. But very little has been written about the second Presidential assassination in US history, President James Garfield. This book does a bit to cover that oversight. However the part that intrigued me was the medical mistreatment of the President. And to understand that, you have to go back to the state of medicine in the 1880's. If you saw Ken Burns' The Civil War miniseries, you saw how medical conditions were at that time. Well, very little if anything had changed in two decades.
If the shooting of Garfield had happened a few decades after it did, the President's life would have been saved- there would have been a X-ray to find where the bullet was and in a safe operating room, there would have been surgery and the bullet taken out and the President would have been back on the job in a few days. However none of those advances had taken place in 1881, and the medical abuse of the President started just after the shooting when a physician starting probing the wound with unsterilized fingers. From there it got worse, starting with a doctor who became the dictatorial head of the President's "care team", then continued with American arrogance against a new technique by an English doctor by the name of Joseph Lister (yes, the one they named Listerine after),where the operating room and instruments were sterilized to prevent germs from getting into the patient (the though of American doctors was "if we can't see it, it doesn't exist"), and finally the semi-sabotage of the best chance that the bullet would be found, an device that was basically a medical "metal detector" invented by Alexander Graham Bell (yes, the inventor of the phone-and if you read about him in this book, Bell was a very driven and dedicated man), that ended up in reality working, but was unsuccessful because of the limitations placed on Bell by the dictatorial doctor. There are so many other things that the President was subjected to in the 80 or so days that he went through this ordeal, but if I put them all down, you wouldn't read the book, would you?
In reality a statement made by the assassin (in today's society, he would have been locked up and put away) during his trial was closer to the truth than people realize..."General Garfield died from malpractice."
If you get a chance, get this book and read it. It may only take a day or two to read, but it is well worth understanding all the events that made up what happened to a President who shouldn't be as obscure as we have made him out to be....
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Something I'm glad didn't happen to me #2
Originally this post was going to be about this book that I finished reading yesterday and I'll probably do a post on that at a later time. The reason that I decided to postpone it was to write about a story that caught my eye...I went through a lot of things while I was in the hospital but nothing like this...http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ny-woman-declared-brain-dead-woke-up-moments-before-organs-harvested?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=11afd8d0d8-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines_06_19_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0caba610ac-11afd8d0d8-326216578
It seems that this woman was taken to the hospital after a drug overdose. While there, doctors assumed that she had suffered irreversible brain damage and was considered "dead" by the doctors...however it seems that she was not, for when she was about to have her organs harvested (to be donated to other people) she ended up waking out of what was described as a drug-induced coma.
Now can you imagine...waking out of a coma and finding out that they were going to cut you open and taking your organs out? And the according to this story, this has happened before and there were all sorts of tests and signs that were ignored or not done that would have prevented this from happening...
But the real tragedy of the story was not this, and the part that makes me wonder...was that 16 months later, she ended up "succeeding" in taking her life and this time she really ended up dead. The story mentions that the family didn't sue and that the young lady didn't care about that fact that doctors took her life. I know as a family they had to care about her, but why didn't they ask about why she overdosed in the first place or ask about her depression or lack of concern about this incident and find a way to discuss it with her? I don't know if the family knew the Lord or not, but maybe someone could have shared the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus with her??? Something to keep her from ending her life the way she did?? Something to keep the first tragedy from ever happening?
Just something to think about....
It seems that this woman was taken to the hospital after a drug overdose. While there, doctors assumed that she had suffered irreversible brain damage and was considered "dead" by the doctors...however it seems that she was not, for when she was about to have her organs harvested (to be donated to other people) she ended up waking out of what was described as a drug-induced coma.
Now can you imagine...waking out of a coma and finding out that they were going to cut you open and taking your organs out? And the according to this story, this has happened before and there were all sorts of tests and signs that were ignored or not done that would have prevented this from happening...
But the real tragedy of the story was not this, and the part that makes me wonder...was that 16 months later, she ended up "succeeding" in taking her life and this time she really ended up dead. The story mentions that the family didn't sue and that the young lady didn't care about that fact that doctors took her life. I know as a family they had to care about her, but why didn't they ask about why she overdosed in the first place or ask about her depression or lack of concern about this incident and find a way to discuss it with her? I don't know if the family knew the Lord or not, but maybe someone could have shared the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus with her??? Something to keep her from ending her life the way she did?? Something to keep the first tragedy from ever happening?
Just something to think about....
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