RE-BUILDING part 1

It seemed like everywhere I turned over the weekend, I felt, saw, and heard the Lord talking about RE-BUILDING.  It actually began on Friday morning as I walked out of the Vet’s office where I had just picked up another six-month supply of Fiver’s heartworm medicine.  As I walked toward my car in the warm morning air, I suddenly stopped and found myself speaking aloud saying “I have to find a new meaning for my life without Pipe!” (as I sometimes would refer to her… simply because it was cute and that it rhymed!)

I had thought about this before, but it just really seemed to hit home at that particular moment in time.  As I thought on it, I saw that every time I look at my past, all I can see is Piper… and when I look at the present and beyond to my future, all I see is a hazy patch of white fog.  And again, I thought about how difficult it is right now, for me to be me without her.  After all, since High School, it has always been the Jim and Piper show.  It’s like the two names were synonymous with each other and went together like peanut butter and jelly!  It is hard to say one name without the other attached to it!

I woke up on Saturday morning thinking about who I am and as has been my longtime habit, I began to search the scriptures to get God’s point of view on the subject.  Then later in the afternoon I had a long conversation on the phone with our youngest daughter in Oklahoma.  After catching up on all the family happenings in the Midwest, as three of our four kids live out there, the conversation turned to me and the idea of the need to fill all the voids that have opened up in me since Piper left the earthly scene.

I was telling JoAnna that I realized earlier in the day, just how much I depended on Piper’s confirmation on so many of the things I did on a regular basis.  Like when I finished sanding and repainting the window in the master bathroom the other day and had leaned back to look at my handy work and saw that my first thought was to call in Piper to get her opinion… and then I realized that I can’t do that anymore!  I noticed that I’ve been doing this a lot over the last four months.  And that is when the thought of RE-BUILDING came into play.  As JoAnna and I talked, we agreed that there needs to be a RE-BUILDING of Jim Berruto!

I began to get excited on Sunday morning when I read the account of Nehemiah when he first talked to the captive Israelites about the possibility of REBUILDING the walls of their beloved city Jerusalem.  After much prayer and fasting, he spoke with the King and afterwards, secretly surveyed the project in the cover of the night.  He would later recall: “Then I told them (his fellow Israelites) that my God had been guiding me and what the king had told me. They replied, ‘Let's begin to rebuild.’ So they encouraged one another to begin this God-pleasing work.” (Nehemiah 2:18 God’s Word ©) 

I was exited because the people were agreeing with Nehemiah about the possibilities of RE-BUILDING the walls of the city, even though the destruction was immense, looked impossible and would be emotionally straining to them… Kind of like what’s happening with me!  The other part of that scripture that greatly encouraged me was the idea that the whole plan was called a “God-pleasing work!”

I felt a warm glow throughout my body with the positive thought that the REBUILDING of Jim Berruto might just be pleasing unto the Lord.  Most of the other translations that I looked at simply called the REBUILDING of the wall a “good work!”  But either way, it gave me a surge of expectation that God still has a good plan for my life.  And even though I cannot yet conceive of beginning anew without the one who has filled so many parts of me over the past 48 years, I am starting to see the possibility of a positive outcome beyond the white fog that I see out there today!

It is just like everything else we as Christians should do in the world today… It is all about doing it in faith!  After all, the writer of Hebrews did tell us that “without faith it is impossible to please him…” (Hebrews 11:6 KJV)  So… if I am going to be part and parcel of the REBUILDING project that God wants to do in me… then I want what I do to be pleasing to Him… Right?

Have you ever considered if the things that you endeavor to do on a daily basis are pleasing to Him?  Just a thought…

I’m sure that I’ll be writing more on the subject of the REBUILDING of Jim as the Lord pursues His construction on those parts of me that need a new foundation!  In the meantime, have a great new week, and as you do, say along with me… “I am expecting whatever I do today, to be pleasing unto the Lord”