“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Fiver and I just got back from our walk to the neighborhood park and pond.  About two minutes into the walk I realized that my head was a little cold and that I had forgotten my hat!  But it was about 48 degrees when we started out, so I figured that I’d be fine.  Afterall, temperature wise, I was comfortable wearing my hiking shorts and a light weight hoodie and it wasn’t like I was going to freeze or anything… right?  Well, on the way back I became aware that my head was feeling fairly warm from the sun beating down!  Ah… the woes of having thinning hair… your head gets chilled in the cold weather and fries in the heat of the sun!

Yesterday was sort of a woeful day for me as well.  I started to feel all the symptoms of a cold coming on me around dinner time on Saturday evening and awoke Sunday morning with those same symptoms and a few more.  But I really wanted to go to church, so I dragged myself out of bed, read my Bible, fed the dog, took a shower and them took him out for the same walk we just completed a couple of minutes ago.  Like I mentioned above, it is not a long walk but the temperatures were cooler than today and there was a strong wind blowing in from the north… which means it’s a very chilling wind!

Well, that approximately one-mile round trip walk felt like it was a six-mile walk, uphill both ways… Kind of like the way my Mom told that she had to walk in the snow in New York when she was a young girl!  Anyway, with the cold symptoms, my legs felt like jello and I really had to push myself to get back to the house.  Once we got home, I plopped down at the kitchen table and realized that I was not going to make it to church.  And with it… all my plans for the day went up in smoke!  It’s funny how crazy your thoughts can become when you’re not feeling well.

Throughout the day I found myself fighting off all kinds of depressing thoughts, wondering what I was doing here, where my life was going, how much I desperately missed Piper and second guessing many of the decisions that I had made over the last year or so.  But, thank God, by late afternoon I pulled myself together, starting re-reading one of the Christian books* that changed the course of our life back when Piper and I were just married, and began to refocus my attention on moving on with all the things I have felt led to pursue in this New Year.

Before the walk this morning, I found myself saying: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”** That familiar quote got me to praying as I was getting ready for the day and I suddenly had the revelation, that I don’t need to start all over, fresh and anew… I just need to continue on from where I left off in life!  One of the things I began to see yesterday as I stood in the kitchen looking at the pictures of Piper that I had taped to the refrigerator that show the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s version of her, was that God didn’t put everything in me that He has over the years, including 48 years with the most wonderful woman in the world, a family of four great kids, 35 plus years of pastoral ministry, management positions with three world class organizations and a whole bunch of unrelated side jobs that I worked over the years to help support my family… just to forget about me now!

He also didn’t give me all those unique experiences so that I’d just throw them away and start over when the thigs in my life seemed to have taken a very wrong turn.  No… I am me for a reason!  I may not have a complete handle on what that reason is yet, but I’m going to pursue it and be successful within the realm of who I have become over the past 66 years of my life.  I am not sure why, but that revelation made me feel a whole lot better, more focused and more at peace and confident with myself and my future.

Another one of the many-favorite-of-mine-scriptures is found in Joshua 1:5.  Over the last nine years I have become particularly fond of the God’s Word© modern English translation of it, which reads, when the Lord spoke to Joshua as he stepped into a completely new role in his life as the sole leader of the Israelite nation, “No one will be able to oppose you successfully as long as you live. I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will never neglect you or abandon you.”  I printed out a personalized Scripture confession sheet yesterday, that I had put together soon after Piper’s passing where I had written part of this verse as “just as I was with you and Piper.”  That seemed to scratch just the right spot that I needed to scratch yesterday!

No matter what situation we may find ourselves in, no matter how desperate and or alone we might feel, it is good to know that the Lord our God is always with us.  That He will NEVER neglect or abandon us.  We learned some very difficult lessons during those years that we fought for Piper’s life, people said some awful things and a few even abandoned us… by through it all, the Lord our God stayed true to HIS Word.  Through thick and thin, the darkness of night and many times sitting on the floor in the hallway in tears… He NEVER abandoned us… And He will NEVER abandon you as well!

Have a great week, and as you do, say with me… “I am expecting the presence of the Lord with me wherever I go… no matter how difficult the circumstances may be!”



*The Believer’s Authority by Kenneth E. Hagin (revised edition) ©1986 Rhema Bible Church, AKA Kenneth Hagin Ministries (the original edition – the one I first read & still have a copy– was written in 1967)

**Attributed to Charles E. “Chuck” Dederich, Sr., (1913–1997)