What Is The Abundant Life? Can I Have It, Please?
As I stared into the mirror, there was that rounded moon shaped face. The “buffalo hump” between my shoulders was beginning to go down; but, no away. Lingering effects from the long year of steroids to just barely stay alive; until, they finally had removed the colon. The surgical scars crisscrossed my body distorting whatever shape had previously been mine. Yet, those scars were few compared to the emotional scars that were within my heart. I had grown tired and weary of this journey. All alone, I stared into the darkness. I had been a dutiful little Christian and bore all the trials as they came with a stoicism and steady face. A stoicism I had learned during the years of abuse—a stoicism that you kept it all deep within. Don’t let anyone from out there see the real you; they will only hurt you. Oh, yes; God was my refuge. The only one I could turn to and I would continue to trust Him. Yet, abundant life? What was that?
I was alive. I had won the horrific battle against breast cancer (at least the first rounds). I had survived the steroids and meds of ulcerative colitis and the surgery to remove my colon. Financially I was in a hole so deep, I might never come out of it. Did I mention, I was also recently divorced? Perhaps trying to avoid saying, “I failed again!!” Yes, fool that I was I had remarried after having been a widow for two years; but, that ended in only heartbreak. Still, I was alive. My daughter was happily married and living in California. My sons were both off to study, Alberto at the University of Missouri and Ron in New Jersey at Joe Kubert’s School of Art. Could I say my life was abundant? Abundant with what—pain, sorrow, suffering, failure, loneliness? So, when in 2002, they found the mass on the head of the pancreas; a part of me thought this was God finally taking me home. I was tired. The journey had seemed so long. I wanted to go home to God. Little did I know that God had a very different plan!! His plan was to show me how to live life abundantly full of joy in Him. So, what is the abundant Christian life?
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