John 3:35-36

John 3:35-36 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.

Good morning, breakfast club friends and family. Dad is on an early morning run to watch granddaughter Jaeda and grandson Jesiah and to get them on their separate journeys: Jesiah to early band practice and Jaeda to the bus or to school on time. When he sometimes mentions the challenges involved, I think of all the years I performed those duties for our five kids, often during times of duress and physical limitations. He has learned a lot as Papa/nanny to our grandkids over the past years since this old Grammy does not do the early shift or even the later shifts of child care as well as she used to. But God is in it all; and through it all, we learn trust, faith, and obedience. Even a 70-year-old grandpa learns as he follows hard after God, doing new things by faith, and giving of himself when it costs a lot and demands his best.

The two verses above from yesterday's passage stuck with me through the day and the night, both of which are hard from me just now with some ongoing and worsening neurological symptoms and a brain drain. I have been dwelling so much once again on who we are in Christ and who He is in us. As Christians, our belief in Jesus that He is indeed the Son of God, the giver of life, and our all in all gives us amazing hope, peace and joy in any and all situations. Because Christ came, died, and rose from the grave, we live also in newness of life by faith. So many times I see and hear young and even seasoned believers struggle with who they are, their faults and failings, their doubts and uncertainties, their inability to do what they want or know Christ wants from them.

The only hope of victory we have is in Jesus: his death, burial, and resurrection through the power of the Holy Spirit who now dwells in every believer. We have to know and believe the Word. We have to see that we are human, but we are fleshly beings who have been crucified with Christ and raised in newness of life in him. In just the past few weeks and days, I too have wondered how the dance of life with Jesus my Lord, my everything, will continue given this new stage, these new dimensions that are out of my control and that may worsen rather than improve outside of a mighty miracle (which I and others pray for daily). Who am I when my worth is not in my strength to do good, to walk uprightly and powerfully in Christ, going here and there as He wills, listening to him and trying to obey his voice? Who am I when I need the safety of a push cart/walker surrounding me to keep from falling down? Who am I when my brain sends me confusing messages and I must continually sub-vocalize what I want to say, in hopes that it comes out clear and sensical? Who am I when all that i ever was and hoped to be, the me I thought God wanted me to be is no longer a reality and perhaps no longer a possibility?

I am Jacqueline Bursch, child of God, born of the Spirit, redeemed of God, daughter of the King, overcomer through the power of the cross. I am a dreamer of dreams, a warrior in prayer and believing against all odds for every adopted daughter and son God has sent our way. I am hid with Christ in God. Nothing and no one can change that: neither defeats nor calamities, sickness or even death itself. I am alive because He's alive in me. That is my inheritance, my privileged standing in God's family of faith. I will not forget that, not ever. Neither should you, dearly beloved of God and of Dad's and my heart. Neither should you!