Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
10/15/2021
Sometimes We Just Blow It!
We celebrated my mom‘s 96th birthday this last Saturday. She had three of her friends drive over an hour to get here. Jim was 94, Shirley was 86 and Georgie was 69. As much as my mom loves her family, the interaction between those four was precious beyond description. Especially the goodbyes and the hugs and the kisses and the whispers in the hope for the next meeting. We selected about 100 photos from moms’ children and made this collage for the television along with a couple of pieces of special music and we were able to sit there and watch together as a family, celebrating her life back to when she was a young girl. It was very special.
It was for the most part a family gathering of my siblings and their children, a lot of food, a lot of decorations, a lot of celebrating this woman who has been through so much these last four months.
But how do I say this? Being the oldest in my family it has fallen to me for many years to lead prayers, to assemble the family in a circle to talk about our blessings or our trials and pray together when we have our family gatherings. I was so caught up with getting pictures with my mom and visiting with family we hadn’t seen in a while I got distracted. We had an awesome cake we, sang happy birthday and we got some more great photos and mom was just sworn out. She had 2 1/2 hours of being alert and kept it together. Then everybody was out the door saying what a great family time it was. But shortly thereafter the light came on.
For once, we didn’t even bless the food. We all didn’t sit around and talk about the many blessings God has given my mom and each one of us during this pandemic. We didn’t offer praise to God for our blessings for the incredible doctors that have helped my mom along the way these last four months through six hospital stays through multiple Covid attacks and pneumonia that never went away. congestive heart failure, fluid in her lungs and outside of her lungs along with two or three other ailments that have all been brought about by the covid attack that struck our entire family. We didn’t talk about the dozens of lives that my mom has touched, being in the hospital, always blessing them in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, blessing them in their comings, and going out of her room. Every nurse, every doctor, every CRM that came into her room was touched by this old lady who had nothing but joy to give. And it was always to give glory to God.
When my sister came and brought this to my attention tonight, I was devastated. This has always been my pleasure and responsibility. To top it off there was no gathering of all of the family to lay hands on my mom and to just bless her and to thank the Lord that she’s able to even be off oxygen a few hours every day. How she, as weak as she is, has gotten stronger over these last several weeks. And even though hospice has been called in to help my sister care for her. The chaplain who came in said, I don’t even know why am here you act more like somebody in their 80s and in their 90s. But we got so caught up in the festivities and making sure we had some great pictures and spending time with mom and family that we didn’t give or take time to give credit to the number one person who has made all of this possible Jesus Christ. When we talk about my mom’s strength and the courage and resilience to live every breath of that, even from her weak scar tissues Covid‘s lungs has come from Jesus
himself. She is a walking miracle because of him and him alone. And it reminded me of the story of Mary and Margaret when Jesus came over and Mary sat at his feet and Margaret was busy caring for all of the people that had come into her house.
And he said to Margaret… Mary has chosen and done the right thing.
What amazes me, frustrates me, and befuddled me, is that how could I have missed that today? How could I have missed the most important person in the room and in our lives and not give Jesus credit for all that he has done for this entire family?
Yes, I know that our Lord is forgiving and gracious at every turn. But I would love this to be a lesson for how easily we get distracted in the greatest and finest of times and somehow we get distracted away from the most important person in our lives. All I can say is that we need to be ever vigilant, ever thankful. We are here for one purpose and one purpose only and that is to give glory to God. To worship him in everything that we do. It takes a lot of work, a lot of intentionality, to lean not on our own understanding. I know God has forgiven me for this oversight, but I have to tell you I struggle forgiving myself for such an offensive move. So I encourage each of you as I humbly leave myself accountable to you for my selfishness and lack of focus that you would not do the same. I’m not sure exactly how this will touch each of you but I pray the Holy Spirit touches you in the deepest part of your soul so that you too may realize who is the most important person in your life and how we
are to be exulting him at every turn and with every breath.
Lastly, Self-forgiveness enables you to separate who you are, from the mistakes you have made. (I hope you heard that!) This way you can begin to learn from your choices and find ways to make amends when possible and make changes when necessary. It will be easier to truly forgive others when you start forgiving yourself. Forgiveness is a process that takes time. I added some scriptures below if you have time on forgiveness.
Darlene Zschech Hillsong And that my soul knows very well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2dzy4qRJUU
Ps 32:5 “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.
James 5: 16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Isaiah 43: 25: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. 26 Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence.
Col 1: 13 “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
