At age 63 I am setting at my desk writing from reflections of how blessed I am. Married to the same woman for going on 43 years, two beautiful daughters who honor and respect their mother and I, two son in law’s who love them and honor them, two beautiful, gifted, and God fearing grand-children. I must mention years of good health, steady job from which I retired in 2011, same for my wife and my children and children’s children, well except for the retirement thing. However, Denise is working on an exit plan from her long term employment. We have set a few goals along the way and met most of them but honestly for us it has been a journey of faith, hope, and love. It has been good.

There is a very simple reason I can say that and it does not come from having a lot of processions or lots of money or because I am an American.

Now that said, this journey of our family has not been without struggles. Struggles with each other, extended family, friends, co-workers, school teachers, church folk, complete strangers (most of those being drivers of the other car). Like everyone else I spent a lot of time looking for the reason and or the cause of our struggles; in other words I wanted someone to hold responsible, to blame, to bring to accountability and last but not least experience justice for all the “suffering” and “pain” from broken hearts, lost dreams, misplaced or unfruitful plans and delays (some traffic related).

God took his fair share of the blunt of the hot wrath from The Rev. Rog. So did my wife, children, co-workers, peers, and the list could go on. Yep, I dodged the bullet as much as I could just like many people but also like many I came to post-struggle places that can only be describe, by me, as fields of grace and streams of mercy. Once my eyes were opened to where I had arrived I realized that it was me myself and I that opened the door for a lot of those struggles; those of my own as well as those suffered and endured by my wife, children, son-in-law’s and, grand-children, again the list could go on.

Now honestly I realized, after the amazement of my having found myself there, I was not the cause of the majority of my personal and the other’s struggles. Why? Well, Life on this plain is a struggle. It is suppose to be. It did not have to be that way, Eve could have listen to the earlier voice that had spoken wisdom to her about the forbidden fruit, Adam could have intervened and exercised a husband’s protective covering over his wife and stopped her (gently). In other words the original mom and pop could have resisted the serpent’s taunt and tease thereby avoiding the fall, but they did not choose that path. The fall happened and as it has been said before, the rest is history.

Now you may be thinking “Ok, The Rev. Rog is on the path of wrath again!” Laying the blame upon a dead and gone couple who can not defend themselves.” Well, not really. All that the original mom and pop could have done to avoid struggle I could also do now or could have done in the past if only I would have listen to Holy Spirit. That is what I meant by coming to realize that I and I believe you too are continuously brought to a broader place than our struggle or struggles we are currently in because once resting in fields of grace by the streams of mercy we can come finally realize there is a much greater need than to know the reason for struggles and or who caused a struggle in the first place. The revelation of my need, and I believe for all of us, is to forget and forgive.

Forget the offense and forgive the offender. This practice is not original with mankind. No, originally it was practice by God, not Allah, Buddha, or any other false god conjured up over the ages by mankind. No the God I speak of is the one true and living God, Yahweh. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, The God of Israel.

So, my journal thought today ends with this, we will always have struggles but there is a place of complete rest as we work and walk through each struggle. A place of Yahweh’s making that is broader than where we were in the place of the struggle. Here anyone you and I can come to learn the forgetting and forgiving nature of Yahweh and are shown, since you and I are made by Him in His image, that you and I can practice the same practice as He. Here in this place of rest in grace and mercy I can overcome, and so can you, every struggle.

Indeed, life is good!

Isaiah 33:20-22

The Voice (VOICE)

²⁰ Ah, just look at Zion! The city where we celebrate,
where we make our God-appointed feasts.
You’ll see a Jerusalem at peace, untroubled, undisturbed,
like a permanent tent with stakes driven deep and ropes that never break.
²¹ There, the Eternal, so splendid and regal,
will be for us a place of broad rivers and wide canals.
No large boats will pass through them—
no mighty ships will sail their waters.
²² For the Eternal One is our Judge; He has prescribed our laws;
He rules over us, and He is the One who will save us.