Of scattered sheep, sinful shepherds, and a Sovereign Lord who saves.

Day 61

Ezekiel 24 - 35

Today was a very discouraging day in "Life with Autism."

Brandon was sleeping later than usual, which is never a good sign, but I remained hopeful as he woke up at 11am that if I can get him to hurry, (ha!  that has never happened) we can make it to school for lunch, and I can speed over to the pool to swim laps before that opportunity comes to a halt at 1pm. But alas, as I went to get things ready while he was eating, he had a seizure.

So while he was resting and I was scrolling through FB, all I kept seeing were posts from people in the autism community bashing others in the autism community.  Intermixed with that, were the countless posts of the missing for ten days now boy with autism who wandered from his school and has yet to be found.  It was sad.  Heartbreaking.  We should all be united to stand against our true enemiess: Pharma, Monsanto, CDC, the Vaccine Industry, -- working toward some type of infrastructure that will care for our children when us parents are worn out and dead.  Helping to ensure that no other child will be poisoned and left to suffer without medical treatment as so many like my son have.  Looking for Avonte...  But no.  Lines drawn and innocent parents made to choose which side of a fence to be on, in a pasture that should have no fence.  Lifelong friends in this autism journey, un-friended because of those lines drawn.  And still, more pictures of Avonte.  More stories of more Avonte's.  More autism, more wandering, more bickering.  And Avonte's mom....she most likely doesn't know of these fights in the autism community.  All she wants is to find her son.  But with all the bickering, lines being drawn, friends being un-friended, -- who is left looking?

It's all I want, too.  To find my son.  I want to find his health under all the toxins and poisons he's been exposed to and injected with.  I want to find something for his future -- where he will live, what he will be able to do.  And not anything at all in any of that negativity helps me do that.  It only hinders it.  And then staring at me on my desk I have my husband's health insurance enrollment package. I have yet to be brave enough to open that to see how much more I'll have to pay to get hardly anything that helps him covered.  I'll have to pay a lot to have insurance, and also know that most of my expense in healing my son is not covered by that insurance.  So I'll pay a lot more out of pocket.  And then there is the "Shutdown" fiasco in Washington. 

Discouraged, I turned to focusing on this days reading.  But darn-it-all if I wasn't understanding that either!  Until I came to Ezekiel 34.  Like, all of it.  I'll share some of it...

This is what the Sovereign Lord says:  Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves!  Should not shepherds take care of the flock?  You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.  You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.  You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.  You have ruled them harshly and brutally.  So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals.  My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill.  They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

That so applies to all the topics that have discouraged me today!  We today, are just like they were in the writing of those words in Ezekiel.  Woe to our Autism Community organizations who only take care of their own interests and not those of the whole flock!  Woe to our elected officials who eat the curds, clothe themselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but who do not take care of the flock.  Woe to all who purposefully scatter the autism community leaving everyone so wrapped up in that division that there is no one left to search for the 1 in 50 whose health has wandered away.  The countless like Avonte who actually wander away.  Most often never to be found.

We are scattered in our country because there is no credible presidential shepherd. 

We are scattered in the autism community because shepherds are backstabbing other shepherds harshly and brutally.

We Christians are scattered because we have abandoned God.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:  As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord:  This is what the Sovereign Lord says:  I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock.  I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves.  I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.

I'm so encouraged by that.  These past few books of the Bible have been filled with such turmoil.  Much like the autism community, much like our country.  But there is such HOPEISM to be found as well.  The people of Israel will be reborn.  God will return and dwell among his people again.

Our autism community will unite and be strong again.

Americans will take back their country.

Christians will turn their hearts and lives back to God.

For this is what the Sovereign Lord says:  I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.  As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep.  I will rescue them from all the place where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

I will search for the lost and bring back the strays.  I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy.  I will shepherd the flock with justice.

I will save my flock and they will no longer be plundered.

I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert and sleep in the forests in safety.

You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.


The Shepherd will search for his sheep, find them, rescue them, and forevermore look after them.

I find such REVIVAL in that.  For my autism community, my country, my church.

I so want my autism community as one powerful flock united together.  The 1 in 50 and counting, are counting on that.  My adult sheep is counting on that.  I'm counting on that.

To the HOPEISM of that!

HOOYAH
&
HALLELUJAH

Experiencing the Names of God...

In this past weeks lesson in the Experiencing God Bible study I'm going through, it talked about the "Names of God."  How we have Experienced him through who he is to us at different times in our life.

I was really touched by one verse...  In Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am."  

The author of the study explained further:
When God said, "I Am Who I am," He was saying, "I Am the eternal One.  I will be what I will be."  He was saying, "I am everything you will need."
I like that name of God.  "I am everything you will need."  Not everything I want, but everything I need.  And some days, like this morning, that is such a hard thing to understand.  I wanted to do all I had planned to do today.  But Brandon had a seizure this morning.  Yet another one.  "I am everything you will need...."   It's so easy to fit that name of God with things that do go my way.  But ahhhh, seeing how it can when everything isn't going my way --  that's Experiencing God.  Even not knowing how it does, as I often don't, yet still knowing somehow it does, is still Experiencing God.  The Sovereignty of God.

Through these times I look to my most favorite name of God that I have experienced.  Sustainer.  I don't know so very many things about Brandon's future.  I don't know how in the world Brandon has survived so many seizures that have tried to kill him, and a few times where they almost did.  I don't know what more to do or how much longer they will last.  All I know is that God has, is, and will sustain us all.

Each unit asks you to reflect on the thing that has most touched you for that week.  I think for me it has been the name of God that I will call, "He Who Knows the Future." 

The author of the study shared this:
"God's will is always best.  You never have to question whether His will is best or right.  It always is.  This is true because He loves you and knows the future."

So many times in the past few years we have been so disappointed in things that haven't turned out the way we had hoped.  After reading that, it was so comforting.  His will is always best.  His will is always right.  Why?  Because he knows the future.

I still have so many questions regarding the disappointments we have experienced.  The why? Why? Why? Why?  But even in that, I can have peace because God's will is always best.  God's will is always right.  Why? Because he loves me.  Because he knows the future.  Because he sees pitfalls that I can't see.  Because he has seen things needed in us that perhaps aren't quite there yet.  Because somehow what he has planned instead, is better.  In Isaiah 46:11 it says, "What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do."  That is what gets me through.  That nothing, not seizures, not any disappointment, will have the power to thwart God's plans for me, my sons, my family.  In all those questions I have, that statement is such a comfort.  That name of God something to hold onto...

"He who completes"

In the meantime, I think God likes it when we ask those questions of why.  I know he loves it when we turn to him, His word, to seek those answers of why...  And most of all, as I have come to find out in this past weeks study, even when I do all that and still don't understand, it's ok.  I simply need to just rely on this name of God ---

The Answer.


For all of my needs....He has been, is, and will always be -- the answer.

For now, John 13:7 will have to be that answer...

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

~ ~ ~

(Oh, how I can't wait to understand...to finally know him as, the explanation!)


(smile)