A New Creature. . . an Apostolic Pentecostal blog

 The Hand of God. . .  This   page of the story begins with a text message I received April 23rd a little after noon, from a co-worker of my daughter's, saying that she had not showed up for work which was very unusual for her, and they were wondering if I knew what was going on. I was at work, I let my wife Jackie know, and she began calling the local hospitals to see if Adrianne was a patient.  She found her at the St. Joe Medical center.  Adrianne was in their ICU sedated and on a ventilator. I went over there.  She had sepsis, pneumonia, and stage-two respiratory failure.  I learned later that she had begun feeling ill, and having trouble breathing the evening before, and had called 911 for an ambulance, which transported her to St. Joe. Subsequent medical tests, CT scans, etc. revealed that her aorta was grossly enlarged with a 5.9 cm aneurysm which was in danger of dissection (rupture) , greatly endangering her life.  Adrianne’s sepsis,...

  My life is so different today than the day before my heart surgery. Before my surgery I was walking two miles every day during my lunchtime at work. Today I gasp for breath after a walk from the bathroom to the kitchen, Trying to honestly evaluate why I share this with you, maybe in truth I'm looking for a small bit of sympathy or compassion, but more largely to share my discovery of a world I've been blind to before. From outward appearances I look healthy and whole, but from the inside my view is completely different. My world is a very different place from what it was two weeks ago. While in Cleveland Clinic's ICU for a few days, and after that for another 10 days, I was totally dependant on others for my most personal needs. To have to ask someone for help, and stand there while they cleaned me, was humbling beyond anything I've known since the lost memories of when I left diapers . It was totally humbling. . . humiliating to have to depend so completely ...

  Listening this morning to the book of Exodus this morning on my way to work, and my mind began wondering at the miracle of manna: Exodus NKJV 16:14-17 And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is the thing which the LORD has commanded: 'Let every man gather it according to each one's need, one omer for each person, according to the number of persons; let every man take for those who are in his tent.' " 17 Then the children of Israel did so and gathered, some more, some less. The Jews ate this manna for 40 years.  It is not said that they ate anything else.  Therefore on the surface of it, it must have been a 100% nutritionally complete food.  It had to provid...

Reading the Bible today about the New Jerusalem talked about in Revelation chapter 21, and how large it will be.  I looked and looked, and could not find anything, so I spent a couple of hours drawing up a CAD model of the United States, and then drawing the city of New Jerusalem to scale, and placed that model on the United States.  The picture is below. Revelation 21:9-25 (NKJV) Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife." 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. 12 Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of...

 Jackie and I's lives are full of dogs.  We have four.  We call them our fur-kids, and that is indeed what they are.  Our children are grown, and have their own lives.  We treasure our grandchildren, but weeks go by without our seeing them.   After a lifetime of raising kids, our dogs fill a role formerly held by our children.  As Sarah, our goldendoodle rescue lay on my lap this afternoon, it dawns on me how my relationship with my dogs, in some ways mirrors God's relationship with us. Our dogs can do nothing for us.  Some dogs are service dog, or guard dogs, or herding dogs, which perform important functions for their humans.  The only things our dogs do is love us, and if I might say, they worship us.  They are in great despair when we leave, and mightily celebrate when we return. They want to be near us, and keep us in sight no matter where we are in the house. . . kitchen, bedroom, and yes even the toilet. . . if we are th...

Coming back from Canada yesterday, I listened to Ecclesiastes on my audio Bible app.   Written by the richest man, in all likelihood the world has ever known.  From a Google search "Wealth of Solomon in today's dollars: King Solomon's total net worth is estimated by economic historians to be between $2 trillion and $3 trillion in today's U.S. dollars. I don't know that we've yet had our first official trillionaire?  In a melancholy mood he writes this book of perspective on his life, of the fruitlessness of all his life's work and efforts. I think to my own life, mirrored in the engineers who trained me. . . Jim Tweedy, Frank Whitmyer, Charlie Carlton. . . giants of their day, but with my passing no one will have any memory of their names, and their huge contributions to the workholding field. . . Now only digitized signatures of long gone paper drawings. . . rarely viewed. . . all vanity as the preacher said so eloquently.  Their earthly works, all fading ...