The Fourth Quarter

Valerie Cullers 22 Comments

In the past ten months, five acquaintances of mine have passed. Four out of the five were just living their lives, had pain in a certain area, and went to the doctor. They were immediately put on hospice, and lasted between two and ten weeks. To say that it was a bit surprising is an understatement. Here were these perfectly “healthy” individuals going about their daily routines, and suddenly they were in the process of getting their affairs in order.

My friends and I were in shock at the suddenness of it all. There was not a lot of time to mentally prepare for the loss of these individuals. After thinking about it for a while, I asked the Lord to give me a different perspective on these losses. As I was walking by the television, I caught a reference to being in “the fourth quarter of life.” I was busy and didn’t stop and listen to what the woman was saying but I have thought about that phrase a lot since then.

When we watch a football game that is in the fourth quarter, there is only so much time left for the players to play. A lot of injuries happen in the fourth quarter and players are taken out of the game. They have given their all and their bodies can only cope with so much trauma. It is the same for humans. By the time we get to the fourth quarter, our bodies have served us for decades. They took us to work for forty years, helped us bear and raise children, and allowed us to wake up and live each day.

In the fourth quarter, the game is about to end. Similarly, our lives are about to end at some point. We should not be shocked that some will be leaving the game of life early. After all, some have already left in the first, second, and third quarters. By the fourth quarter, we are all going to be facing the end of the game.

Thinking about “the fourth quarter” has given me a peace about the losses. I should not live life with the idea that I will live forever in this earth suit I have been given and neither will my friends and family. I need to prepare for the end of the game and not be taken by surprise.

James 4: 14 says: “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” When I was in my twenties, I didn’t really relate to this verse. Now that I am older and people are passing around me, I am forced to consider this statement. No matter how long we live, our years will be brief in light of eternity. I guess we all have to ask ourselves, “Are we prepared for the end of the game? Are we prepared if we are taken out earlier than expected by some illness or misfortune?“

Professional football players have great coaches that prepare them for the game and help train them to last until the end of each game. We have a chance to choose a Coach that will prepare us for the game of life. His name is Jesus and all we have to do is turn to Him and ask Him to help train us and show us how to play the game. He will be there until our final moments in the game and will be with us when we shed our earth suits and leave for the next phase of our spiritual journey.

Image by Chepalos, Courtesy of Pixabay

Unmasked

Valerie Cullers 14 Comments

Last Friday in New York City, the Annual Drag Queen Parade was held. According to The Daily Signal, the marchers chanted, “We’re here. We’re queer, and we’re coming for your children.” Shocking to say the least. My first reaction was outrage, but then I thought, “Do they not fear God?” Surely, they must realize they are shaking their fist in the face of God when they are talking about sexualizing children.

Jesus was pretty clear about how He felt about those who mistreated children. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes.” Matthew 18: 6-7

Before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me, and if not, I will know.” Genesis 18:20-21 Where do you think the outcry came from in Sodom and Gomorrah? I am convinced that the outcry that came to the Lord’s ears was from innocent children who were being sexually assaulted in those cities, i.e., those that did not desire to participate in the sexual perversion that was going on.

When it comes to the sexualization of children by adults, the judgement will be very severe indeed. Those that cannot defend themselves will ultimately be vindicated by a loving and just God.

For those marchers in the parade, their motives have been unmasked. It is up to us as parents and grandparents to realize that there is a war going on against the innocence of our children. We must not be naive about it and pretend it doesn’t exist. We must protect them from the forces that would destroy them.

For those who would like to listen to the marchers in the parade, the video is available on Youtube.

Image by Antobellam. Courtesy of Pixabay

Woke, Awake, Aware or Sleeping?

Valerie Cullers 10 Comments

When you think of yourself in relation to the changes happening in our society, would you consider yourself Woke, Awake, Aware or Sleeping? As you might expect, there are benefits and dangers in each category.

Take Woke, for example. If you consider yourself Woke, you might strongly align with the current opinions of the Woke culture. If we are talking about climate change, you could be for moving to a fully green society on the quickest possible timetable. And you might want to get rid of those 70,000 cows producing methane. You might believe gender dysphoria is a huge issue and agree that everyone has a right to gender-altering surgery starting at a very young age. You might work for monetary reparations for those whose ancestors were slaves. These are only a few examples of the platform of the Woke culture. One of the biggest benefits of agreeing with them is that you will receive very little pushback in academia or in the corporate boardroom when expressing your opinion. The danger of aligning with these ideas is that the consequences of these policies will strain the financial stability of our society and cause irreparable damage to those affected by them. Where would you be if fossil fuels were outlawed in five years? Could you afford an electric vehicle? What if you had gender-altering surgery at 13 and, at 21, decided to change your mind? Does your city or state have the financial resources to pay reparations to those deserving them?

Do you consider yourself Awake? If so, have you done your homework and sought out varying opinions on the current topics of the day? Have you listened to more than one news outlet and studied the issues from different sides? The benefit of being Awake is that you will not get swept up in current popular opinion and will not fall for whatever is being hyped at the moment. The danger of being Awake is that it is easy to be overwhelmed with so much information. It takes real mental energy and time to have informed, objective opinions after sorting through the available facts.

How about being Aware? If you consider yourself Aware, you know what is going on around you, but you are too busy or distracted to educate yourself on what is happening. Life might be good, and you don’t want to rock the boat in your own little pool of water. Or perhaps, life is bad and you just can’t think outside of the circumstances enveloping you. One benefit of being Aware is that you don’t have to deal with the stress of the cacophony of the news. The danger of being Aware but not Awake is that changes will be coming down the pike, either legislatively or culturally, and when they do, you might wish you had been more engaged before policies are made that might negatively affect you.

And what about those who are Asleep? Do you go about your day so self-absorbed that you have no time or energy to engage in anything outside of your own egocentric circle? If so, you are the one who is in the most danger. Changes will happen in our society, and you will just have to deal with them with little or no forethought or preparation. That will be scary indeed. It may feel like a comfortable place to be if you are Asleep, but what would you do if your country went to a digital currency next year? Would you even know what is happening or why?

So many changes are on the verge of taking place in our society, socially, culturally and economically. We should take the time to be Awake as to what the changes will mean for each one of us. Yes, it takes a certain amount of mental energy to get informed but it will certainly be worth it in the long run.

Image by CPP20. Courtesy of Pixabay.

Home

Valerie Cullers 20 Comments

This past week, my husband and I were house/dog sitting for our kids. Each day we would return to our own house to check our mail, etc. When it was about time to return to our kids’ house, I would say, “It’s time to go home.” He would try to correct me and say, “No, this is our home.” I would then say to him, “My home is wherever we are.”

You see, my house, or home, used to be important to me, but all of that changed when he was in the hospital. He spent about three weeks there, and I stayed at my son and daughter-in-law’s. When I would return “home” to get supplies, I would look around, and it was nothing but a structure without him. I would only feel “at home” when we were together. It didn’t matter if he was at the hospital or rehab center; wherever we were was “home.” My emotional attachment to our physical house has now changed; it is no longer our home, just where we are staying. This newfound freedom only adds to my sense of well-being.

Spiritually, my perspective on my eternal home changed years ago. When I first became a believer in Jesus Christ, I learned that Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” That meant that He was King of another kingdom, a spiritual kingdom if you will. I quit looking at myself as a citizen of this world and began to see myself as a citizen of His Kingdom, with His priorities in mind. I didn’t quit caring about the people and events taking place around me, but I did view them differently. For example, I certainly wasn’t going to make myself miserable with all the political machinations taking place in the news. I care about what’s going on, but I prefer to take the long view when it comes to them. I care about things from an eternal perspective now. You see, my eventual home will be with Jesus wherever He is. I want to promote His kingdom and be concerned with the things He is concerned about, and I do know one thing. He cares about people. He wants people to come to know Him and spend eternity with Him in His home.

What about you? On an emotional level, where do you consider your home to be? And what about on a spiritual level, where do you think your eternal home will be? If you are not sure, check out Jesus and what He has to say about it. He will gladly point you in the right direction.

Photo courtesy of PIxabay.

Grateful

Valerie Cullers 21 Comments

“GIVE THANKS WITH A GRATEFUL HEART” – song by Don Moen

A few weeks ago, I published a post entitled “Sustained.” I shared how the Lord and the prayers of so many people helped get me through a rough patch in my life. I would be remiss if I did not also thank the many people who contributed to my husband’s recovery and my own survival during such a difficult time.

Again, a special thank you to all who prayed for us in our time of need. Thank you to all who read the recent post and sent a compassionate note. It was interesting that when my husband was taken to the Boise hospital that it just “happened” that one of the finest neurologists in Idaho was on duty. He stayed on my husband’s case until he was certain that the bleeding had stopped in his brain. The nurses and aides were great, every one of them. One doctor in the SICU said, “How is it that your husband always gets the best nurses on every shift?” Another answer to prayer.

The therapists, doctors, nurses and aides at the Rehab hospital also get a great big, “Thank You.” They are the ones that worked several hours a day to get him ready to come home. By the time he came home, he could walk with a walker and do most things for himself. I will always be grateful to them.

And last but not least, our son and daughter-in-law who took me into their home for a month. They rearranged their schedules in order to take me to the hospital and pick me up each day. They were concerned with my every need and shielded me from loving and concerned people who would have overwhelmed me emotionally. How can I ever thank them?

At this time, my husband is doing well. He is much improved and can do most things except drive. Life goes on and I will return to blogging and writing, but I couldn’t move forward until I publicly thanked each and every one of you who helped us during this difficult time.

Sustained

Valerie Cullers 30 Comments

“He shall cover you with His feathers; and under His wings you shall take refuge.” Psalm 91:4

Late in November, my husband had an ischemic stroke. He spent a day in the hospital and we were rejoicing because he had no restrictions and no deficits. It was if it had never happened. The doctor was positive and gave him medication to mitigate any possible further strokes. Great…no problem…or so we thought.

Ten days later, the nightmare began. At 3:00 A.M., he had a hemorrhagic stroke caused by the medicine. He collapsed on the floor of the bathroom and could barely speak. He could not move, and I ran to dial 911. I also called my son at that time. The moments crawled by as I waited for help. I brought him a pillow and held his hand. Finally, the paramedics came and took him to the hospital. My son had arrived by then, and we followed behind.

He went to the first hospital and they took a CT Scan and we were told they did not treat this kind of stroke and we would need to go to the larger hospital downtown. My son brought me home to pack and we went there. In the meantime, I asked him to call my daughter-in-law ask her to put us on the prayer chain at church. Believe me, I was barely holding it together.

My son and I entered my husband’s room as nurses were putting in the IVs. The neurologist arrived soon after and told us that because my husband had two different types of strokes, it would be dicey treating him. Both strokes required different blood pressure levels, and we were in SICU so that he could get the required medicine and be watched carefully. The neurologist took an MRI and told us that we would have to wait until the next day to see if the bleeding in his brain would stop. As he examined my husband, we saw that he could barely talk and he had no feeling on his right side. He could not hold his arm up or his leg for any length of time. It did not seem like the prognosis was great.

However, day by day, we saw improvement. The first day we got the good news that the bleeding had stopped in his brain. We saw from the monitors that they were able to keep his blood pressure in the target range to treat both strokes. After three days without food, a therapist came in to give him a swallow test. He was able to begin to eat food. After six days, he could stand by his bed holding onto a walker. They then transferred him out of SICU to a regular room.

Three days later, he was discharged to a therapy hospital. During that time, he received three hours of therapy; speech, occupational and physical. By the time he left there, he could walk with a walker, and they helped him with simple skills like bathing and dressing himself. Every day, he made a little more progress. Twelve days later, he was released to go home. We stayed at our son and daughter-in-law’s for a week, then we returned to our own home. He continues with therapy two times a week and has gone from using a walker to being able to walk on his own. Every week, we see improvement in his condition. Much of the feeling has returned to his right side.

As difficult as this journey has been, I would not have come through this without the kindness of our son and daughter-in-law, our friends, and the countless prayers of people, many of whom we did not know. There were so many nights when I could not pray. I just stared at the ceiling and felt my own emotional pain. And yet, the Lord sustained me (and my husband) each and every day. He met need after need with His grace as I felt His love and comfort. There is no One like Him and I know I could not have survived this without His sustaining power.

Give Peace A Chance

Valerie Cullers 24 Comments

Last Saturday evening, I was reading the news before I went to bed. I read where the US had deployed the 101st Airborne Division to the northern border of Romania, about three miles from the border of Ukraine. Brigadier General John Lubas stated that the 101st, “The Screaming Eagles,” were not deployed in a training mission but in a combat-ready mission. He stated they were ready to go into Ukraine should the conflict escalate or if a NATO country was attacked. The 101st Airborne has not been deployed to Europe since our entry into World War II eighty years ago.

As I thought about this fact, I thought to myself, “We’re getting ready for a ground war.” I then checked the stats. Before the war started in Ukraine, the US had 60,000 troops stationed in Europe; now there are 100,000 soldiers there at the ready. What bothers me most about these statistics is that at the moment there is not a serious effort to get the parties involved in peace negotiations.

The US could press the Ukrainians to the peace table but it is not being done. The fact that it would take so little for the US to get involved in a ground war in Ukraine should give us all pause. Just think what would happen if one errant missile landed in a Romanian or a Polish village. Would that be the pretext for NATO getting involved in the current war? Wars have been started in the past with less than that as a provocation.

There was a line in a chorus that protesters sang during the 1970s while the Vietnam War was going on. It went like this, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” Over and over we sang this line. Just give peace a chance. And now, is anyone seriously pursuing peace in the Ukrainian conflict? Not that I can see. Anyone who mentions pursuing peace is shouted down and pressured to stop talking. I want to know, when did peace become a dirty word?

If you feel like I do, let’s do something. I know we can make a difference. We can write our representatives in Washington and let them know we want them to slow down this rush to war. They are holding the purse strings that are allowing this war to continue. And of course, we can pray. We must pray that people will wake up and quit blindly marching to war. We can pray that the Russians will not make a mistake that will draw all of Europe and the US into a ground war. And finally we can pray that men on all sides of the conflict will be open to negotiations and give peace a chance.

Image by Engin Akyurt. Courtesy of Pixabay

Bruised, Broken or Shattered?

Valerie Cullers 20 Comments

Many times in life, we find ourselves in pain. Something has happened to us, and we must deal with the consequences of it. We may have caused the pain to ourselves, or someone else may have done it. Either way, we need help. We need Someone who can take the pain away and heal us.

Lots of things can knock us around in life. Circumstances, the loss of a job, a best friend moving away, or some other life changing situation comes crashing into our life. We feel bruised; others may not see it but we feel it just the same. We are hurting. No, we are not bleeding on the outside but our spirit has been bruised. Is there Someone we can go to, Someone who cares? When describing Jesus in the Scriptures we read, “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench; He will bring forth justice for truth.” Isaiah 42:3 We can rest assured that when we come to Him with our hurts, He will help us. He will not rebuke us for our weakness or our pain.

What about when we have sustained a bone-crushing injury? Something has happened to us that we cannot ignore or hide. Maybe we have lost a loved one or have been accused of something falsely. We need help, and we need it badly. Can anyone come and splint our injury and help us while we go through a time of restoration? Again, in describing the work of the Lord, we read that, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3 All we have to do is call out to Him when we need help, and He will be there.

Is the Lord big enough to help us when we have suffered a soul-crushing injury? We feel we have been run over by a steamroller, and there is not much left of us. Perhaps our spouse has run off with another person. Perhaps the business we have spent a lifetime building has gone bankrupt. Perhaps a hurricane or other natural disaster has taken from us everything we own. Is the Lord big enough to help even when we go through our worst times? I’m talking about those times when we can hardly speak because of the pain we are in. We feel our life is over, and there is nothing to be done. Can He help us even when our hearts are shattered? Jesus is talking about himself in Isaiah 61: 1-3, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” Yes, we can look to Him. Jesus is big enough to bring us through our soul-crushing disaster, heal us from our heart-shattering pain, and give us new life again. We just have to ask.

Guest Book Review: Sarah’s impression of The Unwelcome Stranger by Valerie Cullers — I Love Romance Blog

Valerie Cullers 7 Comments

Hi, readers! Please welcome Sarah, our guest book reviewer, to ILRB! She’ll be hanging out with us today, taking the time to give us her take on a cool romance novel! Let’s give her a hand…Sarah, take it away and show us what you have for today.

Guest Book Review: Sarah’s impression of The Unwelcome Stranger by Valerie Cullers — I Love Romance Blog

From My Window – an eMarie blog

Valerie Cullers 12 Comments

Outside In

As a fun pastime, I began researching and recording adages. With the passage of time these incredible sayings that speak a broad truth seem destined to fade into the sunset – never to be heard again. Compelled to share their origins and Biblical applications, here is the first of many.

From the blog’s title, can you guess today’s adage? 😊

Some say this phrase can be traced back to the Victorians who would insert other reading materials between the pages of a Bible. So, they outwardly appeared holy and devout, but that might have been a far cry from the truth.

Then the adage made an appearance in the Piqua, OH newspaper, Piqua Democrat, in June 1867: “Don’t judge a book by its cover, see a man by his cloth, as there is often a good deal of solid worth and superior skill underneath a *jacket and yaller pants.” Martin Luther King may have harkened back to this when he said to judge not by skin color but by…”the content of their character.”

In the 1944 edition of African Journal American Speech, the phrase read: “You can’t judge a book by its binding.”

But in the 1946 novel, Murder in the Glass Room, authors Edwin Rolfe and Lester Fuller penned: “you can never tell a book by its cover.”

And let’s not forget Bo Didley’s 1962 hit, written by Willie Dixon: “You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover.”

The above research cites interesting information, but the Old Testament book of Samuel gives the best, original, and accurate use of this adage: “For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b, NKJV)

God sees beyond the outside. No matter who we are, how much we “paint the barn,” or hide behind book covers, He cuts through it all and discerns our hearts. No need to put on airs. In fact, the only way we can “dress for success” is to put on Jesus’ righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). When we accept Jesus Christ into our hearts, God doesn’t look at us any other way than through Jesus – clean, pure, holy.

We’re no longer judged (condemned). We’re covered!

*According to knowyourphrase.com, the words were small and difficult to read.

eMarie’s blog “From My Window” is full of encouragement. She will brighten your day and expand your knowledge of the subject she is writing about. eMarie has a passion for writing and has written various award winning short stories. She has published a delightful children’s book, “A Snowflake’s Adventure,” and she is currently working on a suspense series. If you enjoyed this blog and would like to read more posts “From My Window by eMarie,” please go to https://www.merryheartink.com/outside-in/ and sign up. I really enjoy her blog and I know you will too!