Why Does Cancer Kill
I was at Wal-Mart with my one and a half year old granddaughter and her two and a half year old brother. Without any warning my granddaughter started smiling and waving while saying hello to everyone we walked passed. No one seemed to notice her eager greetings, as if her little welcoming voice wasn’t enough to pull them out of their busy schedule.
I smiled at her enthusiasm and warm welcome to the people around us. I thought about how different our world would be if all of us could express our joy like a little child. A child who was living her life right now without the dismal clutter human beings carry around on their shoulders.
In today’s society we are constantly bombarded with devastating disasters, disputes that lead to war, and the reality of serious debilitating diseases. It consumes us and so we become numb to their existence. It is not until it strikes someone we know that we stop what we are doing and think about how fragile life can be. Sometimes it takes coming face to face with cancer before we begin to understand that in an instant everything about our world can come crashing down all around us.
If God loves people why do some people get life threatening diseases in their twenties? A cancer that produces tumors, which eat away at their very life, leaving them in excruciating pain. A cancer that is fought with every drug necessary only to leave the person lifeless and crumpled into a swollen empty shell of nothingness.
In disbelief friends and relatives who had lost years of communicating with this person suddenly stream into hospitals to pay their last respect to a near death man. Questions arise in their minds why him and not me?
Death in this world can shake the belief system of a strong healthy man bringing him to his knees as to why this would happen to his best friend. It can have an irreversible effect on mothers and fathers who see a once vibrant and strong son die leaving them behind instead of the other way around. It has an impact that makes a person stop what they are doing and reflect on why they were born into this world in the first place!
If the only reason for our being is to raise a family and live a good life then why do people die young? A wasted life, where a person was taken so young that he never experienced fatherhood, can shock our senses and make us look to God for answers.
In our desire to find answers to life’s hard questions we search for a relationship with the invisible God. Searching for the unseen is as great a mystery as understanding why we live on earth where there are so many bad things that can destroy people’s lives. Why are we here? Why did my friend die of cancer? If there is a God, why would He allow my son to die so young?
In the beginning our world was once perfect without pain or fear, but everything changed when Adam and Eve were deceived by Satan. Satan persuaded them to desire the knowledge between good and bad. Immediately, Adam and Eve were cast out of the perfect garden of Eden in order to be tested in ways that would allow them to understand why God’s way is better than Satan’s way.
Their actions were the start of a different world composed of opposites. A world where we became the players in the world game of life. A life game that demanded that we make choices from the testing we experienced through real life situations for either good or evil.
Because evil was allowed into the world child baring became hard, but the desire for sex became heightened in order to assure the creation of life. This is the reason why marriage became necessary in order to establish strong families that would teach their children about God. This also is the reason why sex was perverted and how it opened our eyes to the evils of rape, incest and adultery.
Another thing that happened was the land became cursed and food no longer just appeared, now Adam had to cultivate the land and pull the weeds. This made man develop technologies that lead to building civilizations and establishing cultures dividing the world into opposing countries. Continents came into being and as a result civilizations fought each other over land.
Cain killed Abel to show us how evil murder was. Because a man could kill another man, wars sprang up teaching men the difference between godly societies and evil countries. Laws formed giving us instructions on how to govern and live with each other in peace.
Genesis 4:25&26, “Adam and his wife had another son. She said, ‘God has given me a son to replace Abel, whom Cain killed.’ So she named him Seth. Seth had a son whom he named Enosh. It was then that people began using the Lords holy name in worship.”
From the moment of the murder, Cain became Satan’s pawn for evil as if he were on an invisible chess board. A chess board where the opposing force was Seth who chose to fight for God and good. Looking at our world as a game opens our eyes to human suffering. Human death shows us how great the stakes are when we are in a world game and how each life has a purpose that is greater than the seen.
Being made with freewill gives us the ability to make choices in the game of life. Acknowledging God versus Satan, opens our lives to the invisible world of angels that navigate us through life’s dramas so we might gain revelations over good versus bad.
Genesis 28: 12, “He dreamed that he saw a stairway reaching from earth to heaven, with angels going up and coming down on it.”
Everything about life shows us why bad things happen to people. There must be disease in order to teach us that it is bad. There must be factions fighting against each other so we can understand why war is evil. In order to gain revelation we must be faced with tests that open our eyes to the real purpose behind our world and why God gave us life in an corrupt world.
A young man or woman dies of cancer in order for others to gain a revelation they would not have understood. It inspires people to fight for causes that lead to breast cancer awareness and regular exams in order to fight the disease. It challenges young and old to donate time and money to foundations that invent cancer fighting drugs and new technologies. It directs people to build hospitals that are established to fight against evil diseases that attack children.
Because some good people give their lives in the fight against cancer other people are saved. When you live in a world that is filled with so much evil you must have God on your side in order to win your game of life. God is love and He is the author of everything that is good. God did not invent cancer, Satan did!
God inspires people to fight against disease by becoming doctors and spiritual healers. He builds societies that give human beings rights to a good life. He brings order through establishing democracies in a world that is in chaos, because He loves people.
Satan wants to destroy a person’s life. He infiltrates the world with sickness and disease in order to destroy lives. He inspires wars in evil countries. He is the author of everything that hurts people.
Understanding the purpose behind our world teaches us to love our friends and family members that are sick. It fills us with compassion and gives our lives purpose. Noticing the smiles of a small child can ease the burden of the challenges we face in life and give us a welcome relief.
Jesus came to the world to save people. He came to heal the sick and feed the hungry. He came to show people that love comes through peace.
No one can come to God unless he comes like a little child. For to know God is to believe without seeing. It is to love without knowing. It is to give without receiving anything in return. The wave and greeting of a small child is a bright light for a dark world.
Linda C Dipman author of THE GAME OF LIFE IT’S ALMOST OVER http://outskirtspress.com/gameoflife presents: AND HIS LOVE SHONE DOWN my true life story! It describes all the persecutions I endured. Lovinghandsministry.com
This One’s For You, Mom
What can you say when you loose your best friend? One day you are making plans to travel the world and the next given the news that your mother will not make it through the night.
March 6, 1998 was the most surreal evening I had ever experienced in my life. My beloved mother was taken into surgery at 10 pm and I, forever hopeful, did not realize the seriousness of her illness. My husband, however, silently held in the pain for he knew she would not make it through the night.
While my mother was in surgery, my husband and I silently stood outside of the hospital, waiting. Lost within our own thoughts, I focused on a single tree on the hospital grounds surrounded with the most dramatic light pouring through its foliage. It was extremely hypnotic and as I stared into the light, I saw my childhood pass before my eyes. My glorious, loving mother was in every scene caring for me: laughing with me and loving me. I knew then I lost her but was not ready to let go of her — not now, not ever.
Hours passed and my mom was taken into recovery. The surgery did not go as expected. Since I was my mother’s health care proxy, the surgeon wanted to speak with me but I avoided him. My mother had survived so many illnesses in her lifetime and I was convinced that this too would pass. I needed a miracle. I expected a miracle and I needed to see my mother now.
Immediately asking for a priest, I walked into the recovery room and found my mom. The nurses tried to calmly prepare me for what to expect, but I was only interested in being with my mother and caring for her. Her poor body was hooked up to all types of tubes and life-support machines and her body ballooned to three times her size. I needed to touch her and, standing over her bed, reached for her hand and asked her if she knew her family was with her. She squeezed my hand in response and that became the only form of communication she had with me for the remainder of the night.
We prayed over her bed; I caressed her; I loved her but nothing was improving. I was oblivious to everyone and anything around me except her: my mommy. Why, Dear Lord, why now? I need her, you don’t, I thought. Ironically, even though I was a married forty year-old woman, I still trusted my mother to have all the answers. I still relied on her and still expected to be babied as she always babied me. Now it was my turn and I couldn’t even hold her. I couldn’t even remember the words to any prayers–I was stuttering through ‘The Our Father’ but didn’t care for I felt the Lord honored any feeble attempts we were making.
Hours later, the time finally came when the head nurse approached me about switching off all life-support machines. I knew my mother’s wishes but I also was in conflict with what I wanted. I was not ready, and wanted everyone to leave me alone with my mother. We hadn’t had enough time. I needed time. But I also knew what she would want and I knew her poor body was tired.
Praying for strength, I motioned for the nurse to go ahead and turn off the machines. I signed the papers and, thinking I had time, went upstairs to her hospital room to gather her belongings. Accompanied by my brother, I remember nothing of that journey except for when I returned to the recovery room and then I knew. I looked into my husband’s eyes and knew she was gone. My mother was gone and it was then I fell to the floor feeling as though every part of my insides was sucked out me like a vacuum.
March 7, 1998 at 12:00 p.m. my mother was called home.
Shortly after my mom’s passing, my dad became very ill and underwent a five-bypass surgery. Again, the doctors tried to prepare me that my dad might not make it but, thankfully, he had. After his surgery, my husband decided that we should care for my father in our home and so he has lived with us ever since.
Since my mother’s passing, I hadn’t had much time to think of much due to the fact that I had to nurse my dad and I functioned as best as I could. There were many times I would forget and pick up the phone to call mom, or be in a store and want to buy her something or smell a scent that reminded me of her. Their memory never leaves you, yet life must go on.
One day, my husband came home from work and after looking at me nonchalantly mentioned that he thought I was pregnant. I was in disbelief but took the test anyway and sure enough the test was positive. I was pregnant! At 42 years old, seventeen months after my beloved mother passed away, I gave birth to a healthy, beautiful 8-1/2 pound little girl. I then knew the graciousness and goodness of our Lord. He knew how deeply I loved my mother and, yet, now with a little child I had to finally accept my mother’s passing and tend to my baby and her grandchild.
While my mother was living, I miscarried four times yet seventeen months after her passing I gave birth. Laura is the miracle I prayed for the night of my mother’s surgery and my reminder of a truly gracious God. He did hear my prayers that night after all only not in the way I understood it to be.
In 2003, when my daughter was four years old, I thought she was old enough to be taken to her grandma’s gravesite. I was nervous because I didn’t know how my Laura would react. Once we reached my mother’s site, my daughter, at first, stared blankly at the gravesite. I observed silently expecting to carry her somberly back to the car. Within minutes, however, my Laura joyfully ran back to our car and grabbed all her toys out of backseat and ‘decorated’ grandmas grave with her dolls and stuffed animals. My daughter was fully aware that grandma was in heaven yet felt the need to tend to her grandmother’s gave as she saw fit. As I witnessed this joy, my heart filled with such peace and I knew my mother was pleased.
Upon departing, my little girl grabbed my hand and together we recited the entire ‘Our Father’ and it was then that I realized that my mother is always with me and that I never have to let her go. I am very fortunate I am to have had such a wonderful loving mom. I celebrate my mother daily as she continues on through me and through her grandchild and generations to follow. And, most importantly, I thank God daily.
Judi Lynn Lake successfully runs her own advertising agency which handles everything from logos, branding, videos and websites while continues to work closely with self-published authors from design to promotion. To learn more visit http://www.judilake.com
Knife Crime In The UK
I am a mum and I have one daughter of my own and two step sons all my children are between the 10-15 years of age. As with all parents I worry about my children constantly as they grow up, I want to know where they are, who they are with, how long they will be when out and what time they need picking up.
I want to know have they got their mobile phones etc, all the things that parents think of every day. From when they were little I always taught them to never speak to strangers, always stay with the person your suppose to be with but never really thought about the more sinister things such as people carrying knives and knife crimes.
I suppose I was someone who preferred to believe that this sort of crime just does not happen in the area where I live, but in reality it could not be further from the truth! When I think about it, I have read many articles in the local papers about knife crimes happening just a few miles from my door but still never really paid it the attention it really deserved and certainly did not realise just how much of a real threat knife crime is becoming
That was until last year, I was sitting down at tea time watching the local news with my daughter, when I recognised a lady on the television which immediately grabbed my attention. I could not believe my ears when I listened to the news report and would never in a million years have imagined the tragic story that was to follow, which had deeply affected this ladies life and those of everyone around her, turning her world upside down.
I then realised where I knew this lady from, I saw her nearly every day taking her grand-daughter to school which happened to be the same school as my daughter attends. This actually made her plight even harder to believe, bringing with it a devastating realisation that this sort of thing could happen so close to home!
Just one year previously, Annie Oakes-Odger lost her son to a violent knife attack whilst he was standing at a cash machine on a busy shopping parade; the attack did not happen in the middle of the night as you would expect, it happened in broad daylight in the middle of a summer afternoon.
A totally unprovoked attack which inflicted a single stab wound to the neck which ended his life. This shocked me and made me aware that it can happen to anyone, anywhere without warning or motive, which I find a very scary thought!
How would you carry on?
I personally could not even for one second imagine how it must feel to loose your child in this manner, let alone imagine how you could ever carry on living life when you know that the people who did this to your child, friend, loved one, whomever, are still very much alive, not only that but serving a sentence that has no relevance to the gravity of the crime, often having their sentences reduced! It should be, in my opinion tougher laws and stricter sentences which should be being applied. Not reduced time for good behaviour!
Parents need to make themselves more aware nowadays. This no longer should be a Taboo subject as it is something that could affect any one of us at any time without warning.
My son is set to go to a football match this weekend with his mates and although he is 15, I will make sure that he will have his mobile fully charged, enough money for the bus and make sure that he stays with his group of friends. (I am not implying that a football match is an unsafe place, but it is just an example of places where children want to go as they become more independent).
I totally support Annie in her plight to bring about stricter laws and tougher sentencing for knife-crimes, and hope and pray that I will never have to go through what she has. I find her a total inspiration, having the courage to carry on and fight for justice, not just for her but for everyone who has either been a victim of knife crimes or the people who are left behind to pick up the pieces of their lives.
Shaun parker has a website dedicated to raising the awareness of knife crime http://www.knifecrimes.org and the damage and impact it has on those affected.
How Funeral Keepsakes and Customized Cremation Urns are Made
Cremation is widely accepted and practiced around the world and, along with custom and unique cremation urns, are slowly gaining popularity in the states. But many of us who are opting for cremation have never thought about how we might memorialize our loved ones including our pets.
There are many types of funeral urns and processes for making them. In general, cremation urns are designed to hold the cremains securely. After a deceased body is subjected to the high heat used in cremation, it can be pulverized for easy placement in a columbarium, buried, or kept at home.
Many of today’s customized cremation urns and funeral keepsakes are made by master craftsmen and artists. These cremation funeral urns are beautiful works of art in their own right and many people prefer to display them openly. Today family and friends are choosing keepsake urns or memorial jewelry like lockets and urn necklaces. These keepsakes can hold a small amount of sacred ground, funeral flowers, cremains, clothing, hair, or anything meaningful.
There are hundreds of funeral urns to choose from and materials vary including wood, metal, ceramic, stone and even bio-degradable material like natural fiber and salt. The methods of creating funeral urns are varied as well. The most common are:
WROUGHT OR FABRICATED METAL URNS
These are methods used in metallic materials like stainless steel, copper or bronze and may include one or a combination of the following: hammering, bending, welding, shearing or forming. These methods produce cost-friendly urns and are relatively easy to do. The methods usually result in urns with a satiny finish, allowing the surfaces to be engraved with personalized messages or inscriptions.
CAST BRONZE URNS
This is a method usually done with bronze and requires high heat to melt the metal. It is poured into a mold that usually has a reverse image, called the negative. This method produces a funerary urn with very beautiful and detailed designs. However, since it requires great time and skills, it can be costly.
Another method used with bronze urns is the lost wax method, where a rubber mold is used to form a temporary wax sculpture and coated with a liquefied form of ceramic. Once heated, the wax then melts, hence the term ‘lost wax’. The resulting shell is then used as the mold for the liquid bronze.
SPINNING
This method creates round-shaped metal urns and is limited to most metals including pewter. Flat sheets are spun on a lathe and are gradually shaped to form a round urn. Like the fabrication method, this technique is only limited to a satiny finish. However, the finished product is easy to engrave and personalize.
CLOISONNE
Cloisonne cremation urns are made through a process involving hammering and soldering an intricately-designed copper wire netting onto a uniquely shaped funeral urn. Different-colored enamels are then applied on the spaces formed by the copper wires and the urn is fired. The firing is performed several times until the enamel fills the spaces perfectly. The urn is then scored by hand and polished.
TIPS FOR CHOOSING FUNERAL URNS
First, consider what the burial rites are. Some families prefer to keep the cremated remains in a temporary urn for a scattering ceremony later on. For this type of burial rite, they may want to consider using temporary urns or bio-degradable urns. If you plan to keep a small amount of the cremated remains as a keepsake, consider getting keepsake urns or memorial jewelry.
If the burial rite involves land or deep water, bio-degradable urns are the perfect choice. You can house the remains securely and once buried in the soil or deep water, the urn will then slowly degrade.
If, however, the family prefers to keep all the cremated remains either in a mausoleum or at home, it would be a good idea to get a durable urn to house the remains. This way, they will be assured that the remains are safe and secure in an urn that will last for many years.
Memorial Urns offers a wide selection of funeral urns, keepsakes, and memorials for humans and their pets. Find out more about memorializing your loved one at http://www.memorial-urns.com.