Hidden Oasis in the Desert
-Joe Fornear Could the most difficult times also be the most beneficial? Before you tune me out, I think this is exactly what the Lord says in His love letter to us! But wait, who volunteers for a desert experience?…
Category surviving melanoma
The Long Arm of the Lord
-Joe Fornear Some people talk about “The Universe” orchestrating events and ordering or disordering our lives. They try to stay on the right side of “it” so that good things will happen in their lives. Others chuckle at an impersonal…
Still Waiting
-by Terri Fornear This is the 3rd in a series of excerpts from Terri Fornear’s new book, Abiding Through the Shadows, A Caretaker’s Struggle with God’s Goodness. Joe’s diagnosis changed three times, ending with metastatic melanoma. I mention metastatic, because people would…
Bumps on the Road and Under the Arm
– Terri Fornear This is the 2nd in a series of excerpts from Terri Fornear’s new book, Abiding Through the Shadows, A Caretaker’s Struggle with God’s Goodness. On the Costa Rica trip, Joe seemed tired and did not want to go…
Two Keys to Overcoming Pain’s Grip
– Joe Fornear Physical pain is a 900-pound gorilla, dominating cancer battles, hijacking focus, and draining hope. Yet the link between physical pain and emotional misery can be broken! Surely, if the Lord allows us to go through it, He’ll certainly…
Listen to the Mockingbird!
Storms can leave a muddy mess, but we can rise - even glide above it all. The poet Carl Sandburg once said, “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.” In the fiercest storm of my life, my Stage IV cancer battle, wallowing in the mud was easy, yet wallowing made everything harder. On the other hand, praising God was hard at first, but made coping much easier.
Keep Calm and Cry Out to Jesus
Sometimes life's pain can be so physically and/or emotionally draining that something needs to give... quickly. When even the best of human efforts makes little difference, there is always something we can do - "cry out" to the Lord.
Power to Spare AND Share
And the beauty of Christ’s resurrection power is that He showed it in order to share it!
How to Question God
Jesus Himself set a surprising precedent for questioning God. So I don’t think it’s a holy thing to never question Him.
When God Is Silent… He’s Up to Something
Periods of “silence” are common in the history of God’s relations with man. Yet we always find out later that God was up to something better all along.