God is the awesome God that just amazes me at everything He does. Even when we don't understand things, in time He gives us revelation of how awesome and wonderful He is. God uses what we see as a tragic situation to show us and others that He's the sovereign God. He does what He wants to do when He wants to do it and how He wants to do it. Cancer just didn't affect Rondell, it affected our whole family. We all felt the emotions, pain, uncertainty, loss, hurt, fear and stress of it. Just having the uncertainty of not knowing if he was going to wake up every morning or what the next doctor's visit would be like was so emotional for everyone. Cancer is a disease that so unpredictable; especially when it's at the advanced stages in which Rondell was diagnosed (Stage 4). Through it all, God showed me that He sent us Angelic help to go through the things we endured.
In the movie, "God's Not Dead," which everyone needs to see, the professor wanted his class to declare on a piece of paper that "God is Dead." There was only one student in the class that said he couldn't do what the professor wanted because of his faith. Well I won't share the whole movie, but in the end, the student asked the professor why did he hate God and asked again and again until the professor broke and said "Because He took everything away from me!" The professor lost his mother at a young age to cancer. He said he prayed and prayed and asked God not to let his mother die and she died. He went on to say what kind of God takes a young boy's mother from him? (Sounds so familiar, I said the same thing). The student told him sometimes God answers no. Again, so REAL to me!! Ok I won't share anymore.. Go see it for yourself!!!
When it was time for Jesus to go to the cross to be crucified for our sins, Jesus could have easily changed His mind or God, who sent His Son Jesus, could have said no these people are not worth dying for. Isaiah 55:8 says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." God's gracious thoughts exceed all human imagination. No one can fathom the depths of His wisdom. But us in our human nature just want to try and figure things out or try to tell God how we want things to be. God knows what He is doing. It may be hard to accept at times, but He created us. So how we come in 2014 and think we have all the answers or better solutions than God. I just love the angelic help that God gave my family. God sent angelic help for Rondell to go through what he went through, and he sent us angelic help as well to stand with Rondell and to be there for him every step of the way. We prayed and prayed for cancer to go away, but God chose to strengthen Rondell through the cancer instead of eliminating cancer. I still have all the little notes that the kids wrote to their father about staying strong and keeping the faith and declaring healing and how much they loved him. Angelic Help. Go back to Jesus praying in the Garden for God to take the cup away from Him. God's answer to Jesus' prayer did not allow His Son to avoid suffering. However, God did provide angelic help for Jesus to face what was coming. Sometimes God answers prayer by eliminating trials; sometimes He answers by strengthening us in the midst of them. God gave Jesus strength to go the cross. Even though Jesus prayed to take the cup away from Him (the cross), God chose to strenghthen Him that Jesus could go to the cross. When God takes trials away easily, we tend to forget about it and God. But when God gives us strength through a trial, those are the ones that stick with us. The greater the trial, the greater the Glory God gets!!! I promise you, the trial of losing a spouse sticks forever. When we first told the kids that their father passed away, Rylee our second daughter asked in tears, "Mommie what are we going to do without daddy?" God that broke my heart. How do I respond to that when I was thinking the same thing? I couldn't tell her I don't know. My response was, "we are going to live and keep on living for the Lord and one day we will see daddy again." That was God speaking at that time. Angelic Help. When I was about to walk out and just leave my kids and everything because of grief, hurt and so much pressure, God spoke through Jornea our third daughter while I was lying on the floor screaming and crying, and said "Momma, sometimes you just have to let God handle it." Angelic Help. When some said I wasn't going to make it without Rondell or that I would go running back home because I just couldn't do this by myself or take care of 6 children by myself. No I am not doing this by myself. It is hard sometimes. I know it looked impossible, but with God ALL things are possible. There is nothing too hard for HIM. Two words Angelic Help. I've had so much angelic help that I cannot even put it all on this one post. Just know that God takes care of His people. God is GOOD!!!
I will always thank God for the angelic help and the strength He has given me. He's still giving me strength. All I can do is just shake my head in amazement and just thank GOD!!!! He is truly a wonder!!!!
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Friday, February 7, 2014
Memories of Words
Hello everyone. I know you are probably wondering where I've been. Well I've been one busy person. I haven't had time to really sit and continue this blog. Last month marked 2 years since Rondell has been gone. Time is certainly flying by. Of course I think about Rondell quite often. I think about who he was as a person, as a husband, as a father, most of all as a true man of God. I saw God transform him into a new creature.
When cancer came into our lives, I remember Rondell saying he asked God why him? Why was he dealing with cancer? He said God told him "because you can handle it." Whatever Rondell went through in life, he said he could control or fix. But this was one problem he couldn't fix. This was the one thing he had no control over. He had to completely and totally depend on God for this particular situation. I can still hear him saying "Tangie, God has put me in a place where I cannot fix this...There is nothing I can do except pray and live everyday as if it is my last day. For once in my life, my hands are tied." What a hard and tight place to be in.
I cannot tell you how many times we prayed and fasted repeatedly for total healing and deliverance of cancer. Some may say God didn't answer our prayers. Honestly, yes I did too think the same way when our whole world changed once again on January 30, 2012. I would be lying if I said I was acceptable to everything on that dreadful day. Of course I questioned God. "God Why?" "God where were you?" "Why didn't you answer our prayers?" "What kind of God are you to take a father away from his children?" Yes I caught a tantrum with God. But after I had gotten all of the frustration and anger out, I quickly apologized and repented to God because He's still God.
God then brought back to my rememberance June 6, 2006, when the door called cancer was opened. The doctors really weren't hopeful for Rondell's recovery back then. God then showed me the time that the cancer was trying to literally "choke" Rondell's tubes to his kidneys which caused a great deal of pain and sleepless nights for Rondell. Then God showed me how I could have been left pregnant with our twin girls giving birth to them by myself. But Rondell was here for that and for 9 months of their lives. Rondell was a miracle. If God really wanted to take Rondell, He could have taken him in 2006. However, that wasn't Rondell's appointed time to leave the earth. There was more work to be done and more of God's glory to shine through Rondell.
So yes God did answer our prayers, but the answer was no to healing on this side. We must all come to realize that God's answer to prayer is not always yes, yes, yes. His answers are yes, no or wait. The will of God is perfect. He does not make mistakes. He knows what's best for us. He knows what we need and when we need it. He knows what we need before we even know what we need.
Through all of this God has shown me that His will is going to be done no matter what. It's okay to make plans and have dreams for the future, but God's plans will always supercede your plans. I look back and think about all the plans Rondell and I made for the future. We were going to travel after retirement, watch our children grow up, see them off to college, see them have a family of their own and most of all traveling with RJ playing college football for Alabama and Nick Saban!!! (Rondell loved the Roll Tide!!!) At the blink of an eye, all of that changed. I've learned to look at things differently. I don't belong to myself. My life is not my own. I am nothing without God. I cannot breathe without God. I can't even move without God. Life is but a vapor.
When cancer came into our lives, I remember Rondell saying he asked God why him? Why was he dealing with cancer? He said God told him "because you can handle it." Whatever Rondell went through in life, he said he could control or fix. But this was one problem he couldn't fix. This was the one thing he had no control over. He had to completely and totally depend on God for this particular situation. I can still hear him saying "Tangie, God has put me in a place where I cannot fix this...There is nothing I can do except pray and live everyday as if it is my last day. For once in my life, my hands are tied." What a hard and tight place to be in.
I cannot tell you how many times we prayed and fasted repeatedly for total healing and deliverance of cancer. Some may say God didn't answer our prayers. Honestly, yes I did too think the same way when our whole world changed once again on January 30, 2012. I would be lying if I said I was acceptable to everything on that dreadful day. Of course I questioned God. "God Why?" "God where were you?" "Why didn't you answer our prayers?" "What kind of God are you to take a father away from his children?" Yes I caught a tantrum with God. But after I had gotten all of the frustration and anger out, I quickly apologized and repented to God because He's still God.
God then brought back to my rememberance June 6, 2006, when the door called cancer was opened. The doctors really weren't hopeful for Rondell's recovery back then. God then showed me the time that the cancer was trying to literally "choke" Rondell's tubes to his kidneys which caused a great deal of pain and sleepless nights for Rondell. Then God showed me how I could have been left pregnant with our twin girls giving birth to them by myself. But Rondell was here for that and for 9 months of their lives. Rondell was a miracle. If God really wanted to take Rondell, He could have taken him in 2006. However, that wasn't Rondell's appointed time to leave the earth. There was more work to be done and more of God's glory to shine through Rondell.
So yes God did answer our prayers, but the answer was no to healing on this side. We must all come to realize that God's answer to prayer is not always yes, yes, yes. His answers are yes, no or wait. The will of God is perfect. He does not make mistakes. He knows what's best for us. He knows what we need and when we need it. He knows what we need before we even know what we need.
Through all of this God has shown me that His will is going to be done no matter what. It's okay to make plans and have dreams for the future, but God's plans will always supercede your plans. I look back and think about all the plans Rondell and I made for the future. We were going to travel after retirement, watch our children grow up, see them off to college, see them have a family of their own and most of all traveling with RJ playing college football for Alabama and Nick Saban!!! (Rondell loved the Roll Tide!!!) At the blink of an eye, all of that changed. I've learned to look at things differently. I don't belong to myself. My life is not my own. I am nothing without God. I cannot breathe without God. I can't even move without God. Life is but a vapor.
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