Roger Bennet: Seasons

I want to share with you an amazing blog posting I came across a while back. It is written by a man named Roger Bennett who died nearly a year ago after a many year battle with leukemia. Most of us do not face illnesses that are likely to kill as any time soon, but he talks about a lot of things that are familiar to us -- trusting God thru seasons of our lives. Here is an excerpt:

Here's where the trouble starts. Christians sometimes are the worst prepared people for set backs. That's the opposite of what God wants for us. I'm not telling you something I've heard, I'm telling you something I've lived. I was in remission 3 1/2 years and began to think that I would never have to deal with cancer again. But just around the corner, the relapse was waiting to ambush my body and spirit. The storm was fierce. I was weak and full of fear. But through some great wisdom shared with me I found an eternal truth. One word...seasons.

Ecclesiastes tells us one of the greatest truths of all time...to everything in life there is a season. A time to laugh, cry, celebrate, and mourn etc.... the wisdom my friend shared was this: Rejoice in this season of remission, rejoice in the humor of life...laugh as much as you can even if it's at yourself. Rejoice in seasons of rejoicing, but keep in mind the other truth, there will be seasons of mourning, seasons of tears, seasons when you feel that you are failing at everything, or nobody cares.

Read more...

This is his last post to his blog. His wife continues his blog to this day. They both sign off, "in His grip" -- which is a wonderful place to be.

New ning community!

We now have a networking community on ning.com. This is a place where you can

• post your favorite pictures & let us see what you look like, if you want
• add friends and exchange messages with them
• read and post on a forum
  
• have a blog of your own and read other blogs
  
• leave comments in response to blog postings
  
• leave messages on walls of other members (the wall is a place for messages on their ning page)
  
• post videos and music (but be careful of copyright laws)
  
• reach out to others in other ning communities

Ning is similar to myspace or facebook, but it's classier and focused on networks. You don't need to give your real name when you sign up; just an email address. People visiting our site will only see your user name. To join, login our room and click the link there, or go to the community page and click "sign up" on the right.

Let me know what you think. I haven't turned on all the features. I haven't set up groups since I don't think we're big enough yet to bother with that. We might well turn those on in the future.

Peace in Chronic Illness blog

Peace in Chronic Illness is a Christian chat room and blog for all with chronic illness. The room is our primary focus. There we support each other, share what God's doing, pray for each other, and joke around.

To enter the room, click on the blue button in the right hand column of the blog. You will go into the same room you get to from my home page, liz4cps.com. I never intended the new chat room to be mine -- I put it on my page because that was the quickest and easiest way we could a room going and because many of you knew to go to my home page to reconnect after the Rest Ministries chat room was closed.

We will use the blog as a way to communicate with all who come to the room. If you have something you want posted to the blog, the easiest thing to do is drop in the room and let one of the admins know. If we're not there (we're not there 24 hours a day!), leave a message for us in the room and ask us to post to the blog or email me or someone else who can post to the blog; see the list of contributors at the bottom right on this page.

Things we might have in the blog:

• Prayer requests, answers to prayer, and testimonies.
  
• Notes by hosts about chats -- either before or after a chat.
  
• Verses and thoughts about them -- reflections on what we are learning in the chat room.
• Announcements about the room or schedule -- special speakers in chats and changes in the normal schedule.
  
• Links to blogs or photo sites, if you have them.
  
• Special photos, like a photo of yourself or your pet, can be posted here from time to time.
• Any other ideas?
  

We will post as needed, but I don't expect to post more than once or twice a day normally. We probably won't post every day either. If you drop in the room regularly, you will see any updates to the blog just before you enter the room. You can also subscribe to the feed for the blog to see updates (if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out google reader or another rss reader).

Note that we won't post prayer requests or answers without permission, so what prayer requests you do want posted.

Feed back is welcome.

Take care & God bless!

Father God,
Be with us as we begin a new year and a new room.
I pray the room and the blog bring glory to Your Name.
Thank You for Your help in our chat room!
In Jesus' Name,
Amen