Losses! Losses?

SAT., OCT. 13, 2000, 6:30 AM
FARM, STUDY

After a childhood, teenage, and adult lifetime of good health and rather full functioning you now, on the “edge” of old age, are experiencing losses, in increasing numbers. But, naturally, I, Holy Spirit, want you to see these as challenges to your spirit. Are these purposeful? deliberate? I won’t answer that, but I’ll encourage you to consider such “gifts” as a possibility.

Throughout your life you have had experiences that have tested your spirit, including some physical losses. But these were all recoverable… were temporary. You came back to full health and functioning. Now you assume that, at your age, these losses are part of the “dying process”… and you have been given the “privilege” of losing functions gradually… of experiencing physical death in a slow way. And I want you to see this as a “privilege,” so that you can “feel” the losses as they come, BUT ALSO can be thankful for what you are losing AND be even more thankful for what you still have. And DON’T feel that you’re being “cheated” because this is happening in your 70’s rather than in your 80’s or 90’s.

I realize that you had long-lived parents, but I say… just be happy for them, but accept that your “lot” (this time) is to miss the really dysfunctional years of true old age.

You did not live near or with your parents in their old age. You have only rather brief visits as “personal knowledge” of those olden years. They functioned less and less well, but were as active as they could be, in “true” old age. You were in “middle” age then and not really appreciative of how “old” would feel… would be. Now, at an earlier age than your folks you are knowing what it is like to “be less than you were”… with little hope of regaining what you are losing.

Oh, there may be some small “recoveries,” and you can compensate in some ways, but it is a process of “deterioration.”

You have compared yourself and your body to this old house. You are “improving” the old house, but these are also “changes,” and these may disrupt the balance, and what is intended as “good” may ultimately produce what is “not so good”… even “bad.”

Your 74 year old body is similar in some ways to this old house. There are many medical procedures that would be intended to restore functions “as of yore.” Some might. Others (and which would these be?) would disrupt the balance and result in new, perhaps worse, problems. ( 7:10 / 7:13 ). What I advise, most wholeheartedly, is that you appreciate what you still have and, also, appreciate what you have had, for more than three score and thirteen years.

Give more attention to compensating for losses, so that you still can accomplish what seems worthwhile. AT THE SAME TIME, accept what no longer is and will not be, again, in this life. And I now say THIS, with good knowledge of your spiritual growth and status: your life is, finally, spirit, and it, finally, will be quite pleasant to give up this body, letting your spirit soar on to different adventures, in the process of returning to Me.

As I’ve commented before, the leaves you see changing into their autumn colors, will soon fall from the trees and be “dead leaves” on the ground. The tree will be barren, but after some “rest,” it shall send forth new leaves, for yet another season of Spring and Summer beauty. In contrast, some small plants in the garden were killed by frost, and will not return, in any connected way. Most of you Western Christians assume you are like “annuals,” but I let you know that you are more like these trees – a “perennial.”