F is for Fallen to Cancer

Today would have been my Mom's 85th birthday.  She died in 1980 at 53 years old when I was 21.  I miss her still.  (Remember the very first posting in MILLERVENTS?  One form of 'venting' comes with tears.)

I know that we all die, and that this is the "wages of sin".  I wrote all about that factual nature of this life on MILLERWRITES just today.  But the understanding of this truth and the full acceptance by faith that this is the way it is, is one thing.  The living with its sad reality is another.

I am so glad that God Himself understands the fact that we will have things to lament.  Heartbreak and loss and disaster and shock are all part of living in a fallen world.  Thankfully, God did not leave us alone in such misery, but came incarnate in the human body of Jesus Christ.  Jesus lived the hard life of a (there's no other way to put it) bastard, growing up in a strict legalistic culture, and in a country occupied by a foreign army.  His Father was a blue collar tradesman trying to feed a large family of at least 7 children (Mark 6:2,3), and he probably died young, leaving the kids to be raised by a widow.  In the three years of His ministry Jesus was reviled and hated by the religious leaders of the day, and had His life threatened several times.  In the end, as we commemorate on this 'Good Friday', Jesus was whipped and punched and beaten.  He was mocked and scorned, abandoned by His friends, and finally tortured to death by crucifixion.  Yes, He knows about human pain.

Sometimes when my Mom's birthday rolls around I express my grief by going through my wish list.

I WISH....

• Mom could have met my Lilly, my wife Kiki.  But, I only met her at Mom's funeral.
• Mom could have been at my wedding.  Her big smile made any occasion all the brighter.
• Mom could have been around to be a blessing to Kiki when she was a new bride, and then through the hard years.
• Mom could have had the joy of being loved by my children.
• And I so wish that she could have been there to pour her love into my kids.  Each of their lives would have been wonderfully more blessed by Mom's, I mean Gramma's, love.

My silly list could go on and on, but the redeeming truth is that this life will pass quickly.  James, who was one of Jesus' four brothers named in Mark 6, reminds us:

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  (4:14)


This may be bad/sad news for those who refuse God's invitation to join Him later, and so have ONLY this life to 'enjoy', but it is good news for those willing to accept His conditional offer (simply receive the gift of eternal life!), and will thereby be reunited with others who have gone there ahead!  I will see my Mom again, and she will pick on me for putting her in a frame of blue and green (she always said they should never go together!) and we will laugh and laugh over my tease for thousands and thousands of years.

A is For Angry Attitude!

Welcome to the brand new MILLERVENTS blog!  Not to worry.  If you stand back a little bit, or maybe a lot sometimes, you won't get burned.  Although if you feel the same way I do about a few things, you may get steamed, or for that matter, if you feel the exact opposite way about my vented rant, you may get even more steamed by my outrageous claims!  Oh well.  I have to let it out anyway, and the comment section can be your pressure release valve.


So today is Palm Sunday.  The day we Christians remember what they call the "Triumphal Entry" of Jesus Christ, as He arrived in Jerusalem the week He would be crucified.  Ironically, considering what they did to Him just a few days later, the people lined the streets and cheered for this miracle working deliverer.  Unphased by their accolades, Jesus had more important things on His mind.  He had come to bring salvation to a people who did not think they needed saving, and after the parade He stood weeping as He overlooked the city busy ignoring God.

Jesus 'vented' by crying over the great loss to come.  Not His own agony on the cross, but the calamity facing each unrepentant soul in view.

Perhaps with this disaster in mind, and recognizing where the blame for this state of such a poorly taught people belonged, Jesus next 'vented' by angrily 'driving out' those who had turned His house into a 'den of robbers', instead of fulfilling their duties as teachers of Israel.

Luke 19:
41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Jesus at the Temple 

45 When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. 46“It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’[c]; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’[d]”

Yes, we are free to vent, for a good cause.  Sometimes through tears, and sometimes in anger.  Although Paul tells us in Ephesians 4, "In your anger do not sin".

As you visit MILLERVENTS, please help to make sure I do not cross any such lines.  May I simply point out whatever 'unacceptables' I come across, but without sinning against my God.