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SQUEEZE MY HAND
Boffin was probably the most important thing in my life. He was my companion, as well as my comforter. True he had four legs instead of two, but he understood me. We could communicate without words. He taught me commitment superceeded convenience. He gave me unconditional love when I didn't deserve it. He was quick to please and he never sulked or talked back.
But he had this small problem. He loved to chew metal. One day he went too far. He ruined a pair of my husband's pants. He, my husband, not Boffin, gave me a choice. Either he (my husband) or the dog had to go! I confess, I hesitated before making my choice!
Well, although we did give him away- the dog not my husband- God brought him back. He (God, not the dog) knew what was to come into my life. He knew how much I would need Boffin's presence and love when my husband chose to leave.
Many years and many adventures later Boff became ill. I was on vacation and far from home. The local vet took some tests said that there was something wrong with his blood cells, Boffin's not the doctor's.
It would take several hundred dollars to diagnose the problem. Even if I'd had the money, I decided that wouldn't be a good use of it. Boff was 14 and slowing down. I prayed:
Dear Lord, please give me wisdom as to what to do. I pray for Your strength and grace. Blessed Lord, I am comforted by the joy of knowing somehow this will bring me even closer to You. You are and will be my rest and my refuge.
Since nothing really could be done for awhile I continued with my plans. I was to spend a week in a private cabin in King's Canyon National Park in central California. More than ever I looked forward to spending some quiet time with my Messiah.
I arose early in the morning to watch the sun rise. The view from the cabin’s living room was breathtaking. The colors were awesome. Never had the trees looked so green or the sky so blue. It seemed every bird was in song - singing praises to their Creator. For the Bible says that “The heaven’s declare the glory of God, the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1-2)
With my Bible and jounal on my lap, I cuddled into the softness of the big couch. I watched Boffin stand up. He started walking slowly to the couch.
Suddenly he stopped. He began to tremble. He was shivering yet it was 85 degrees out. I will never forget the look of anguish and confusion on his face.
I scooped him into my arms and just held him. Close. And I praised God.
I praised God for His gift of the vacation, even tho it now had to end.
I praised Him for my puppy
I praised Him for the years we'd had together.
The love he'd given me
The lessons he'd taught me
I praised God for Messiah Jesus who promised "never leave me or forsake me".
Then I began to remember. I remembered all the adventures that Boff and I had shared. From kayaking in the waters of Pennsylvania to hiking in the mountains of California.
With each memory came a stab of pain. O it hurt so much. My heart felt as tho it would break apart.
But then I remembered how my mother helped me when I hurt as a child.. Whatever the pain - from a splinter to a scrapped knee, she would take my hand in hers. And she would say, "Honey, squeeze my hand - squeeze hard when it hurts".
Was she trying to transfer my pain into her body? Or was she trying to take my attention off my pain and put it on her hand holding mine?
I heard the Lord had say, "Dear one, don't look to the source of pain. Look to Me the source of your help".
And I remembered what the Bible says about God
Ps 121:
I will lift up my eyes to the hills from where comes my help? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 40 says that God is our ever present help during times of trouble. The Hebrew actualy translates into, "God, our exceedingly abundantly available" help in times of trouble.
God's comfort always available!
And Ps 9 says that God's comfort is a stronghold in time of trouble
When our whole world begins to cave in on us, we don't have to be strong. God is our strength. The God who made heaven and earth by a single breath and holds it all together by His power, is strong enough for me to lean on.
The Bible says that God is our refuge; when we have no where else to go, we can go to Him.
Recently, after a very difficult day I went home. I didn't bother to eat, to change, or to even wash my face. I just went into the bedroom, and crawled into bed.
And I pulled the covers up over my head.
Leave me alone I screamed in silence. I was hurting and just wanted to hide.
But covers can't hide us from the world. And they can't hide us from our pain.
Yet God says that we can hide in Him. He will cover us with His feathers and we can hide in His secret place!
I sat there hurting and holding my puppy. But I knew that I was not alone. The Bible says that the eternal God is my refuge and underneath me are His everlasting arms! (Dt 33:27)
So while I held Boffin, Jesus was holding me. Just has God had held out His hand to the people of Israel now He was holding out His hand to me.
I saw it. The hand of my Savior. The nail scarred hand of God. He was holding out His hand to me. His hand would bring me comfort. His hand would lead me into a place of peace. A place of refuge from the
pain.
"My child, My daughter, here's My hand. Squeeze My hand. When the pain gets too bad, squeeze hard."
Just like before, as I squeezed, it didn't hurt quite so bad.
So without letting go of Jesus, I began the slow difficult task of letting go of Boffin. It wasn't easy. But the more it hurt, the more I just kept squeezing that hand.
As Boffin got sicker A simple chorus played over and over in my mind:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace.
I turned to Jesus because He knew my pain. There were not many people that I could talk to. Let's face it. How many people understand the grief of losing a pet? some thought I was silly. Others thought I was being overly emotional. Others just ignored the situation. They couldn't understand my pain.
But not Jesus. He understood. After all, He created me in His image. That meant all my feelings were reflections of His feelings.
We tend to think thatGod does not understand us. But there is NOTHING that we feel that He doesn't feel.
sadness, pain, joy, sorrow,
The Bible says "like a father pities His children so does God pity His children". In Hebrew that word is RAHAM. It refers to a deep love (usually of a urperior for an inferior). It is rooted in some natural bond. RAHAM pictures a sighing which comes from the deepest part of our being.
The Bible says that God has compassion on His people. The word means, "having passion with us"
God does not consider our feelings silly. He does not call us emotional. He does not ignore our pain.
Because God came to earth and lived as a man, there is no experience except sin that He has not experienced.
Jesus saw the needs of the hungry, the lame, the blind and the widow and he had compassion on each and every one. He fed, He clothed and He healed them all. And He hurt with them.
Jesus faced the death of a loved one. And He wept.
And Jesus He faced His own death. And He agonized over it to the point of sweating blood!
Yes, Jesus suffered as we do. In fact the Bible says that Jesus was made complete by what He suffered! Imagine, the perfect God, who created a perfect world, was made complete through suffering so that He would understand our feelings.
I've often thought how awful it must have been for Him. There was no one to hold His hand when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsamne? His best friends slept.
No one held His hand when He stood before His critics? Or before Pilate? Or before the crowds who shouted for His death?
No one held His hands when He carried His cross through the streets of Jerusalem?
There were no hands to comfort Him at Calvary. Instead hands stretched out His arms and nailed His hands to the cross.
No hand to hold His.
He knows how awful it is to suffer alone. He died so that we would not have to. He stretched out His arms on that cross so that now He could stretch out his hand to me.
"My child, My daughter, squeeze My hand. When the pain gets too bad, squeeze hard."
Now four years later, I'm squeezing His hand again. Once again I'm looking fully into the face of Jesus as I watch another loved one suffer.
Now it's my father who's suffering. My Dad's body is riddled with cancer. We're told that his time is limited. That by the time he felt the pain, it was too late.
"Too late." What awful words. Such finality.
Sometimes death comes suddenly. Without warning. Without preparation. Without having to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
Sometimes death comes slowly. With too much warning. With too much time for preparation. The walk through the valley of death is a agaonizingly slow.
The doctors say there's very little time. For Daddy it is too late. Too late for what?
Dear friends, it's NEVER too late to take the hand of Jesus. To take that hand and to sqeeze. And when the pain gets to great, to squeeze hard.
The hardest part about watching Boffin die was knowing that he couldn't sqeeze the hand of jesus. As much as I loved him, as much as I was with him, my puppy really had to suffer alone.
And so is my Dad. Suffering alone. Without knowing the love and the comfort of Jesus.
it cannot save, it is our sins which make a separation between us and God."
The Bible says that when we are faithful to confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive our sins through faith in Messiah Jesus. And when our sins are forgiven, we are no longer separated from God's comfort.
God's extended hand of forgiveness and comfort reaches to each of us no matter where we are. No matter where we've been. There is no sin that He cannot forgive. There is no pain that He cannot reach.
God's forgiveness does not depend on anything we do for Him. It is dependant on His compassion and love for us.
Next to the cross of Jesus, there were two other crosses. On each cross was a criminal. While the Bible doesn't really tell us about their crimes, it does tell us about their response to Jesus.
Jesus held out His hands to each one. In the last moments of His life on earth, Jesus offered to each one His hand for forgiveness and comfort. One criminal rejected that hand. The other accepted it. One never knew the forgiveness and the comfort of Jesus. He suffered and died alone.
The other was forgiven. More than forgiven, he was comforted. He died in the arms of God.
The Bible tells us that death is not the end, but only the beginning. Death may be the end of this life, but only the beginning of eternal life.
Friends, when we accept the hand of jesus He will not only lead us through our present suffering and death. He leads us into an eternity of life. A life without pain, without suffering and without death. Life everlasting with God.
But if we do not accept the hand of Jesus, we will be left to live eternally without God. We will live forever as we died. ETERNALLY ALONE
The nurse tries to take blood from Daddy's hand. The veins are too narrow. She can't do it. The needle was too big. His hand was swollen and black and blue from the many futile attempts. He's in so much pain
Quitely I take his other hand. Daddy, squeeze my hand. When the pain gets too bad, squeeze hard.
But it was not my hand that I want him to take It is the hand of His Messiah. The hand which was nailed to a cross. The hand which shed the blood of God so that my Daddy sins would be forgiven. So that my Daddy would not suffer alone. So that all the Daddy's of the world would not have to die alone.
Daddy smiled. He laid his hand over mine. And he closed his eyes.
The hospital room is dark. The nurses move quietly from bed to bed. How tenderly they touch the patients. This is a place of suffering and death. It is filled with pain.
Whose is the greater pain? Daddy's? Mine? or Messiah's?
O Lord, it hurts. It hurts so bad to see Daddy like this. How i despertely want him to take your hand. i cannot do it for him. And you will not do it for him. This is a decsion he must make for himself
How hard it must be for you to watch. You died for him. You suffered alone that he would not have to be alone. You love him while he despises you.
You are are in this room. You are here by this bed. You are waiting silently. Patiently You are ready to forgive. Ready to comfort. Ready to lead him through this valley of suffering and death. Ready to lead him into an eternity of peace and love.
Jesus, it hurts so bad. I'm squeezing Your hand. I'm squeezing real hard.
How about you? Have you taken the hand of Jesus? Have you by faith, asked messiah to forgive you of your sins. You cannot know His presence and his comfort without knowing His forgiveness.
He's holding out His hand to you. It has nail scars on it. Scars which write your name. Take that hand. Sqeeze it hard. Whatever your pain, I know that when you squeeze that hand your pain will lesson.
As the music plays, decisde whether you'll take the hand of your Messiah. Maybe you're facing death. Or maybe you're watching a loved one face death. Maybe you once took His hand, but let go. He's offering you His hand. It's not too late. take it now.
O God in heaven. I need You. I'm scared. I'm in so much pain. I realize that I can no longer struggle alone. And You say that I don't have to be alone. You said that if I confess my sins, You will forgive me.
O Lord, I know that I have sinned. I have rejected Your hand. But now, I ask for Your forgiveness. Thank You for being so patient with me. Thank You for loving me so much. Thank You for Your comfort and your strength. I ask Jesus to walk with me through this valley of pain and fear. I ask You Jesus to lead me into Your paths of peace for I pray in Messiah's name.
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