Spiritual warfare is REAL. Sometimes, the devil attacks and won’t stop and we wonder why. For some unbelievers, they call this karma when bad things start to happen. Over time in my life, I have learned I don’t believe in karma. But I do believe bad things happen because God allows them to.

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Job 1:12

It’s not that God loves our suffering – that is anything but the truth. God put us on this earth to share love and to worship. We were put on this earth to multiply.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:28

God does not NEED us to do anything. He does not need us to love Him. He does not need us to multiply. God can do all of these things Himself. He created the air, the sun, the moon, the plants, and everything you see. God does not need us. He wants us to choose Him though. God gives us free will. And the devil can’t stand the fact that we love God and choose Him. You see, the devil knows He’s not going to win. After all, he’s an angel. He lived in Heaven and he knows who created him and what God is capable of. He’s also arrogant enough to think he can do better.

Someone once shared with me that the devil doesn’t really care who we choose. His purpose isn’t to get us to hell. His purpose and his whole existence is meant to hurt God. Period. He can accomplish that by hurting God. Us hurting and choosing to live our lives apart from God crushes God. That is what makes the enemy happy. It’s enough of a distraction to take our eyes off Jesus and sink in the water, much like Peter did. Peter walked fine on that water…until he took his eyes off Jesus. It was THEN that he sank.

My boys are in Hungary this week. Serving at a wonderful camp called Word of Life. Leading up to this trip, we had multiple things going wrong. Little things that anyone else would be laughing at, but for us, it was just one more straw.

My health has been horrible. I went to see my oncologist and I’ve been feeling really bad. My memory has been struggling and I’ve been having some massive headaches. I’ve had problems with some movement on my left side and I started to worry if the cancer was growing. I had a few urgent scans and nothing showed up abnormal, which was great. My bloodwork is a disaster and my Vitamin D is pretty much non-existent, so they are working on that. However, that is contributing to major depression that I have not been talking about to many folks. (Guess that’s out there on the internet now.) I’ve been crying at everything, unable to control my emotions, sleeping too much, my eating is a mess, and I’m stressed out ALL the time. One day before the trip, we realized all of these flights were a mess. So we spent HOURS trying to get them corrected. Names were wrong, date of birth, emails, flight numbers. Things kept going wrong over and over and we kept having to get thing fixed. Add on to that, the day before the flight, we found a massive amount of ants in our closet, rats in our chicken coop again, and a coyote who was brave enough to walk in our front yard. The hits kept coming.

We finally got those things fixed and then when we got to the airport, a massive airline outage happened globally. Cloudstrike and Windows were having issues taking every airline globally down. Richards flight was delayed out with the mission team, but they finally got to Chicago where now, they struggled with some bag issues. Richard had to check his bag at the last minute due to the amount of luggage on the plane and that bad ended up in Chicago. Normally okay, but then the chaos started. One airline tried to automatically move them, then our travel agent tried to get involved, then we kept getting shifted to other airlines back and forth. The luggage sat somewhere during all of this, still thinking we were getting on the Swiss flight to Zurich. The bags were still tagged that way, too. Later in the day though, Turkish Airlines picked up the flight and they were told the bags would get there. They have not.

Richards bag was still in Chicago. (Buy yourself some air tags, folks, they have been a lifesaver.)

We had another team try to track the bags who said “Oh yeah, we have your bags, they are in the system. We’ll send them on the next flight.” That never happened either. I spent a total of 5 hours on the phone with 3 different airline companies trying to get claims filed and just get the bags to Budapest. I finally ended up getting them to accept a claim, but the bags STILL have not moved. Our hope is that they will get to Budapest soon.

In every moment, the devil has been present. Trying to muddy the waters and take away from the incredible work the team is doing. The lives that are being touched. The Gospel that is being shared to convert unbelievers into believers. To prevent those souls from knowing the love of Jesus.

But God.

Things back here at home are hard, too. Elysha came down with a fever. My head is beyond painful. One of our turkeys died. And honestly, I’m too tired to move. My brother’s wife is due to have a baby ANY DAY now and I am so excited to welcome another life into the world and show the devil what he can’t have. He can’t touch my kids. He can’t touch my husband. They are protected. I know he hates that.

Listen – my life has been a story all in its own. From childhood to now, there are massive amounts of God’s grace and testimonies. From discovering I have cancer to seeing my oldest take his first mission trip. There are ups and downs in life, but in the end, they are reflections of Jesus’ presence in our lives and the goodness He brings. I am not dead from cancer. My husband and child made it safely. We have inconveniences (even major) along the way. People get sick, bags get lost. Heck, even trying to write this, I can’t seem to publish the message (see banner below).

In the end, we are saved and Jesus just wants us to share His story of grace and redemption. Share His word. No matter how hard it is, keep pushing. God is real. Forgiveness is real. Read the final chapter. The enemy doesn’t win.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Revelation 22:`13

Let’s make Heaven bigger, folks.