Red Wednesday's Wisdom - How It Began

I hope that by sharing the following story with you over the next couple of weeks, that you will have a better idea as to why I am writing Red Wednesday’s Wisdom, and how it gives credence to why I believe in God’s presence in my life and His desire to be in yours as well.

First of all, I want to remind you that all four of my Rituxan treatments took place this past August, 2011, on Wednesdays. I make a point to tell you this because last year during the months of August and September, my friend Val, who was my Rituxan buddy at my second treatment, was meeting with me every week so that we could begin to edit the book that I had, and have been writing. The writing reflects my 17 years of being in a personal relationship with Jesus and the healing that He brought to my broken heart and life. Out of those 17 years, 11 of them have been spent in writing and teaching others how they too can experience a personal relationship with God, through His Son Jesus, and to receive the healing that He has for each of us, if we want it. Through God’s Holy Spirit, the whole reason for red, He is the One who shows us how we can declutter, heal and rebuild our lives with His simplicity, His order, and His nurturing ways.

Val and I did not set out to meet every week on Wednesdays, and to say that it just turned out that way would be negating God’s divine orchestration. Whether we admit to it or not, and whether we are aware of it or not, God’s divine order is always at work. So as Val and I met on Wednesdays to share, pray, and edit, we discovered that the Holy Spirit had been at work growing the same spiritual gift in both of us; the gift of wisdom, also referred to as knowledge. If you look at 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, you will see that these verses give you insight about the different spiritual gifts. Wisdom is one example of those spiritual gifts. All of them are meant to be used in our helping one another.

The wisdom I am talking about is far greater than the worldly wisdom that comes from man. The spiritual gift of wisdom is much greater and deeper. It is the Godly wisdom that is experienced when we have a relationship with Jesus, His Holy Spirit, and His Word.

Consequently, Val and I began to wonder if the Holy Spirit was putting it on our hearts to refer to our meeting days as Wednesday Wisdom, so Val and I prayed and we asked for the Lord’s guidance in His Word. Of all the 66 books in the Bible, the Lord led us to the one book that is filled with God’s wisdom. It is called the book of Proverbs, and it is also known as the Book of Wisdom. Here are the two scriptures that we were specifically led to:

1. Proverbs 3:5
“Trust in the Lord with all of your heart; do not depend on your own
understanding.”

Understanding is a synonym for knowledge or wisdom and we were being
reminded to depend on what God knows, rather than depending on what we
thought we knew.

2. Proverbs 4:7
“Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do! And whatever else you do,
develop good judgment."

God was reinforcing that our coming to Him in prayer was the wisest thing we could be doing. We had asked for God’s wisdom to describe our Wednesday meetings, and it was affirmed by Him leading us to the book of Proverbs (The Book of Wisdom), and the wisdom Scriptures that we were to reflect on.

Even as I am in the process of writing about Wednesday Wisdom and doing my morning devotions from the book called Jesus Calling, I see God’s “attention getter” with these words in the book of Colossians 2:3, “In him lies hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” The "he" that is being referred to is Christ. Therefore, wisdom = Christ!

Two weeks ago, a parishioner at my church shared that she had been praying for my healing. She also had a Scripture to share with me. Prior to this exchange that we were having, I had asked her to please share any specific Scripture that the Lord had put on her heart for me. The Scripture she shared with me was Proverbs 3:5. The first Scripture that I mentioned above when Val and I prayed last year about Wednesday Wisdom!

So, as Val and I continued to meet for Wednesday Wisdom, we began to think that Wednesday Wisdom could eventually become a Home Touched web site feature. Catalin (Cat), who is married to Val, is a web designer, and he registered Home Touched as a domain name over 11 years ago for me, but we have never received the green light to create a web site. Often times God says, “WAIT!” And over the years, I have learned that God’s wait is much different from my wait. So even though the three of us explored and played with different ideas for the web site, it became clear that God was still saying, “Wait!”

The day was Wednesday, July 26th 2011, and of all the people who could have been with me on this day it was Val. The doctor’s diagnosis from the bone marrow test was Waldenstrom’s, a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer. After much discussion with the oncologist, and Val asking more questions than me, Dr. Partridge made a brief exit. I glanced at Val with tear filled eyes as I expressed the feelings of shock, as well as relief. Finally, I had a diagnosis to go with the laborious search to explain the symptoms I had been experiencing over the last 2 years. But what was hitting me even harder, was that the two of us were witnessing the hand of God as He had been preparing us, and particularly me, for this day’s Wednesday Wisdom and for future Wednesdays as I faced upcoming treatments. How could I have known that Wednesday Wisdom would be about me being diagnosed with cancer?

I look forward to continuing the story and telling you how RED became part of Wednesday's Wisdom.