I Am Always Good

Psalm 34:8 - Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

John 20:19 - On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

Colossians 3:15 - And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

I John 1:5 - This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 

Dear God, I want to believe so much that You ARE good, but it is so hard right now. You are calling me to write a letter that will be very hard but very necessary to give certain individuals another opportunity to do the right thing and come together into a meeting to try to seek restoration. And of course, now dealing with some other challenges that have disrupted things, and feeling punished for being honest. Again. God, please hear the cry of my heart today and please move things and answer my needs and desires that are in line with Your word and Your will today and this week. Thank You. In Jesus' Name, a Amen!

Observation

Most Republicans on Facebook hate facts. Hardcore facts. How do I know? Because when presented with facts, they call others names. Very hurtful and often unrepeatable names. And they often claim to be Christians. 

Here is a little known fact about new ACA plans: Many do not require consumers to meet any of the deductible before covering services. How do I know? Because I have one. And shh.... But it means that insurance is actually working now! YES! 

Also, I now understand exactly what the phrase JUNK PLAN means. I had a classic example of it this past week as I was at the doctor's office dehydrated and in need of an IV treatment. A junk plan is one that when an emergency strikes isn't really there at all. How do I figure? Let me break it down.

Under the pre-ACA plan, one of two things would have been required for me to receive that life-saving IV fluid. Option one: Pre-approval. In the meantime, I was so dehydrated, my brain was literally becoming unresponsive. Option two: ER and wait until they decide when to finally get me in. Either way, we are talking a bare minimum of $500 in charges if not more.

BUT, get this: Under the new ACA-compliant plan, the oncologist's office ran it through the insurance and found that the treatment was covered at 100% of the allowed amount. I paid my copay. And the deductible did not have to be met first. And here's the kicker: The ACA put the power of care back in the hands of the doctor and the patient and the patient's family! Yes, you read at right! 

By the way, it is almost April, and I have a $500 deductible with my new plan and still have not met it even though I have had a lot of medical care this year. So continues the life of a patient wih chronic health conditions. For the first time in my life as an insured person, I have insurance that actually works for me. 

Now if only my representatives would actually follow suit, everything might have a chance of looking up. Haha.

By the way, I do not consider myself democrat, but I do have more liberal leanings of late. However, I am also conservative in other areas. Stop boxing people in unless they come right out and say what they are. I am a progressive thinking Christian who sees life from a different perspective because of how my life experiences have shaped me. And I follow Matthew 25:31-46 in all my ways. I am a Christian revolutionary if you would. I am a young adult sick of organized religion that has become abusive to the least of these and corrupted by leaders who are selfish and arrogant and refuse to acknowledge their faults when they are pointed out and called to more. That is what I am. 

Anyway, those are my observations today.

I Will Take Care of You

Deuteronomy 33:27 - The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. And he thrust out the enemy before you and said, Destroy.

Proverbs 3:5 - Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Jeremiah 29:13-14 - You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I have sent you into exile.

Dear God, I thought I could trust Your provision for me but hateful people are out there harming me every time I turn around. Now I am being starved to death just because I am disabled, and it really hurts. Lazy people who CAN work get full benefits while disabled people get cut off from having food? And because of the abuse I suffered from a church for having autism, I have no resources for making sure I have food. Allergy free foods are not cheap! It isn't fair God! It isn't fair! The republicans have really screwed up big time. Yet they claim to be Christians. Well, if they were truly Christians, they would make sure I have enough resources to have enough food to eat, get the healthcare I need, and can save for emergencies! They have been sitting on the ABLE Act for over seven years now! Without that, I am not able to save for an emergency. If an emergency happened today, it could cost me $5000, but I am not allowed to even have $2000 in my name. Without proper food, I can get sick and die. But do they care? No! And now I am beginning to wonder if YOU care now as well. Just when I thought You cared, something else came along to mess things up for me and shake my trust in You. I am wavering today. In Jesus' Name, Amen!

Everything in Its Own Time

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 - For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

John 16:33 - I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

Dear God, Help me write the letter You have called me to do when it is the right time. I am waiting for You. And I am trying to trust that You WILL work things out from there. Thank You! In Jesus' Name, Amen!

A Journey to Trust

Trust is definitely a journey! But I will start with small things and eventually get to bigger things.

I prayed for healing and asked many others to pray for healing as I began to suffer from the dehydration that long term stomach viruses can sometimes cause. By the time I got to the doctor yesterday, even my blood pressure gave the telltale sign that I was too dehydrated to even have routine blood work done. They had to do an IV for hydration.

So now I am going to write something here. I know many of you know that I am a Christian and I do support the Affordable Care Act. Because it is personal for me. 

Before the ACA, I had a BCBS plan from 2003 that was a special open enrollment plan and heavily underwritten. In the end, it became nothing more than a catastrophic plan, essentially only covering major medical expenses. Under that plan, if I had needed the IV therapy I received yesterday, I would have either had to wait for pre-approval (which could have killed me) or been seen through the ER. Now, at that point, it would have cost $300 for facility plus $50 minimum for doctor plus the IV bag, IV tubing, needle, bandages, alcohol wipes. Grand total would have been a minimum of $500. 

But I have an ACA-compliant plan. And it is a gold level plan. And when they ran things through at the doctor's office (oncologist), it came back covered at 100% of the allowed amount. 

The ACA has essentially put the power back in the hands of the doctors and the patients and the patients' families! 

Now I want to express something here. You see a lot of people are intentionally spreading misinformation to dissuade people from signing up and getting insured. 

What the ACA is: 

1. A set of regulations by which all insurance companies must comply.

2. Protection for patients who have pre-existing conditions and for patients who get sick after getting insured. No more denials, no more drops, no more lifetime caps.

3. A list of ten essential benefits, though if I could change this I would make pediatric benefits optional and allow them to be exchanged with adult vision and dental. 

What the ACA is NOT: 

1. Insurance.

What the marketplace is:

1. A key to all available insurance plans in the area in which a person lives.

Who the marketplace is for:

1. People who make a minimum of $11,000 per year.

2. People who do not qualify for Medicaid either because their state did not expand the program or because they are not disabled.

What the marketplace does:

1. It uses the information the applicant provides to determine based on income and family dynamics whether a person is eligible to receive assistance with paying for his or her monthly premiums. 

2. It helps the applicant find the plan that best fits his or her needs and makes suggestions based on the provided information. 

Essentially, the ACA is still driven by the insurance industry. 

I used to think that the only place where Jesus really nails down exactly how the least of these is to be treated was in Matthew 25:31-46 until the other day when I ran into a passage in the book of Psalms where God said almost the exact same thing there too! It was Psalm 72:12-14.

Listen Christian, if you really are a Christian, then you need to throw yourself behind the ACA as much as you can. You need to throw yourself behind SNAP, SSI, SSDI, VA benefits, and any other social program that is helping the least of these. Are there parts of these programs that need to be fixed? Absolutely! But they need to be simply fixed. No more cries of repeals. No more cries of cuts. No more of that. Because when you do that, you are a bully and an abuser of the very people whom God says you need to show the most grace and compassion to.

Look, I experienced abuse and bullying as soon as a church learned that I have autism. It was wrong. And the friend I had knew it was wrong and did nothing about it and ended up committing an act of bullying and abuse himself. Instead of doing what God would have him to do and show me grace in a time when I needed it the most, he threw me under the bus and crushed me when I was already down.

And get this, I could go on being angry about it or I could do the one thing that I am now being advised and instructed to do. I could take the higher road and reach out to him with grace and love and compassion and forgiveness and then turn around and do the same for those people at his church that hurt me. And then I will have to trust that God will work things out. 

And all of this comes from the one simple act of trusting God to help heal me of the stomach virus that sent me into dehydration and caused me to need an IV that was covered by a new ACA compliant plan. 

One more thing: If you are a Christian, take note on this. Either you believe that God is sovereign and therefore everything under heaven that happens is part of His plan and His purpose including the fact that Obama is president and the ACA exists or you do not believe God is sovereign and you have to say it out loud in admission. For if God is sovereign, then you need to remember that Romans 13 says you are to pay your taxes and that you are to respect all authority under heaven that God places over you, and that includes the president, no matter how much you might not like him. Do you believe that God is sovereign? If so, stop the disrespect of the president. Stop calling him anything that is not his name. Stop complaining about a law that is helping millions of Americans every day. Stop complaining that some of your tax dollars are going to help people who may have fallen down on their luck. Just stop. Do you know what will happen if you truly embrace the sovereignty of God? You begin to feel at peace. About everything. And you begin to see God at work. In everything. And that is the most valuable thing that can possibly happen to someone. Trust me. I know. Because I am beginning to experience God in all His sovereignty now. 

Like a Little Child

Isaiah 26:3 - You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Mark 10:15 - "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

Mark 10:15 (ICB) - I tell you the truth. You must accept the kingdom of God as a little child accepts things, or you will never enter it.

Philippians 2:14-18 - Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice.

Dear God, Please help me trust You like a little child and never to lose the innocence that I do have. Maybe it is that innocence of a little child that I still have that let's me believe that You will bring Tom and I into needed conversation. And maybe that is exactly what is needed. Thank you. In Jesus' Name, Amen!

I Am the Greatest Blessing

Romans 12:2 - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Colossians 1:27 - To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Revelation 2:4 - But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Revelation 2:4 - Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

Dear God, Thank You for Your love and for being in my life. Help me not lose focus on You and help me always desire the things You would have me desire and the things You say I should desire in Your Word - be it peace with others, restoration with others, forgiveness, for the least of threes to be treated right by others, or whatever. Thank You. In Jesus' Name, Amen!