Several milestones are underfoot for me as I write this. I was another year older last week, and it's a sobering thing to contemplate. I realized this as I cleaned out a box of odds and ends collected over many years of active field nursing. Each night I'd empty my pockets into the box so the uniform could go into the wash. I fully intended to sort the things out and put them back in my pockets the next day, but often it just didn't happen and the box eventualy filled. Now, since I've retired from the field and have a "desk job", the discovery of the box was a poignant reminder of all the years, tears, challenges and joys. I sorted, tossed most of it, and relived some of a most wonderful period in my life.

But it was time to move on and clear away the space for something else. That's just how life is, and we get into trouble when we refuse to clean out the box and get on with the job at hand - insisting on reliving the past endlessly, or refusing to deal with the "mess" we have around us.

This is exactly where the American people are today. Far too many refuse to even examine the past or question the presence of things in the box - even those things that are so obviously harmful and broken. It is easier for them to dream on about the supposed glorious past and ignore the future. Easier, perhaps, but it is a deadly habit and will visit them with disaster and grief. That is the price we all must pay if we do not deal with things in their proper time.

It is much like a cancer. Most of you have known one or more who discovered a cancer far too late to be cured, some discovering that they had only days or weeks to live! Many have few or no symptoms, even that late into the disease, and some ignore the vague and annoying symptoms until it is too late. Some go to a doctor and are falsely assured that their symptoms are just "old age" or "arthritis" and go home happy that nothing was found... until the cancer comes out of the dark like a black widow spider to attack, then blame the doctor for not being more aggressive to find it sooner.

The cancer in the guts of America is not hidden! The symptoms are loud and clear all around us every day, in every action of every person! The cancer is the government that has grown and fed on our bodies, stealing our health and wealth and making us so weak that we can hardly live anymore. Yet it is being ignored by most and the cancer grows unheeded.

How long does the body of America have yet to live? Is there any cure for her terrible sickness? Will her people wake and discover the disease before it kills them? I don't know, but pray constantly that it might be so.

Some of us see the symptoms spreading, and the pain increasing day by day. We are doing our best to cry out to the people to take charge of their own lives and throw out the fools and criminals they have trusted to govern them. We are hoping that those who will wake and act can survive as a remnant when the darkness comes, but our hope is dashed constantly as those we thought were true to integrity and liberty are found to be feeding that cancer with the blood and possessions of their neighbors and their own children!

How long will God wait before He sends His judgment on those who delight in such dishonor and destruction? How long indeed. God help us all.