In the Line of Duty

      A Facebook friend posted today about a local game warden who died in the line of duty--car accident. I sometimes struggle with the description "in the line of duty". All death is tragic, especially car accidents because there is no time to prepare. A loved one is suddenly gone. In the line of duty certainly applies to soldiers killed in war, and first responders killed on the job, but is the death of one of those individuals in a car accident going to or from work any different from other people heading to their jobs? When Trooper Mike Haynes died in a head on collision caused by the drunk driver he was pursuing, it was in the line of duty. The officer crushed by the car of the stranded motorist he was helping, died in the line of duty. Those committed to our safety and protection deserve special honor, but that doesn't necessarily merit the words in the line of duty.

     What about the young teacher killed by a drunk driver on her way to the school?  Or the mom bringing her kids to school who was permanently disabled when an oncoming car knocked a deer through her windshield? She was also a teacher there. What about the tow truck driver recently struck by a car on the side of the highway? He was on duty at the time. Truck drivers killed in crashes? Loggers struck by trees? There are many kinds of duties beyond those of first responders and many kinds of people have tragic accidents. If killed in the line of duty means everything, including car accidents that can happen to anyone at any time, then it really doesn't mean anything. And the words become a token, not a tribute.

Behind the Scenes

    In a previous post, I expressed how irritating I find the patience of God, ironic as that sounds. One of the other irritating things about God is that He is not always a good sport about letting us see what He is doing. A lot of His work is behind the scenes. It is said that coincidence is God working anonymously, and sometimes it is so anonymous it looks like God isn't doing anything at all. Times when there is no visible interest on our prayer investment. The truth is, the Bible omits many more things than it tells. A lot of that unreported backstory is what God is doing behind the scenes. We get a rare glimpse of these divine inner workings in the story of Job, although the readers got the explanation in the preface while Job had to wait for end credits. And there is another glimpse of unseen spiritual battle in Daniel 10, where the messenger sent to answer Daniel's prayer had to call Michael for back up to battle demonic forces trying to shoot the messenger. After times of hardship, we can sometimes look back and see God's purpose in it, but we rarely truly understand God's purpose in the midst of trial.

    So even though I am baffled by why my sister and her husband will not be spending the week of their 25th anniversary at the condo in Hawaii I reserved for them many months ago, I know God has a purpose in it. My sister's 2 mm breast cancer could be dealt with after the condo week. The trip could have been a welcome respite between diagnosis and treatment. But her husband's kidney stones, surgery, and (pardon the pun) rocky recovery was not conducive with long days of flying and relying on the medical care available in rural Kauai. No one wants a kidney stone as a souvenir of Hawaii. I do not blame them for cancelling. God's message could not have been more clear if He had provided stone tablets by the bed--with Braille subtitles. 

    Spending their 25th anniversary, on May 25th, in Hawaii, sounded perfect to me and there was a a lot of prayer on my part involved in making arrangements, especially when Kauai, because of Covid, closed to travel for months. So there was nothing wrong with my motive, prayer is never wasted, and yet, there is a lovely, two bedroom condo in Princeville that will go unused. I had hoped we could go ourselves, but while calling everyone we could think of, Reed realized he had made a prior commitment to one of those everyones during that time. There is an unseen purpose for this trip cancelling, and I have finally reached the point in my life where I can put on my spiritual big girl panties and be content not knowing the reason. Because I trust God even when He's irritating, and even when He's working behind the scenes.

Jacob at the Finish Line

     My BSF study has ended for the summer and this is the time when I look back at my personal take-aways. For one thing I had never considered why the Pentateuch was written when it was, during Israel's wilderness wanderings. Although I'm sure their ancestral stories had been passed down in other forms, Genesis explains how everything came to be, how the Jews came to be God's chosen people, God's promises to them, and why they were to displace the Canaanites when they arrived at the promised land. I know God's timing is perfect, but it seemed to me that it would have been handy for the fathers of the faith to have had the preface to their own lives written down ahead of time.

    But what made the biggest impact on me this time through Genesis was the life of Jacob. Jacob spent much of his long life drifting spiritually, but God would graciously step in, remind him of His promises, and point his prodigal to the proper path. Jacob did not have a Bible, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or other believers to encourage him. He had only God, who is faithful to the faithless. So faithful, in fact, that the Lord chose to identify Himself as the God of Jacob.

    And it was especially encouraging to me that, despite everything, Jacob finished well. As the physical strength (moving stone well cover/wrestling Lord) that marked his life dwindled, his spiritual strength rekindled so much that his deathbed blessings to his sons also prophesied of the future Messiah. The Egyptians, who despised Hebrews too much to eat a meal with them, so respected Jacob that he was buried with the full honors and attendance of the Egyptian nobility. One BSF group member said she liked these lessons because Jacob's family was messy and, despite the best of intentions, so was hers. For me, Jacob's story was a reminder not to put a period where God has put a comma. Those spiritual drifters may yet finish well.

Choosing Him

     This was another of those times when I knew a poem was inside me, but I didn't know what it was about. As it happens, it was a love poem. We went out on a date last night, but pizza is not usually my food of inspiration. Chocolate? Maybe. I feel like I should save this for our anniversary or his birthday, but I haven't posted anything for a while and this is all I've got.

Choosing Him

He was not the man of my dreams,

but of my waking

my own choosing,

my conscious commitment

to link my life with his.

 

He is not very romantic.

Most of the time, 

if I want flowers, I buy them.

But he has never forgotten my birthday,

Mother’s Day, or Christmas gifts.

 

I will never come home to 

 a surprise:  party, dinner,

vacation plans or new clothes.

He only has a vague impression

of my size--for which I am grateful.

 

We don’t have mutual interests,

beyond our family and travel.

Music—I’m a little bit country

he’s still 70’s rock and roll.

What we have in common is love.

 

 I tease him often, but 

 I respect him always,

more than any man on earth.

And if I could choose any of them,

I would choose him again.

 

Naturally, he has his flaws,

he works too much, procrastinates,

wears stained, torn clothes,

has questionable taste in some areas,

especially, his taste in wives.

 

But I can hardly find fault with that.

A woman can always tell

when a man is honorable

and she never gets over the honor

of him choosing her.

 

4/23/21

Judah and Sons

     This time through Genesis, I finally understood why the ugly account of Judah and Tamar, which seems so out of place as the story of Joseph unfolds, fits there. Not only does it fit chronologically, but it explains Judah's change of heart when Benjamin is summoned to Egypt. Because it is not just the story of Judah and Tamar, it is also the story of Judah and his sons. Not only did Judah lose two sons, he lost them because they were so wicked God, Himself, put them to death. By the time the famine drives Jacob's sons to Egypt to buy food, twenty years had passed since selling Joseph into slavery. That means for twenty years Judah watched his father grieve for Joseph. Perhaps that is why he left his family and went to Shechem where the trouble with his sons started in the first place. Sometime during those twenty years Judah shared his father's cup of mourning, doubly so. God softened Judah's heart, but it was a painful process.

     Joseph tested his brothers hearts by offering the perfect opportunity to rid the family of Daddy's new favorite son, Benjamin, in a way that put no blame on them. They could pass it off to the demands of a powerful Egyptian ruler. Instead Judah, who now seemed to be the spokesman for all the brothers, offered to take Benjamin's place in slavery, if necessary. He could not bear to see his father's grieve another lost son because he had walked that road of grief himself. And I would not have understood why without the story of Judah and his sons. Tamar's role in Israel's future and the line of the Messiah is significant, but those details could have been inserted before or after the story of Joseph. Much of the Bible is not in chronological order. I think God placed that chapter where it is because it ties into how much Judah had changed by the time he went to Egypt.

     With beautiful symmetry, Joseph not only offered his brothers a chance to pass his heart monitor test, he gave them a "do over", an opportunity to make amends for Joseph through a similar situation with Benjamin. To get right what they got so wrong the first time. To begin to lay down the burden of guilt they had carried for twenty years. And for Judah, it was an opportunity for a heart broken by sorrow to be healed by submission to sacrifice. 

    

    

Is This Wisdom?

           Is This Wisdom?

 

Is this wisdom, I wonder, as I realize

I go deeper now when I read scripture

than I used to, despite decades of Bible study?

I asked for wisdom five years ago

when our son's life imploded

from alcoholism, legal troubles,

a disastrous marriage, debt, job losses

and all the other damage that accompanies addiction.

 

Our home became his sober living place

and we, reluctantly, his sober police.

I begged the Lord for the wisdom He promised,

so we would know how to help him

and when to let him fall.

 

Not just general principles of scripture,

specific guidance from God's Son for ours.  

Not polite prayers, but passionate pleas.

It was enough for me that He guided us 

through those days of desperation.

But now, enjoying the blessing of his sobriety,

his plans for the future, his regained independence,

I still find myself contemplating scripture more deeply than before,

the humanity of the people, the weight of what is written,

and what is not, the weaving of scripture with scripture.

And I realize now that perhaps the power to see more 

is the afterglow of the wisdom I prayed for.

It is so like God to give more than I asked.

The insight did not end when our son got sober

and the need for it was not so dire.

 

Still we wait for him to draw closer to God

because learning to wait for God's timing--

this is wisdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Injustice of It All

                        Contemplating Good Friday

Connie--

     relaxing in a warm shower after a good night's sleep in a soft bed

Jesus--

     hanging on a cross after a long night of unjust trials and torment

Connie--

    thinking about the latest senseless shooting and the injustice of it

Jesus--

    counting on the unjust hatred of the Jewish leadership to accuse him

    the indifferent justice of the Roman government to crucify him

 

Connie--

     sinful, yet judging my world, longing for justice in it

Jesus--

     sinless, providing justice before God through the injustice of man

 

Connie--

      looking up, I cannot comprehend such breadth of love

Jesus--

     arms outstretched, embracing the injustice of it all