Grandma Ruthie
Moses struck the rock,
And water gushed out.
In my heart there is a rock,
Heavy and dense with grief.
Can water gush out?
The pain in my stricken heart
Leaks only tears.
Can the water of life,
Refreshing and invigorating,
Once more flow?
How hard must the rock be hit,
Before it cracks open?
How severe the pain,
Before it liquifies,
And water runs free?
Is water from the rock,
Too much to expect?
I pray this is only a dry spell.
I pray for a spring.
I pray for water.
This morning, I smiled remembering a recent event. Bill and I had a very tight connection while flying to California to visit our son and his family. As we got off the plane on the first leg of the trip, Bill said that he would run to the next gate and make sure they kept the gate open for me. As soon as he could get past the lady on the escalator with the large suitcase, he took off leaving me in the dust.
When I arrived, he was standing in the opening with the gate
agent making sure they waited for me.
So, this morning I pictured him running up to heaven’s gate. Although, I know they would not close that
gate, I pictured him standing there, as he did at the airport, saying, “My wife
is coming. She’s a bit behind me, but
she is coming.”
The mental picture makes me smile through tears.
Why don’t I hear his footsteps on the stairs,
The rhythm so familiar?
The youthful, lively tempo of his feet,
Denying his age.
Why isn’t he walking in the door,
His blue eyes twinkling in amusement?
“Why are you telling people I am gone,
I have passed into another place?”
Why doesn’t he wrap me in his arms,
Or plant a kiss on my lips?
Why don’t I feel his warmth,
As we sit on the sofa or lie in bed?
I must be having a bad dream.
Surely I will wake up soon.
My heart breaks at this new reality.
At the silence and stillness and emptiness.
And yet, I delight in the memory,
That he was once mine and I was his,
That our love was a gift of a gracious God,
And one day we will rejoice together in His presence.
The silver trumpets sound.
We gather all around,
Awaiting your
direction.
The silver trumpets sound,
Though the enemy surround,
We trust in your protection.
The silver trumpets sound.
Reveal a glory that astounds.
We bask in its reflection.
In preparation for leaving our apartment on Amelia Island, we are starting to think about how we will get rid of everything here. We already have our home in the retirement community in Fort Myers furnished, so there is very limited room for items from this apartment to be moved there. One of the boxes here contains quite a collection of Zane Gray books which Bill acquired. Some of these appear to be First Editions, so they might be valuable, and we don’t want to just put them in a dumpster. Yesterday, we sorted through them and made a list with publishing company and copyright dates. This exercise brought a memory back.
As a high school student, I was very diligent. I did not take the easy way out when
completing assignments. So, when it came
time to pick a book for a book report, I opted for weighty material. I don’t remember what all I waded through,
but I do remember Walden Pond was one of the mental challenges I tackled. I had the same English teacher for both my Junior
and Senior years. He and I engaged
regularly in mental jousting. He
delighted in baiting me by bringing up topics he knew we would disagree on. He referred to me as his “worthy adversary.”
However, as I thought about the final book report for my high
school career, I decided it was time to give myself a break. I got a Zane Grey novel…I think maybe it was
Riders of the Purple Sage…and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I knew my English teacher would be shocked,
and I thoroughly enjoyed that too.
When I got the book report back, I had a 95…that was actually
the highest grade he would give. He
claimed no one ever deserved 100, because there was no such thing as a perfect
paper. I had to laugh though when I saw
what he had done. He had circled my name
in red. He had circled Zane Grey in
red. He had drawn a line between the
circles, and on the line, he had written “incongruity."
If he thought that was an incongruity, he didn’t know me as
well as he thought he did!
Give some thought while you are young,
To the swiftness of your days.
All too soon that time will come,
The slow and painful phase.
Your vision will diminish,
Your teeth are not your own,
You walk with steps uncertain,
Your joints will creak and moan.
You awaken all too early,
Or don’t sleep well at night.
The sounds of birds grow faint.
You’re now afraid of height.
You tremble when you walk,
But no longer with desire.
The advancing of your years
Has quenched that youthful fire.
And then there is the moment,
When something truly breaks,
A back, a hip, a heart, a mind,
And your whole being quakes.
The time has come to turn to
dust,
You know that you will die.
Will “everything is meaningless”
Be the last thing that you cry?
Remember your Creator in the days
of your youth! (Ecclesiastes
12:1)
If you defile the land, it will vomit you out.. Leviticus
18:28
I know that we no longer live under Old Testament law, but
this strikes me as a very relevant warning.
The preceding verses in this chapter have detailed various ways in which
a land can be defiled. They deal
primarily with sexual sin of many types…all of which are freely practiced in
our society today. Some of them are even
applauded today and viewed as “normal” expressions of sexuality, rather than
perversions. Child sacrifice is also mentioned
in the midst of all of the sexual sins.
I wonder what it means for a land to vomit out a people. In the case of this passage, it meant that
the idolatrous people living in Canaan were destroyed by and for the Israelites
who came in to inhabit the land after their exodus from Egypt. This passage was God’s warning that the same could
happen to them if they took up the evil practices of the previous inhabitants. Of course, they did, and the nation was
eventually destroyed, and its people dispersed.
It was centuries before the nation of Israel was restored, and it exists
now in constant peril from some of its neighbors.
But, I am wondering today whether we in the United States are
at risk of being “vomited out.” Or,
perhaps, the whole world is in danger of being “vomited out.” Whether global warming is man-made or a
normal variation such as has happened during the world’s history is not
something I wish to argue. But, is it a
natural consequence of the way in which humanity has defiled the earth with
their rejection of God’s standards?
People talk about Mother Nature being angry. We all know she is a myth. God is not a myth, and he certainly must be
angry as he sees mankind flaunt its disregard for the principles he knows are
for our own and the earth’s good.
He, of course, knows we are broken. He knows we are powerless to bring about our
own salvation, so He sent his son to pay the price for our sin. We each need to come to a personal understanding
and acceptance of this immeasurable gift.
As we enter into this relationship with him, we begin to learn how he
wants us to live. We do not need a set
of laws such as we find in Leviticus.
The Spirit of God convicts each of us.
We respond out of love and gratitude for the sacrifice he made on this
day (Good Friday) centuries ago.
