The solitary are set in families

Psalm 68 (Amplified)

⁵ A father of the fatherless and a judge and protector of the widows is God in His holy habitation.

⁶ God places the solitary in families and gives the desolate a home in which to dwell; He leads the prisoners out to prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

I’ve rattled these verses off several times with out really thinking them through.  Tonight when my son-in-law hugged me and told me he loved me, I thought about the fact that we loved him before he became our son-in-law, but we had no special relationship to him except through God and Christ.  Now we know him much more and a special love has grown.  Suddenly I found myself quoting from Psalm 68 and then saying “God set you in a family –our family.”  And he set Amanda in a family ours yes, but his as well.  Both families are enriched because of God’s act of setting these two in our families.  They were solitary adults, but now they are in families with a home and prosperity: no longer bound; no longer alone.

Then my mind went on a little further.  Not all solitary adults are set into marriages as couples.  Yet we learn to love and provide and look out for those in that solitary state.  In the smaller circle of our fellowship, we have several solitary people: some older and some younger.  Our ‘family’ would not be complete without even one of them.  They need us; we need them.

They could hold themselves in a prison of rejection and distance, but they would be poorer for it, yet when they cooperate with God’s design, they are freed from the pain of isolation and the loneliness it creates.  We bring ourselves to that union, they bring themselves to it and together we are all blessed and enriched.

What an excellent plan it is.

And in my thinking, I entered another room and saw that in order for us to be set free, we must admit we are prisoners. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Not only does our confession allow for freedom to be given, but it brings prosperity: the wealth of God’s kingdom.

A sense of injustice

Sometimes I am appalled by the sense of injustice about me.  Every one seems to scream about their rights and how unfair the world is.  I agree there is injustice in the world, but there always will be as long as people are dishonest and self-serving.    Sometimes the grievance is not even based in personal lack or suffering, but in a suffering of the past that they know was never atoned and is corrupted by a sense that a cause or person has a right for gain based on an injustice that can never be repaid.  And I see another view in which the people screaming for their rights are dishonest and self-serving, but they want more and feel entitled to have everything everyone else has and beyond.  In trying to convince others to get on board, they feel justified in their own evil.  This is totally deluded. 

Years ago, an influential lady in my small community brought a wealthy friend from a large city to visit me.  I was put on display and asked to do tricks.  So I played the piano, brought out some poetry, displayed my needle craft, pointed out personal paintings and revealed works in process for other people.  When we had visited for a time, my guest said “But what’s it all about?  What is your point in doing all this?”

I shared my philosophy which was based in a belief that God gives us all things to do and to serve others with and he blesses us for our effort and our obedience.  So my first call is to obey and the second call is to serve others and lastly to enjoy and express that joy in what is given.  I shared a very short account of how my life was changed by belief in Christ and excepting his salvation.  I was a preacher’s wife, after all, so that was no surprise to my guest.  She smiled an ambiguous smile and we visited a bit longer before she and my friend left.

As she turned to leave, she stopped and with a look of sincere pity she said, “It’s such a shame.  Who knows what you could have become had you not been tied to this ‘god’ and his religion.” 

I was astounded.  I mumbled something about enjoying her visit and watched them go with a hot face and a twisted stomach.  I quickly found a quiet place to cry and talk to my God about her words and how they made me feel.  Was I a needless victim of the stale requirements of a pointless belief?  Was I trapped by my service to an impotent God and his ungrateful people?  Was I doomed to be less that my capabilities because of the restrictions of a life I had chosen?  I cried almost violently for a time, and then I wrote a song, for that’s what I did in those days when I was happy or sad or confused or excited.  It’s how my life played out.

I was raised in a society in which women were considered inferior and subservient to men.  A man could cheat; a woman could not.  An adolescent boy could explore sex and abuse alcohol as long as he grew out of it; a girl could not.  A man served in the church service; a woman could sing a ‘special’ or serve dinner.  A man was a pillar; a woman was an adornment.  If a man hitchhiked across the country, he was brave and adventurous; if a woman hitchhiked at all, she was a tramp, a vagrant.  A man could be abusive, a woman must endure.  If a man had an affair it was the woman’s fault because . . . well, she obviously had failed her husband in some way.  I could go on, but you get the picture. 

Yet in my childhood home, I saw a different principle at work.  My mom and dad were both employed –not really a church endorsed situation.  My dad did housework and taught us to do housework – he actually made it fun when he could.  My dad was a big man and a man’s man, but he had a tender heart and he had no problem with doing laundry well.  He could speak in public, he was a foreman in a rough environment, he could stand his ground and was a decorated soldier from WW2, but he was a gentle soul that could rock a child and sing her to sleep.  He could not stand to see an animal suffer and would raise bunny broods even thought they were destructive and would have to be turned back over to the wild when they could forage.  He was always the one who conceded in a marital argument that got out of hand.  All of these were tied to the life he has once lived that he was not proud of.  He led our family in nightly devotion and prayer, but he cried over a daughter who struggled with things he didn’t understand.  He reasoned and questioned and showed a vulnerability that amazed me.  If my sister’s had made mistakes or misunderstood, that was understandable because his life had been so wrong.  But I was raised in love and righteousness, how could I not be secure and perfect?

I was trained to think theology.  I memorized huge chunks of scripture for the sake of reward and honor.  I was trained to reason between the belief of my church and the error of other churches.  I was trained to convert, defend and debate.  I was taught the structure of a good speech and the techniques of arguing my case.  Why would they do that to a girl and then say “You are a nobody; you are a woman; take your place in the back and be quiet?”  While training me to be an aggressive servant, they expected me to be a dumb blond.  I was one confused cookie!

There are scriptures that were drilled into me that I still respect, and struggle with at the same time.  God and I have had some discussions about that.  While my desire is to listen to him alone, there is the old voice saying “You cannot possibly hear from God, for you are a woman, created to listen to man.”  The theological implications of that statement are greater than any of my mentors would ever endure.  When I tried to use the technique I was taught to arrive at understanding, the reply seemed to be “You are a woman, you can’t possibly understand spiritual truth.”  This has always infuriated me –before salvation and after.

And so I embarked on a journey ‘to know God and his voice without question.’  I say this realizing that a human with their feet suck in the earth cannot ‘know God without question’.  Yet I still believe that pursuit is honoring to him.  I am learning to listen, to accept, to believe and what I experience is amazing, though not always practical to share.  I do not in any way consider myself to have arrived or to be perfected.  The more you learn and the longer you travel down that road, the more you understand the scope of the trip.  Mine is simply one road on the huge map of spiritual understanding.  If it were a super highway, the same would be true, but frankly it is more of a two lane road over hills and around blind curves.

So what has any of this to do with my view of the present sense of injustice?  You must live it out.  If you can shine a light and destroy some darkness, then do it.  But if you are trapped in a soggy, windowless room without comfort, bide your time, look for opportunities and learn.  Yes learn.  Learn to listen, learn to be patient, learn to survive.   Someday perhaps your savior (small ‘s’ in this case) will come and you will be prepared to follow into the world away from your present state.  It may turn out to be a dangerous road that ends in death, but only in this plain.  It may turn into the most challenging, and exhilarating journey you could never have imagined.  It may end quickly in a beautiful eternal place.  Does it really matter if you have faith and know you are following the true God?

I was not called out of freedom; I was called out of bondage.  I have lost nothing by becoming a servant of God and his Christ.

Almosts

The past few years, I have become a tremendous has been!  My life held so much promise that hasn’t ever materialized.  But that is not what this is about.  Recently, we had the great opportunity of being ‘almosts’.

It was a fairly small investment considering the promise it held.  At first we were going to net 13 million which of course the government would take 34% right off the top and that would leave us with 8+ million of which the state would take 24%.  But after all that we would still be left with 6.5 million.  It was a done deal – a slam dunk.  There were closed meetings, web conferences, special chats, and a host of delays.  We couldn’t really wrap our heads around it, but we did discuss how we would navigate the common pitfalls and what we would do to ensure it didn’t leave us and others we care about poorer than when we began.  We were contacted about other group actions and investments and we said “Let’s wait for the reality of this to set in.”

One night our investor called and asked us to join in a larger coalition that wanted to take our bit, combine it with others and trade it in another market because the original deal was becoming shaky and the US government was blocking its completion.  I had been reading a lot, watching pretty carefully and understood that already.  Several people had walked out of the country and tried to trade in foreign markets.  Yet everyone who had tried to personally take action had been arrested or thwarted.  Then we were informed that the government would require NDAs when we went to the ‘bank’ to ‘cash in’.  You've probably already assumed we aren't talking about Arvest or First National of Fort Smith.

This whole time, all the US based articles claimed it was a hoax and only when you ventured into articles in certain parts of the world would you get any information at all.  All the information I found indicated that it was tied to a clandestine deal made between governments over a decade ago.  It also indicated that perhaps it was not supposed to include the ‘common man.’   That made me feel that something was totally wrong with the ‘deal’ and I asked my Mr how he would react if we lost even the original investment.  He said “We still have ………...”

Finally when months passed and another offer to redeem our wad in another market came, my husband decided to join and turned over the goods.  This promised a far less enlightening return, but still in the 7 digit range.  I had a weird foreboding about that whole deal.  Frankly I felt that the market they were headed for was a bad choice.  Then I began reading about arrests –again foreign articles-  I read about under the table bargaining and some unprincipled actions proposed by the original source.  When caught, it seemed that these ‘investors’ were being jailed and their assets being impounded until all things were settled.  The accepting country was being threatened with charges of treaty violations but only under the radar.  When I wandered out into those information highways, I felt like I was trapped in an old movie looking through bars at smokestacks while being drugged and hypnotized to cleanse my memory.

Our trip to Verona had ended and we were left with our original investment and no real paper trail.  Did all that really happen?  But unlike ‘The Trip to Verona’, the investors were still online and many of them still expect the big return to happen any day now.  They have discussed how and why people were taken out by the government and a few have produced scanned documents that appear official and would caution against creating any grass roots hysteria.  The original investor said “You can have your money back or your ……….. back, which ever you choose.”  
For us, it’s not a great loss.  The amount we invested would buy a wanted item or two that would break down or wear out in time.  There were others in the group that are the same way.  Their concern is similar to the stupid gnat that keeps flying around my head and nose in my study.  But for some, the investment though equal in amount was far greater in consequence.  Those are the ones I pity.  They were ‘almost’ wildly wealthy.  They ‘almost’ had enough to buy a good home and a nice vehicle and live independent of worry.  One lost his job in the middle of this and has carried on with a string of minor employments.  Another lost his health and has medical bills sky high.  I would much rather have my ‘almost’ than theirs.

Proverbs 16: (NIV)

            8 Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice.

            9 In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.

Thought for the day: Never gamble what you cannot live without.

Poems and promises

Years ago I was struggling through a bad marriage.  I will not qualify that, because it is unneeded for the present writing.  I met a man in the course of my ministry as a pastor’s wife, musician and state youth worker trainer.  He was quiet and I was loud.  He sang and I played the piano.  We both went to the same teacher trainer workshops a couple times a year and we both attended the same camps and youth conferences regularly.  We became friends, we became good friends and then we found ourselves at a crossroads at which we had to decide what our relationship was going to become. 

I loved him.  He loved me.  I was miserable at home.  He was miserable at home.  We were both alone in the same hurricane and couldn’t really find our footing.  We had begun to hold on to each other.  At one youth camp it came to a head.  We had to decide what we were all about.  My 2 year old was with me that week and I think that was the catalyst for us to begin thinking about our children –he had 2 sons, I had 4 daughters, our parents who were equally devoted to God and their churches and would not approve, and our ministries which would be destroyed if we followed the course we wanted –a course that seemed more than logical.

In the end, we went our own ways by mutual agreement and almost without chains or regrets.  We remained friends from afar and 2 or 3 times a year we spent time basking in our friendship knowing where it belonged and how it would be conducted.  I think we were both proud enough of the decision we made, though it left us both alone in our separate storms.  I wrote a poem at that time and include it here.

I

alone

against the raging wind

and pounding rain

as piercing cold lay bare my heart

and drained my will by force again

in its onslaught found a hand

of one as beaten down as I.

We grasped each other hoping

that the little strength we both possessed

would be enough to see us through

what seemed a daunting, endless quest.

On and on

through angry gale

we stood together

gaining strength, gaining will

until our own determined stand

proved to the wind it’s futile strife.

And in that stand each gaining strength

and hope and with it force of life.

Till, in our own strength, we could stand

while wind and rain and cold disband.

Confident,

grateful for the chance to grow

from weak to strong,

we found we could let go

and each move out toward a private goal,

basking in the sun and warmth,

carrying the memory of the struggle in each soul.

Walking, I, with head held high and heart held light,

pursue a path unknown toward the night

a starless, moonless road with howling wind and rain and I,

I writhe in pain.

I am

alone

again.

I wrote one other poem about our relationship, though I will not post it here.  It was titled “You Were There” and spoke of the depth of our friendship and its positive effect on my life.

A few years later, I was divorced.  I lost nearly everything I had cared about and yet, I was free and glad of it.  In my selfish anger, I made a statement to a friend “I just feel so stupid, so cheated for hanging onto my integrity and being true to that excuse of a marriage.”  I thought about my former friend.  At our last meeting, I found out that his marriage was shaky as well, though I did not have the courage to tell him that mine was ending. 

The friend with whom I was speaking replied “Never feel bad about doing right.”  I wasn’t really sure that it was right then.  My reasoning was “We will both end up alone, without each other, without our ministries or our families.”

In time God rinsed my emotions and mind with healing and brought a wonderful man into my life with whom I will soon celebrate 30 years of marriage.  He’s a good man –oh yes he’s as human as I am, but a good match for sure.  A few years after our marriage, I wrote another poem, answering in a sense, my ongoing personal conflict.

I stood alone in the storm

I found a hand, it was warm

We held on tight

thru the blustery night

We laughed and cried for a season

And found the storm was our reason

Alone again, I was shaken

Unsure of a hand I had taken

Tightly we grasp

Thru the storm. When it passed

In it’s wake the heart remained warm

For we were the reason for the storm.

Life became busy and full.  My love for my husband and our life became my focus.  Only when I would see one of the poems did I think about him and feel a bit of sadness.  Not because of desire, but because of uncertainty and abandoned friendship. 

A few years ago I was going through a particularly rough time of life.  Nothing was working right and, again, I thought of my friend.  I wondered if he was alone, if he missed me, if there were still answers within our abandoned friendship.  I went online to try to find him and I did.  But he was far away and the information was sketchy at best.  He was still preaching –some, but he had another job.  I could find no mention of his wife and sons and it made me sad.  But I left all that where I found it and sanity eventually leaked back into my own world.  More years passed, but I’ve always thought of him and wondered about his life.  The sadness I felt at thinking about him was like a heavy chain on my heart though I love my husband dearly. 

Recently the pain of another person brought him back into my focus and so I went looking again.  I found him easily this time.  I believe that was meant to be.  He’s still married to his first wife and they look very happy –more so than I ever remember them being.  He’s surrounded by family and work.  He has a good and respected position within the ministry he has continued to serve all these years.

It is amazing the freedom and the happiness I feel at knowing his life is secure, his marriage endured and his ministry was blessed.  My heart, for the first time, knew we did the right thing all those years ago.  I am released.

What do we glorify?

As a child I attended a very conservative and legalistic church and school.  They gave me a foundation that I am thankful for.  They embedded scripture in my mind.  They provided an example of exemplary living.  They demanded discipline. They taught me to search for their truth and find it.

But, they taught me to trust my own strength and the strength of leaders.  They taught me to skip over or explain away verses in the Bible that did not agree with their personal philosophy and theology.  They taught me to condemn, criticize and disassociate those with different belief or experience.   They gave me a behavior standard that said to my heart “If you do this you will be better than the rest of the world and God will love you.”  Yet because it was a standard that changed with the ideas and prejudices of the leaders, I had a difficult time coming to a position of faith in Christ.  I found myself searching in all the wrong ‘teaching’ for answers that eluded me and them.  They would have called me a heretic at that point.  I am so grateful that God broke through all that to find me and draw me and then train me to think in a new way.  And still, I am grateful for the usable tools that they forced into my brain when I was a child.

I’ve always had a bit of rebel in me.  God knows it hasn’t always served me well, but at times it has made me stop and say “NO!  I respect your knowledge and your experience, but the Bible does not say that.”  Generally I lacked wisdom in who to share that eureka with and found myself in ecclesiastical distress a lot.  My grandmother, raised in a Jewish family, left Judaic thought for Christianity in the early part of the 20th century. Her approach to morality and faith was very black and white.  My father, raised by a woman who had that strong training in both arenas toward living and believing, put off Christianity for many years because he knew when he accepted it, his life and thinking would be very ‘black and white.’  I love nuances of gray and hints of color in the natural world, I see diverse sides of the same argument often.  My brain asks “What if?” a lot.  But my father’s discipline, my grandmother’s influence, has left me quite opinionated in areas of morality and spiritual responsibility –with just a touch of humor thrown in.

A few years ago a well meaning individual, who went to the school and church I attended as a child, started a Facebook page for people to reconnect and reminisce.  Of course, I joined.  I wanted that contact.  I respect the cradle of my personal civilization.  I dug up pictures and posted them, I reconnected to people who I hadn’t seen or heard from in decades.  A great door to my past was cracking open.

But as it cracked open, I began to see other memories not so pleasant.  People began to express their faith and freedom.  People began to exchange opinions.  People began to tell about their lives and the self-appointed watchdog guardians of the ‘past’ recoiled and snarled.  They insulted, they berated, they condemned.  They took control.  They banished members.  They exalted former leaders to deity.  Their new form of idolatry was amazing.  I stopped visiting.  Since I was not one who opposed them openly, I was not banned or discontinued as a member, but I had no desire or need to visit the ‘page’.

On occasions, I would see some item of interest –mostly the passing of people who I knew and who had influenced my deranged pre-faith thinking patterns.  I would go and read the eulogies, the worshipful remembrance.  The passing of these people brought a sadness, for though I found discouragement and condemnation in their memory, it was a great part of my past and foundation that was dissolving one block at a time.

This morning I had cause to visit the page.  And the moderator had posted a call to ‘keep the posts on focus and respect the purpose of the page,’ in reply to a lady posting pictures of her first grand child and sharing the joy of that experience.  I came out of my shell.  Yes I did. 

I told said moderator that it really wasn’t clear what the focus and purpose of the page was.  It claimed to be a place to reconnect.  I asserted that I really hoped to find out what happened to many of my former classmate and friends at church.  I wanted to know what they had accomplished, who they married, where they lived.

It also claimed to be a place to reminisce.  I interjected that I had many memories of the place but like my father (who was a well respected man in the structure) I often saw the irony and the humor of the situations that transpired there – something I’m sure the page would never tolerate.  I also decried their leader worship and insisted that none of those who they glorify would want that in the place where they now abide.

I feel certain that I have put myself in a position to be banned.  Actually, I’m really okay with that.

I have an addendum.  The man answered me civilly, asserted that it wasn’t the place for random pictures that had no connection to the church or school and agreed that he wished he knew about the people as well.  And how is he going to do that?  He didn’t say.  I guess I won’t be banned.  Sigh.

2nd addendum.  My comments received positive support from other members as did the woman's announcement of the birth of her grandchild.  Perhaps that will signal a change in attitude.  I can hope, can't I.