This lovely, hope-giving incident has made many smile through their tears. Enjoy:
This past week has been quite a doozy for me, and I find myself emotionally empty, physically drained, and in need of true fellowship and respite. I can’t get it from Levi today, as he is taking a well-deserved geek/guy break up in Denver with his buddies.
Anyway, after everything that has happened over the last month or so, I found myself itching to just get out. So, I decided to take the kids to Wendy’s. No play place, where they could share all kinds of yuck with any number of kids. The last thing I need is more illness. But that’s not what this post is about.
I was standing at the counter, ordering kids meals for all but Durin. He got an adult meal – the kid is officially a bottomless pit.
The lady tells me the total: $24.67.
I reach for my wallet, which … isn’t … *panic* … there
Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now then, just as the Lord promised,
he has kept me alive for forty-five years
since the time he said this to Moses,
while Israel moved about in the desert.
So here I am today, eighty-five years old!
I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out;
I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.
I’ve recently been seen at a site that advances the idea that it’s okay to kill babies because unattached sperm “dies”, unattached ovums “die”, and malformed embryos die. So why not kill babies?
I am so saddened by this. For one thing, I love babies. I could happily work as a babysitter all my life, if I believed in farming babies out. But I don’t.
The thought of killing such an innocent, pretty, thing, just because it is in the way, nauseates me. It’s like bashing in the heads of kittens or defacing priceless works of art for fun, or something, only far worse, because the realization that a baby is a fellow-human intensifies my identification with it.
And if it does not move or sadden you, I challenge your humanity.
I can remember being a baby. It’s not too unusual for someone to remember something from babyhood. My mom and I figure I was probably 3 months old when my dad got a crew cut and all his gorgeous black waves were gone, revealing a pale forehead. My mother says I screamed when I saw him. I don’t remember the screaming, but I do remember the event. I remember I was surrounded with the quilted white satin liner of the bassinet where I lay, and I remember his grinning face appearing over the edge of it, so traumatizing because of being wrong, missing the hair. I remember his reaction to me, his surprise and a sort of hurt look on his face. I would not have known all the details except that I asked my mom about the bassinet and my memories, causing her to recall that day, to remember how they later thought it must have been the haircut that scared me. She filled in many details, but I — I remember it.
Is anything wrong? Are murder and theft wrong?
Of course.
And we need to ask ourselves why. Why is it wrong to kill someone? Why is it wrong to take something that is not ours? Why is it wrong to hate? Why is anything wrong?
We need to figure that out for many reason, but the reason I want to address is this: The stakes are rising. The latest, the new right/wrong that people are beginning to feel comfortable with is the selective attack on women that is permeating the whole world, INCLUDING THE U.S.A. Men and women are stealing, raping, and killing women for the mere reason that they are women, and no other reason.
Are we crazy?
Whether women, just because they are women, are sold, abused, or killed, can we all say, “It is wrong,” without being challenged?
“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” –Jesus (Matthew 24:32-34)
I have long loved this verse because it shows a type of beauty often missing in our world.
A man, a tough, martial kind of guy, has a child by the hand. Gently.
And it’s not just any ol’ kid, either. The Commander has the son of the enemy by the hand. People who hate him have spawned this boy and he’s got him by the hand, drawing him to a private place somewhere inside the deep crevasses of the Roman military barracks.
Away from the other guys.
Away from listening ears.
Away from perhaps terrifying sounds and cruel or obscene remarks about Jews.
The young man has a message for him and believes the Commander will want to hear it. Why? Maybe he’s watched the man in action, before and noted a spark of humanity in him. Maybe the man has shared a bite of ration with him.
Maybe the boy just thought it worth the risk. After all, his message could save a man’s life — his uncle’s life, in fact.
The record states he took it upon himself to approach the Roman Commander with his news, though, and for some reason, the Commander took the boy quite seriously.
Maybe he enjoyed being watched, perhaps imitated, by a young kid.
Maybe he noted the earnestness in the lad’s face and instinctively knew something of great import was on his radar screen.
Maybe he was a dad far from his own brave son.
However it was, a huge, hardened hand of a Conquering Commander held the smooth, youthful hand of a Jewish boy, and together they changed history:
The boy’s uncle, Paul of Tarsus, escaped a wicked assassination plot, a lynch mob.
The last words we know of from this man with the huge hands are, “Don’t tell anyone that you have reported this to me.”
It was, after all, quite politically incorrect for them to have had a conversation at all.
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