Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Love reigns

My dad and I disagreed.
About everything.

I've often said that my civil rights stance way back in the 60s when I lived in Mississippi was nothing courageous or whatever. It was simply the fact that my father was a racist. If he had been in charge of the welcoming committee for aliens, I would have been against aliens flying down to run the PowerPoint.

He: The sky if blue.
Me: Not on my watch.
He: Love is patient.
Me: Love is in a hurry.
He: Hate that Kennedy.
Me: The Kennedy's and Martin Luther King are first-rate acts in my book.

That was my life in the 60s and 70s. We argued, screamed and fought. That was the dinner table. That was the early evenings.

Yet...when a tornado took a chunk out of the little berg called Lizelia, my dad grabbed the large photo of my kids and Mary, took one of his big paws and pulled a mattress onto himself and the picture and withstood the winds of change.

In this look at parenting that I'm processing, for a sermon series in May I think it is, I'm looking at what was, is and will be.

In Psalm 139, we get some of it all. Here's the first 13 verses:
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I'm taken by the second verse: You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

My father was a disciplinarian. Till I was a senior in high school, his rules were simple. Be home by 8 p.m. or don't go out. Many times I was sitting at the Chick 'n Treat on 8th street in Meridian when I would notice the time and it would be 7:30, or about 30 minutes from Glenn Time.

My car, a yellow Mercury I named Mokey Bear (you had to be there to undersand this with the shift on the column and a 289 V-6 inside the hood, knew both the way to the house and the speed traps from there to there.

Life was exciting. It was as if Dad knew my coming and my going. He knew everything about my young life and he dominated and controlled all of it.

The second tale of parenthood is called "It's Okay to be imperfect," which is at best a misnomer. It simply should read, It's Okay to be whomever God created me to be.

See, mistakes come with the territory. Imperfection comes with the area. Life is filled with stuff.

But this Psalm makes sure we understand that God is there for us. He "hems us in," so much so that before we even complete a sentence, He's there finishing it for us.

That might not sound great, but friends, it is. It means that God is there watching over us, which is good, of course. But it also means more than that. It means He is there being active in our life. He's sitting on 8th Street as well as riding with us in the auto home as well as being there when we get home.

It's not a matter of judgment. It's a matter of love.

I'm not sure I ever got that before this weekend. I'm dead-solid sure Dad never did.

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