Friday, May 30, 2014

Falling so that we rise

The thought occured to me sometime during the night that I've lived a priviledged life. I've never known want. I've never known lack. I've never known real -- I mean real -- suffering. I've had my bumps and my bruises, and things haven't always gone the way I thought they would or should. I've grown up white and male, I existed in the two fields of endeavor that I wanted to stumble around in, perhaps even succeeded a time or two.

I've never felt real fear, fear of joblessness or fear of incarceration or fear of truly loneliness, for you see I understand at some gut level that through it all, through it all, I've never been alone. Never. I know that. And in my growling stomach this morning as the sun rises and another day presents itself, I know that He has taken me to this spot in life.

What comes next is in his hand, as it has always been.

What say you? Have you felt His presence when things weren't exactly as one might have thought them to be? Have you felt His love when you felt marginalized, out on the fringes of life, beyond the white-picket fences and the two kids, two cars, two dogs and a very indifferent cat?

I look in the mirror and it occurs to me on occasion that I've become old, overweight and, well, broken again. I believe the way this goes is I will get older, perhaps as overweight or even more so and more things will break.

But I believe in His promises. Heck, I believe in Him. There are times, still, when I believe He believes in me.

David pondered, again, these thoughts: "O Lord, you have examined me, and you know me. You alone know when I sit down and when I get up. You read my thoughts from far away."

He know me. He know you. Heck, He knows us. Writer. reader. and everything in between.

This day, why don't we, the suddenly marginalized, the old, the hefty, the tired, the broken, the white, black, brown males, the white, black, brown females, the ones who are simply hurting in places they didn't know they had places do something different. Instead of rising up, why don't we fall down -- to our knees, thanking Him for knowing us in good times and in bad males turn to the one

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