Thursday, July 31, 2014

Dead as a bat

A couple of weeks ago, my grandson Gabe was practicing for the all-star tournament and his coach said his bat was dead and he needed a new one. That was a new one for me, actually, for I had never heard of a dead bat. Still, he hit better with the new one, so who am I to question?

Some of us might be feeling that way, spiritually, I figure. It's the dead of summer, cold fronts not withstanding. And what we feel is, well we feel dead, tired, dead. Things are necessarily going poorly, just dead.

So, I go to my source of religious news and I read that in Italy 61 percent of the population believe abortion is okay and 44 percent believe it is okay to have a face lift.

Really?

And what I get when I read such things is another degree of dead. I get worn.

I'm reminded of a song by Ten Avenue North:
I'm tired I'm worn
My heart is heavy
from the work it takes
to keep on breathing
I've made mistakes
I've let my hope fail
My soul feels crushed
by the weight of the world

And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

Let' me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
that's fraud and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that's dead inside can be reborn

Every person, I feel, has moments, days, weeks when the deadness comes, when the difficult arises, when the successes are difficult to see and the work of the moment seems to be long and hard. Everyone.

When those dead times come, when feeling the presence and power of the living God is so difficult, remember David, King and boy, who wrote, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountain fall into the heart of the sea."

We may be troubled, we may feel like a dead bat, but God is still here.

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