Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: January 28, 2006
Good Sabbath
January 28, 2006
From Fran's best friend, Zelda and Marwin, a package with the chocolate bear Mischa Bearach, "who brings three gifts of love:
The first is the unbounded love of true friends
Whom you've had for years;
The second is the love of prayer for healing
And the third, of course, is chocolate-
The food of love and needs."
I read an article; "after tragic losses, people find strength in their faith."
The faith is in a God of mystery who hides until discovered by an aching heart. There is no shelter from searing pain; the soul is constructed from pain, mixed in with hope and faith and the unknown factor, which is discovery about one's self after terrible disappointment or loss.
"It was like I was riding blissfully in a chariot in the sky, sailing smoothly with my hopes and dreams, Suddenly a lightning bolt hit me and I fell, not just to earth, but farther down, into a huge canyon." Like when Fran and I were walking in Israel, the bus had left us well beyond where it was supposed to because so many cars were parked where they weren't supposed to be. The parking lot was terribly dark, with no moon, and Fran suddenly fell from my grasp. I watched her as she fell toward what my mind told me was the ground, where she would stop. But she kept falling ("into a canyon") into the deep space between a wall and cars. As she disappeared from my sight, with my mind full of confusion and fear, she finally stopped, with her wonderful face a couple of inches away from the bumpers, buried in gravel and sand, and scared for life--just enough for her to know and most not to be aware of.
The easy part was asking God, when I had recovered myself enough to be angry at the hotel and the God whom I loved, in Whom I had faith, but angry with just the same: "why?" The fact that the hotel had not bothered to place any fence around this excavation was one thing. But what about kindly God, where was He and why His absence? But she had missed those bumpers and that was the point that we have always appreciated about that evening.
A mother who had lost three children in childbirth, filled with bitter disappointment, remembering this after she had twins:" What's lost is lost and having something good happen later does not change that. Part of my healing is bringing together the worst parts of life with the best parts and thinking about how we can be fully present in life, with both joy and sorrow. It's still coming together for me."
When my beloved gets up in the morning, struggling for breath, the doctors caring but not knowing what causes this ailment, I think of what I can do or say that would make her feel better, or pray to God to notice and to help heal her from what ever, knowing that age is unkind to healing as the body's parts may wear out, but from what--at least let us know, from what?
But faith kicks in and my soul reminds me of so many blessings and so much to be thankful for, and I know that He is listening as He has always, and what will be will be, "for the better", as my Mom's glorious Mom used to say, as Betty reminds me each Saturday as we review our week and our memories.
So in a world where struggle is mortals' occupation, and yet beauty everywhere and miracles abounding if we notice them--more than sunrise and stars shining, but the possibilities that may or may not happen-where or when of this we are never sure--but faith must be kept, no matter the outcome, for the outcome is the belief in heaven and rewards for the faithful and the kind and good, and then we have found the reasoning of God, mystery until that moment.
sandy
