Thursday, February 8, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
All things bright and beautiful
Out of my spinning mental laundry basket of tumbled, unending and disconnected thoughts, most of which had no business taking up any kind of residence in there, a verse rescued me.
The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.
Yesterday this verse pulled my mind up and out of the fear I had been captured by. I realized that the real enemy is not death, but fear.
So … as the day went on we went about honoring God’s benevolent possession of everything we did and everywhere we went. We spent awhile with our friend Susan, understanding her love for God through the stories she told us of how her parents loved her. I spent an hour in cardiac rehab, making friends with Nick, who showed me several more resistance exercises I can do at home, which I am determined to do.
Three guys who did not speak English came with a “punch list” of things to put finishing touches on our new cabinets and counters. Tree cutters who also did not speak English worked on a rascally small tree or two outside. We did our best to honor all of them.
And finally we went to yet another physician, our primary care doctor, who made room in a filled schedule to see me after my visit to the hospital. He reassured, he instructed, he admonished, and he was grateful along with us that I was feeling much better. He approved the meds I’m on and gave us ideas about how to cope with and sometimes resolve emergencies regarding blood sugar.
The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
I listened to a few more psalms yesterday morning, including Psalm 27.
The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear?
I remembered visiting Sharon Hall at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital in 1988. I was a young buck elder, and she was a veteran saint, a black lady with several kids and a fascinating husband who preached great sermons now and then to our nearly all white congregation in Waynesville, Illinois.
I don’t remember why she had been admitted to the hospital. I do know that she recovered, and soon we saw her back in church. Lying in her bed, she ministered far more to me than I did to her. I asked what I could read, and she said Psalm 27.
One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
How she could love so many of us in the midst of all her troubles was not just a mystery, it was a joy. Her smile was a mile wide. Her eyes were deep from trouble and from knowing God’s love through all that trouble. And oh, how she could sing.
Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?
I thought how Psalm 24 refers to all the earth forever and for all time, already, now and not yet. Sharon’s family, her husband, her children and her life might be scattered now so I’ve lost sight of them, but God certainly has not. His eyes are on the sparrow. His eyes are on Sharon Hall.
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
 (1 Kings 11, Psalm 106, James 1, Mark 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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