I thirst

Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment. Psalm 60:3

There is a sort of driving drizzle outside, and Alan and I read the paper together in front of fire before he heads out to take kids to a soccer game and I go do my thing at Hillenbrand Pool.  That newspaper is packed with hard things from the slaughter of Nigerian polio vaccination workers to the bleak details of life in Honduras and Guatemala that are driving unprecedented numbers of immigrants to attempt crossing into the United States.

The folks at CHIRPA, Community Home Repair Project of Arizona, see hard things: vets suffering from post-traumatic-stress syndrome living in a school bus flat out in the middle of no where, Brain-surgery patients who can’t manage the three-inch step up to their trailer front door.  Speaking of trailers, who know their floors had such a propensity of rotting out, and leaving their occupants walking from beam to beam over an open sewage pit into where the broken pipes empty.  

They gathered together for their annual meeting in the main room of a small Mennonite church on the southeast side of Tucson.  It was a mixed crowd of older salt-of-the-earth white-haired sorts with crinkles of experience around their eyes and well-worn hands misshapen by arthritis but still with a lilt of joy to their step.  Mingled amongst them were the hipster save-the-world types, giving up a year of community service for mankind.  And looping them together was a warmth and love and delight in all things good.  Dustin comes home every day happy.  

And so we have three options when faced with the hard things in life, represented so succinctly by Jesus as a traveler attacked by robbers and left for dead by the side of the road.  We can pull our robes around us more tightly, withdraw in disgust and smugly blame him for poor choices made, we can pretend that we have much more important tasks requiring our immediate urgent attention, or we can stop and kneel down before Jesus in our midst.  While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Back to Kate and Monday’s conversation.  Obedience equals joy.  

Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.Through God we shall do valiantly; for He it is that shall tread down our enemies.  Psalm 60:11-12