Thank you for the prayers. I was miserable yesterday but after a good night's sleep and having the injury cleaned and dressed, I'm feeling much better. Today's blog post is on a subject I've been pondering for awhile, especially with so many suffering during the pandemic.
I was putting away Lavender Rose Royal Albert dishes recently in the sideboard where I am keeping it for a family member. Other inhabitants inside the sideboard are collected serving pieces I hope to use again... someday. Maybe.
Other beautiful serving pieces of china and crystal reside tucked away both inside and under other cabinets. I used to love to set a beautiful table and have people over but it has happened less and less for various reasons. I have sent other things to Goodwill over the years but the items I kept are those that I find lovely just to look at off and on.
It's the same reason I keep the silver plate tea set and shine it a couple times a year. It reflects light at Christmas but it is just as beautiful in the sunshine of a bright day in Mid-July. China and silver, like people, do not have to be useful in the world's eyes to be lovely. I really do miss the dinners and tea parties, though.
One of the hardest lessons we watch our children learn is that life is not fair. It is difficult enough to understand as an adult, much less as a five year old. Many people have rejected God completely after having lived through the unfairness of it all.
We have been told that life is suppose to be fair, equality for everyone, even the American Declaration of Independence declares we have an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. So, why does that pursuit leave us so empty?
The truth is still this, that life is unfair. Sometimes the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Quite often men and women have been judged and treated unfairly because of the color of their skin. Parents watch their children go to bed hungry when people who call themselves friends are feasting and they wonder at the inequality of it all.
It is hard to find anything fair about the suffering we go through. At least, not in this lifetime.
However, we must remember that the accounts have not been settled, yet. What may look unfair now, what definitely feels unfair now, may all come together some Eternal day. Life is very, very short and if one does not look at everything through the lens of Eternity, it is easy to become frustrated and give up entirely.
When I am driving home from town and the weather is very good, or it is a particular time of the year, I like to take a different route home that takes the car past cornfields and horses and an old country church. This route is especially more beautiful in Autumn.
The interesting thing about this road is that, should I not turn at the former home of my daughter's duet partner when they were teenagers and continue driving a mile or two, I would come to the high school where I graduated. Sometimes it seems like yesterday when I would get in my car as a senior and take that road into town to my part-time job.
It couldn't have possibly been decades ago... but it has. Where has the time gone? It was just yesterday that I walked down the aisle of my Presbyterian church as a bride who had just turned twenty. Wasn't it a couple months ago that my daughter was married at a beautiful chapel in the woods? How could her oldest be in college already? How could my "surprise" baby boy be married and a father already? Life, indeed, is a vapor!
Why do the wicket prosper has been a question on our minds, one of those we say we will ask God about when we see Him face to face. Although honestly, I doubt we will be asking Him to explain Himself when we look upon His face. But it is a serious question, asked by no less than King David millennia ago.
I don't have a clue why God allows the wicked to win and prosper or why bad things happen to good people. I do not pretend to understand the seemingly unfairness of life. The world does not make any sense. Not at all! But then again, He likes to remind me that this world is not my Home.
We are all, those of us who have accepted Christ as Savior and call Him King, pilgrims and sojourners just passing through. We are to be His hands in the flesh to help and encourage where it is needed in this broken of all worlds as we walk that path toward our true Home.
He never promised we would totally understand this world, although He left us the Word to give us wisdom if we but read and study it. I have found that the more I read it and listen to very good Bible teachers, the more I get just a glimpse of Light in the midst of the darkness of this world.
When I listen to music that gives Him praise, the heaviness of heart begins to lift. Especially when it speaks of Biblical Truths I very much need to hear. Whether it is a contemporary song on K-Love or an old Hymn... there is a reason music has brought peace to many.
I have learned that I must hold on to hope as I'm walking (or rather limping these days) through life but when that hope is coming from any other place than in Christ... then it leaves me shallow and empty and forlorn. That hope has no real substance to change lives.
There is an old hymn that says, "Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness... On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." If there is one thing I have brought away from this last year it is this... hope can only be found by trusting Him and His Word is our rock. Everything else truly has a foundation like sinking sand.
Song: On Christ the Solid Rock by Robert Chritchley
Image: From The Water Babies
9 comments:
So much wisdom here...but this stood out to me..."China and silver, like people, do not have to be useful in the world's eyes to be lovely."
Life here is mystery.
Amen! I think many have forgotten our hope lies in Jesus alone.
So many false prophets these days from those who profess to be Christian. I pray that He opens their eyes before it is too late.
Thank you for this was so true and profound! You had me at the mention of silver and china it is so true, people are treasures!! I feel like my life has just been a flash! And this life is not fair but we know this is not our home! I truly enjoyed this thought provoking post! Hugs, Roxy
When my kids were little and whined, "That's not fair!", a favorite response was, "There's no such thing as 'fair'. 'Fair' is rides and cotton candy..." (-: One pastor I remember listening to was trying to address the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people. He said the problem is that we perceive some people as "good" and therefore feel that they should have good things happen to them, unlike the "bad" people. The reality is that NONE of us are truly "good" and what we ALL deserve is hell...but for the grace of God ... So, I guess when you think of it in that way, it should make us less inclined to complain, right? I also liked a description that one of my daughter's S.S. teachers shared: Instead of visualizing a bunch of stick figures running toward God, and God choosing to pluck out a few, saving them, and blessing them with good gifts... but then brushing the others away ... what we should instead (more accurately) visualize is all of the stick figures rebelling and running in the opposite direction of God toward the edge of a cliff. Then, watching God, in His mercy, pulling some of those figures off that track that would lead to their inevitable destruction. It was never "fair" that Jesus took the penalty for my sin upon Himself, but I could never thank Him enough for doing so!
-Joy
As one who, like the Israelites, goes round and round the mountain, I find that I am revisiting the same truths time and again. This is one I would like to learn once and for all: in every situation, go to Jesus first. The time I have spent fretting, stewing, fuming...
Good thing that I discovered long ago that there is no parity with God. I don't spend much time there.
When my mother in law passed away, none of her 3 daughters wanted her silver tea set as they didn't want to polish it. She loved it so much on her dining room table, I just couldn't let it go to the sale so I took it.
Every time I polish it, I think of her and I love the way it looks on our dining room table. I hope my daughter or daughter in law will want it someday too.
PS I recently found out tha silver polishing gloves work better than anything I have tried.
Life isn't always fair at the time when it is hard to look at the big picture. Most of us are so very fortunate.
Friend, I’ve been pondering some of these very same issues. Trying to keep my eyes on the One who knows all things.
this world is tired - as a result most of the inhabitants are also tired. i'm thankful to be a sojourner and that my real home is in heaven. in the meantime though - i/we are here for reasons known to God - for his purpose and glory. thinking on that - and more.
I have been reading your blog a long time if your daughter’s oldest is off to sollege. Your blog means a lot to me. Thank you
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