Tag: trustworthy

Forsaking All Others

barnstormingblog2 Comments

sunset115181

 

The forsaking of all others is a keeping of faith, not just with the chosen one, but with the ones forsaken…  One is married to marriage as well as to one’s spouse. But one is married also to something vital of one’s own that does not exist before the marriage: one’s given word. It now seems to me that the modern misunderstanding of marriage involves a gross misunderstanding and underestimation of the seriousness of giving one’s word, and of the dangers of breaking it once it is given. Adultery and divorce now must be looked upon as instances of that disease of word-breaking, which our age justifies as “realistic” or “practical” or “necessary,” but which is tattering the invariably single fabric of speech and trust.
~Wendell Berry from “The Body and the Earth” in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

 

sunset114181

 

Covenant between two married people, between parent and child, between coworkers, between countries, between God and His people — is too often broken, irrevocably shattered when convenient and deemed necessary.

I see the sequelae of these broken vows, broken words, broken covenants every day in my work.   Divorcing parents destroy the integrity of a family built on trust and commitment.  Relationships wax and wane with the ebb and flow of one’s mood and need for something/someone new.

This disease of chronic deficiency of trustworthiness, this lack of keeping faith with one another, is a brittle bitter breaking of word and promise.  The only cure is clinging to the One who we forsake again and again, who keeps His promise fully and wholly as He renews His everlasting covenant with us until His last breath.  He deems us worthy.

 

Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone,
I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.
I give ye my Spirit, ’til our Life shall be Done
~Diana Gabaldon – a Scottish wedding vow from Outlander

 

sunrise115182

 

baker11518

 

When Sad Comes Untrue

barnstormingblog6 Comments

weepingrose

Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?
~J.R.R. Tolkien from The Return of the King

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
~J.R.R Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring

Yet again unspeakable terror strikes down ordinary people living their lives–once again our soil is soaked with the blood of our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers.

In our minds, we want to rewind and replay the events of a tragedy in a way that would prevent it from happening in the first place.   We want to bring the dead and injured back to health again.  The major devastating earthquake becomes a mere tremor, the flooding tsunami is only one foot, not over thirty feet tall, the terrorist hijackers are prevented from ever boarding a plane, the shooter changes his mind at the last minute, lays down his arms and calls someone for help with his overwhelming distress and anger.

We want so badly for it all to be untrue.  The bitter reality of horrendous daily suffering and sadness all over the earth is too much for us to absorb.   We plead for relief, beg for a better day. What has happened to the world?

Our minds may play mental tricks like this, but God does not play tricks.  He knows and feels what we do.  He too wanted to see it rewound and replayed differently so He came to us to know our grief and sadness, to weep with us, to suffer for us, to die to end such evil.  And because of this, because of a God who came to dwell with us, was broken, died and then rose again whole and holy, we are assured, in His time, everything sad will come untrue.

Our tears will be dried, our grief turned to joy, our pain nonexistent, not even a memory.  It will be a new day, a better day when love is greater than anger, dissolving our grief – as it is written, trustworthy and true.

May that be a day when we can no longer overwhelmed with evil but we will overcome evil with good.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.
~Revelation 21: 4-5

drizzleweed2