Spiritual Thoughts....

This is an old posting but I felt it important for me to add this to my new site because I think it is important for all of us to maintain sight of who our God is , and what a relationship with him means to us!

It was some time between 5:30 & 6:00 am. I was sound asleep when Vicki nudged me to wake up and before I could even open my eyes I could tell something wasn’t right.  Two sets of bifold closet doors were shaking and rattling profusely. Occasionally even the drawers on the dresser beside my bed tapped and rattled lightly. There was somewhat of a gentle rumble as the entire house shimmied and shook ever so slightly. I am sure it was less than five seconds that the thought entered my mind “oh my gosh, we’re having an earthquake”. Some said later it sounded like a helicopter landing on the roof, or that a tornado was about to touch down, but to be honest, those ideas never entered my mind. Suddenly, almost as quickly as it started, the rattling ceased and the gentle rumble of the movement of our beloved house faded away. It was no more more than a minute or so I suppose that all this excitement in the early morn took place. 

I thought about the strange event several times during the day and it seemed to be the number one topic of the day no matter where I went or who I was talking to. Everyone had there own experience to share dealing with the situation that most of us could never recall experiencing before. It all seemed so unpredictable. At some time during the day I even went to You Tube and typed in “earthquake”,  and there were many videos of earthquakes  from all over the globe that people had caught on video at some time and posted. Some were just a sudden gentle shaking and still others were areas where total devastation had taken place and killed untold thousands. We had been lucky and most people actually got a chuckle from being able to say “we survived a quake”.

After I thought and about this for awhile and began to relate this to life, as many of you know I am bad about, I compared this to the many quakes of human life, some of which I have experienced and others that I have been lucky enough to avoid. Early in the morning just before the earthquake, the last thing I would expect to happen was to experience my bed shaking hard enough to wake me from a deep sleep. In comparison, how many times in life are we sailing along on top of the world with everything going our way, when suddenly...........we get the call. Someone we know and care about has just found out that something in their life has just been turned upside down. Suddenly the world we live in doesn’t seem to be as large, and the bad things that always happen to people somewhere else have finally came to our neighborhood or household. Perhaps one of our parents has just gotten word from their latest medical test and the results are less than grim. Drastic changes have been discovered in the way their body should be functioning. Perhaps treatment is available and perhaps.....not, and we feel the ground shake under our feet. It’s a shaking that we have no control over.  

Maybe it’s a phone call in the middle of the night and the voice on the other end is that of a state police officer telling you that there has been a bad accident involving one of your children and all they will say is to get to the hospital as soon as possible. You can tell by the tone of the officers voice that there is great reason for concern. Suddenly you hear the roar and feel the rocks fall from mountains as for at least a bit your mind races out of control with wonderings of what has happened.

Perhaps a spouse is compelled to offer news to their mate that they are no longer happy in their marriage and have found someone else who they would rather spend their time with. Suddenly the whole family who thought things were very “hunky doory” in there lives, feel the walls begin to close in on them. Two adults and three children now quickly get a churning in their stomach as they feel the tremors of life shake the foundation of the family institution. Lines are drawn in the sand and sides are taken by some, but others crumble with uncertainty. It could be that after working at the local plant for 25 years, you are told two days before Christmas shutdown not to come back after Christmas because the factory has been sold to a foreign entity who is moving it to Taiwan. You suddenly realized you are 55 years old and years from retirement and have only one skill, the skill you have used at that very same factory for the the last 25 years. You have a child in college, a mortgage payment and a partially remolded kitchen, no job, and their are no other factories around who need anyone with skills that closely resemble yours. Slowly you can feel the earth move under your feet as the mountains begin to rock. You hear the rumbling in the not so far off distance.

All of these things happen to someone, somewhere, everyday in the world, but only when it happens close to us or our family do we feel the full feeling of these rector scale events. Then and only then do we experience what I think is the full effect of God’s glorious love. When there is no where else to turn, when no one else has the power, authority, ability, or desire to help us, and no one else can get to the place where we have encountered our crisis, God is there. He is ready to deliver us. He is ready to help us put the pieces back together and go on, if we will but ask him. Even when He answers our request in a way other than what we would desire, He is their with comfort. There is comfort, peace and compassion in Him. There is understanding  in Him and with Him we have the ability to forgive, get up and go on. With Him the future can be bright, and even with struggles, He is our intercessor. He is the rock of our foundation that the quakes of life cannot, or will not shake. When the earth beneath our feet shakes, trembles and crumbles, He is there to protect us, to steady us and tell us. “it will be okay in just a moment, find protection and comfort in Me. I am here child. I am here!” He is really the only peace of mind we have in anything. Not bank accounts, or 401K’s, not in fancy cars or owning our own business’s, not in the good health of youth, nor in the wisdom of maturity. When all these things have been riddled to crumbs by the quakes of life, God will still be alive, protecting us in life, and saving us in death, telling us “it’s okay child, I am here, I will calm your quake!”