Okay, so the last week or a little more has been full of surprises and demands from the family. Sorry to anyone who was dying to hear from me. I thought I would just try to put it all in some sort of perspective.
First was God, I guess. Skeletons in the closet was something I felt compelled to write about. And it added a new perspective on my auto accident from last year. My mom died 5 years ago and in her bible, I found a prayer that her children would be able to overcome any negative generational influences and bring glory to God. It is very surprising to me when I see a portion of that prayer coming true. It seems I inherited some very negative spiritual influences from each of my grandfathers. But God has delivered me from them and I praise His name.
Next came the royal wedding, which was of no great consequence I suppose. I mean, I was not interested enough to get up early to watch it. But of course there was plenty of later news coverage. There was lots of pageantry and the overall effect was beautiful. But what impressed me was that the whole thing seemed so much more right, somehow, than Diana’s wedding 30 years ago. They truly seemed to be in love, and showed concern for one another in the middle of things. I wish them all the best.
That was quickly followed by another different spectacle in Rome, with the beatification of John Paul II. Not being Catholic, I don’t really have much of an opinion but it sure drew a crowd. The vatican is no slouch about pageantry either, if you like that sort of thing.
Sunday morning I got to go back to my original Sunday school class. We are in the middle of a Charles Stanley book. Well, really we are only 1/3 of the way through. The principles sound good, but then we get into the scripture references and wonder how on earth he got the principle from them. Basically it was on the topic of discerning God’s will for you. Well, we all pretty much agree that it is much clearer in hindsight. Unfortunately, the story of Ahab and Jehoshaphat wasn’t a great deal of clarification on that score. To tell you the truth, I am not looking forward to another 20 weeks of this book. Maybe we should move on to something we like better.
Sunday night brought the news of the death of Osama bin Laden. What a shock! I’m pretty sure my expectation was that we would never find him. My initial reaction was happiness that they finally got him, followed immediately by a check in my spirit that one should not rejoice in the death of any human being. So, I prayed for his family and also for us, since I assume that his followers will want to retaliate. That was followed by another surprise to me, as I found that my 13 year old daughter was telling her friends it was wrong to celebrate and that we are supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Wow, I had no idea she even knew that scripture!
Meanwhile, I simply had a string of mundane interruptions on the family level that interrupted my time and trains of thought. Hopefully the next week will go a bit smoother.
annsphillips 