Thank God for the Fleas

During the coronavirus I am amazed at the number of people, especially "evangelicals", who believe that God is punishing us. I estimate that fully 50%, maybe more, of evangelicals believe that with Covid 19 God is sending us a message, a warning. The reasons that I see most often for God's wrath are homosexuality and abortion. In other words, the basic personality of God is anger and judgement. It seems to me that the assumption here is that God actually enjoys raining fire and brimstone down on his people. I see this reaction in storms as well. The assumption is that God is actually personally involved in who is and is not killed or affected by the storm. Furthermore, Christians comment on the "miracle" that happens when the family at 101 Pine Street is spared, but then the family at 106 Pine Street are all killed. If God spared one family, doesn't it stand to reason that God destroyed the other one? Can we assign the "miracle" from God to one circumstance and absolve Him of blame in the other? 

In our local paper there is a Sunday page called Faith and Family. In today's paper there is a commentary by Dr. William F. Holland, Jr. that speaks to this dichotomy.Instead of suggesting that God is punishing us with Covid 19 he says this, "God wants you to know that He loves you very much. He knows your thoughts and what you are going through, and He understands everything". He goes on to say, "Remember, no matter what there is no need to fear for Jesus will always be with you." Isn't this a better opinion of God's involvement with the virus instead of punishment? 

In her autobiography, The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom talks about the lice and fleas in the beds of their barracks. Instead of seeing it as a plague or warning from God, Corrie's sister Betsie realized that because of the fleas, the guards left them alone and never entered their sleeping quarters. Instead of God's wrath they chose to see God's deliverance because of the torment. They both learned to thank God for the fleas. If you find hope and comfort in the wrath of God, then knock yourself out!  For me, I believe that God knows our suffering and actually enters it with us. "Be still and know that I am God." And that's a good thing.

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Nothing really.

For 15 years, every few days I got something on my mind that I wanted to write about. I sat down, booted up Word and started typing. The blinking cursor faithfully moved to the right creating the letters and words that I dictated. When I was satisfied with what I had written, I posted the words on Blogspot and from there to Facebook.  In the last six months or so I really haven’t had much to say. It’s not that I’ve given up or am doing nothing at all  to talk about, I just didn’t want to bother to write. The irony is that with the isolation of Covid 19, I have had more time on my hands than I’ve had since I was a kid. And even as a kid, I was busy doing something that I wanted to do. But now on the days I’m home alone, instead of writing I’m usually either reading or watching something on Prime or Netflix.

This morning I got up at about 8:30. I took a shower, got dressed and ready to “face the day.” Today I actually had things I needed to do. I’ve had some issues with my legs, so my morning started with a physical therapist. This was my seventh visit and we’re making some progress. On my way home I decided to  call the Nissan dealership to see if they could do that oil change and tune up my car has been telling me about for several weeks. They told me to come on.  I knew the dealership was taking precautions for Covid and that it would be a relatively safe place to be. As it turned out I was up close and personal with only two people and, like me, one of them was wearing a mask. I’m not very concerned that I was exposed to anything. I washed my hands several times. Since I didn’t have an appointment, I had to wait about two hours. I passed the time talking on my phone with my good friend Mark and texting with several other friends. The wait went by fairly quickly. I paid the cashier, got in my car and drove back home.

When I got home, since I had not eaten any breakfast, I warmed up the pizza from yesterday and ate a couple of slices. After eating I decided to do something  else that I haven’t done in a while. I went downstairs, retrieved my camera, attached my favorite lens, my macro lens,  and went outside. I walked up the street to the cul de sac where I knew there were some pretty flowers. I took several images and walked back home. As I processed my images with Lightroom, I didn’t like most of it, but I thought three of the images were worth working with. I got the images to my satisfaction and posted them on Facebook hoping that my “friends” would  enjoy them too.

Now I’m sitting at my computer typing these words. I’ve reread them several times and am not happy with them at all. My sentences are short and my subject matter seems rather boring. But I haven’t posted anything in quite some time so for better or for worse I’m going to post this. In 1971, the summer I sold books door to door, in sales school they taught us several things to do to  boost our confidence for the day. One of them was to look in a mirror and say several times, “I feel healthy! I feel happy!! I feel terrific!!!” These words helped me back then and they are helping me now. I hope that you are healthy, happy and terrific as well.  If not “terrific” I hope that you are at least healthy and happy.