Devotionals
PS 139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in--behind and before; You have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
In the ebbs and flows of our lives, we move through and around each other. Sometimes these ebbs and flows produce departures, as God’s hand moves in the lives of those around us. I am facing one of those departures, the loss of a friend at work.
He’s not dying; he just won’t be in my life Monday – Friday, 8 – 5, anymore. Don’t get any ideas. I’m not romantically involved with him. He’s married and has five kids. He’s a soccer dad and very dedicated to his 11 yr old son’s soccer life, which is foreign to me – soccer, that is. He has simply been a very good friend, readily accessible, who knows me and likes me. More than that, he gets who I am. Not very many of those in the world – or at least, it feels that way.
We’ve known for about a month that he has accepted a leadership position that will afford him personal and professional growth, as well as a healthy salary increase. God’s fingerprints are all over this thing.
And I am heart broken. Bereft.
I’m tracking with you: get over yourself, Wilma. But here’s the deal. For the first two decades of my life, it was unsafe to admit to any kind of vulnerability. It was fuel turned against you. Vulnerability – for me – ultimately led to tears, which led to very bad places. Tears were not an option. So I learned to live my life dishonestly. ‘No, that didn’t hurt me.’ ‘Hi, I’m fine. How’re you?’ ‘You didn’t hear that; keep on walking/working/reading.’ Denial was my best friend held closely.
But in my healing, I’ve learned that my feelings are not my enemies, but they’re not necessarily my friends either. They are tools, gifts from God. Maybe a lot like pets because they take skill to manage. Some of us have been given cow emotions: staid, steady, plodding, predictable (think about all those unmissed milking times). It takes a stampede to really get them moving. Some of us have cat emotions. I mean like a good cat that interacts with you, plays with the toys you offer him, comes and warms your lap, purrs and comforts you, and disappears independently happy when you don’t want it around. Then there’s me. I have a flock of geese. They always seem to be honking, are in some kind of perpetual flap and molting, are nearly always underfoot, and are ungamely and clumsy when ground-bound. They seem bent on flying off, yet, when they do, they’re beautiful. But getting into flight: well, it ain’t pretty. Containing them in the meantime? It seems like there’s at least one that escapes containment and what a merry chase it leads me on. I relate to Little Bo Peep.
So here I am, with an escaped goose or two, trying to understand how these will fly. And I’m not working it out very well. I am not soaring on some Spirit wind, because this time I am losing someone who has been good to me, good for me, a godly influence, a godly friend. I’m not losing him, but the relationship will change. “It’s not about me” doesn’t do a thing to capture a goose.
Uncertainly, almost without faith, I am turning to my Father for wisdom. He is my best goose-handler, I can tell you. But even here, I feel inconsolable. You see, it is God who is leading my friend into something new and exciting. I understand with my logic and intellect that I need to support him and be glad for him. But that goose is still a hatchling in reality, in danger of being trampled by Grief. So, at the root cause, my grief is coming from God. And so, I feel God doesn’t understand what I need.
And of course, being human, I plug in “all” the other times when it felt like that: God unplugged me from what I needed. And the one goose suddenly gets a stage, a spotlight, a mic, a monitor, amplifiers, and a chorus of other geese to honk and flap on queue for “Geese on Ice.” I have stampeding, ground-bound, disobedient, dysfunctional geese to deal with. And feasting on a Christmas goose is 11 months away.
That’s where this scripture comes into play. God, with His rod and herding staff, along with His darting sheep dog Holy Spirit, is rounding up my gaggle of geese that are gagging my spirit. He knows my friend’s coming in and going out, and I recognize it. But He also knows my going out and my coming in. He knows my sitting down to write, and my rising up to go to work. He knows the word on my tongue, the ones in my head and the ones I capture for paper – or electronic ones and zeroes in most cases. He hems me in, behind and before. I love that. If anyone ever needed hemming in, it’s me. But even more that this, there is still more. God lays His hand on me – not just my geese. Me. Dusty, winded by the chase, exhausted, frazzled me.
I am very much like a child trying to serve juice to someone else, spilling much of it on herself. In the very words that I sought to use to bless my friend, I have child-like spilled them on myself and found strength there. I stand amazed and dazed again by the grace of God for a silly goose like me.
Oh, look. The geese are flying.
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