Consistency

Today I was working on an Excel spreadsheet, and I wanted to edit a cell. There are two common ways to do this—double-click the cell (which doesn't always work on my Mac) or highlight the cell and then make changes in the formula bar at the top. But since I was using the PC, I just hit the F2 key.

I started working with computers when we had a mainframe system at University. This was before the days of personal computers.Then, when we were working in Haiti, our mission had several PCs that we could use to help put together newsletters and publications. At one point, I was able to borrow a portable computer to use in our remote work location. It weighed about 40 pounds and had a 5 inch CRT screen. It boasted a 5-1/4 inch floppy drive and a small hard drive. It had Microsoft Word for DOS on it as well as a spreadsheet program called Lotus 123. I started using Lotus 123 to do personal finances, clinic finances and to keep track of data from some of our ag projects. In Lotus 123, the way to start editing a cell was by pressing the F2 key.

In 1993, we got our first personal computer—it was a small notebook with a 10MB hard drive and a 3-1/2 inch floppy drive. It came with Microsoft Winows 1.1 preinstalled. At this point, I started using Microsoft Excel instead of Lotus 123; fortunately I could easily migrate my Lotus 123 files to the new platform. One of the things I quickly discovered was that Excel borrowed the process of using the F2 key to edit a cell.

The early versions of Excel were quite limited. A lot of formulas that are standard now, one had to enter manually back then. It only supported one worksheet per file. Summarizing data from several worksheets onto one was not such a simple process as it is now. But one thing the Microsoft has kept all this time is the use of the F2 key to edit a cell.

As time progresses, a lot of things change—and these days things change so fast I can hardly keep up. So I appreciate these little things that stay the same in the midst of a universe in flux.

But more than this, I appreciate a God who doesn't change. If God were fickle, we would not know how to approach Him. What worked one day might not work the next. But, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us, Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) If He loved us yesterday, He will love us tomorrow and He will love us in all eternity. Thanks be to God! His love is more certain than the F2 key.

Before the World

Who or what is God? How do you define God?

In my home country, heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian thought, many people have a concept of "god," though not all people believe that such a being exists or exactly what such a being would be like. But when we worked in Thailand, we found that the Thai people, in general, don't have a concept of a God as an ultimate being that is separate from the created realm. As such, there is no term specifically for a God. The term they might use for God essentially has a meaning like "lord" and can refer to a spiritual being or an earthly ruler. So when we used the term, we used it with qualifying terms such as "God the creator."

The Bible has many references to God as Creator and, as such, is Lord over all that He has made. It also points out the unique role of humans in the created realm and the fact that these humans were designed to have a relationsip with Him. God is a personal God.

Genesis 1:1 ESV
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:27 ESV
So God created man in his own image,
 in the image of God he created him;
 male and female he created them.

Psalm 24:1 ESV
The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,
 the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it upon the seas
 and established it upon the rivers.

Psalm 100:3 ESV
Know that the LORD, he is God!
 It is he who made us, and we are his;
 we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Psalm 115:15 ESV
May you be blessed by the LORD,
 who made heaven and earth!
The heavens are the LORD’s heavens,
 but the earth he has given to the children of man.

Proverbs 3:19 ESV
The LORD by wisdom founded the earth;
 by understanding he established the heavens;
by his knowledge the deeps broke open,
 and the clouds drop down the dew.

Isaiah 40:28-29 ESV
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
 The LORD is the everlasting God,
 the Creator of the ends of the earth.
 He does not faint or grow weary;
 his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
 and to him who has no might he increases strength.

Isaiah 44:24 ESV
Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer,
 who formed you from the womb:
 “I am the LORD, who made all things,
 who alone stretched out the heavens,
 who spread out the earth by myself,

Isaiah 66:2a ESV
All these things my hand has made,
 and so all these things came to be,
 declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 10:12 ESV
It is he who made the earth by his power,
who established the world by his wisdom,
and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

Jeremiah 27:5 ESV
“It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth,
 with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me.

Jeremiah 51:19a ESV
Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob,
 for he is the one who formed all things,

Colossians 1:16 ESV
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Hebrews 1:10 ESV
And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
 and the heavens are the work of your hands;

2 Peter 3:5 ESV
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God

When God appears to Moses, Moses asks what God's name is. God introduces Himself a "I am who I am." God is the self-existent One, the One who exists apart from the created realm. (Exodus 3:14)

In Psalm 139, David writes about the awesomeness of God and, in verses 13-16, what that means for us in particular as humans.

Psalm 130:13-16 ESV
For you formed my inward parts;
 you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
 Wonderful are your works;
 my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
 when I was being made in secret,
 intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
 in your book were written, every one of them,
 the days that were formed for me,
 when as yet there was none of them.

This song is based of the thought that God is creator of the world in general and humans in particular, and as such, He is Lord over the world and our lives as well. And in spite of all that God has to keep track of in regulating the universe, He cares for us as individuals. The mix of tenses in the song is intentional.

Before the World
©Edd Russell, Fresno 6/2006

INTRO E B/D# C#m Bsus F#m G#m A2

E      B/D#                      C#m  Bsus
   Before the world was born
F#m G#m          A2   Bsus
        There was You.
E     B/D#                       C#m Bsus
   Before the world was born
F#m G#m A2
You   are   God
     F#m G#m   A2
Before  time began
F#m G#m    A2     Bsus   E       B/D C#m Bsus
You   are    there    al   -   ways

CHORUS 1
                      E B/D# C#m Bsus
And You are Je     -     sus
    F#m G#m   Bsus
Crea  -  tor  of all
                     E B/D# C#m Bsus
Yes You are Je    -    sus
F#m G#m Bsus
Lord over  all

INST:  E   B/D#   C#m   Bsus (2X)
            F#m   G#m   A2

E      B/D#                      C#m  Bsus
   Before the world was born
F#m G#m          A2   Bsus
You knew my name.
E      B/D#                      C#m  Bsus
   Before the world was born
 F#m G#m        A2
You  called me Yours
     F#m G#m    A2
Before  time began
F#m G#m    A2   Bsus E   B/D C#m Bsus
I       am    Yours  al - ways

CHORUS 2
                      E B/D# C#m Bsus
And You are Je     -     sus
    F#m G#m   Bsus
Crea  -  tor  of all
                     E B/D# C#m Bsus
Yes You are Je    -    sus
F#m G#m     Bsus
You  are my God

REPEAT CHORUS 1

INST:  E   B/D#   C#m   Bsus (2X)
            F#m   G#m   A2

F#m  G#m  A2
You    are   God
F#m  G#m    A2
I         am   Yours

END:  F#m  G#m  A2  Bsus  E

Tear Down That Wall

President Regan at the Brandenburg Gate
From National Archives (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75855517)

I'm beginning this series of song videos/blogs with a song I was reminded of by two sermons we heard at Butler Church in the past two weeks. This last Sunday's message was based on Matthew 5:13-16

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

Back in 2006, I was part of the missions team at our church. At the time we were trying to encourage the church to think beyond the walls. In the Bible, the church is never a building or place to go to, rather, it is a group of people. Yet often our outreach efforts are focused on getting people to "come to church." Jesus tells us to, "Go...and make disciples," not to sit around and wait for people to show up. How can we be a "light" to our neighbors if the light is blocked by the walls of our houses and church buildings? So, our missions team encouraged people to find ways to get to know their neighbors so that we might be a blessing to them in some way.

That was the background for the song. I also borrowed a line from a speech by Ronald Regan at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany on June 12, 1987:

“Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” (emphasis mine)

Tear Down That Wall
© Edd Russell, Fresno 11/2006



D
  You are a God without borders,
          Em
  You stepped out from heaven for us,
           C
  You reached in the dark, lonely places;
     D                                    Asus-A
  Illuminated us with Your love.
D
  You tore down all of the fences
           Em
  That kept us from coming to You.
          C
  You opened the doorway to heaven
             D
  When Jesus stepped into our lives.


C/G
  But we’ve erected some fences
D
  To keep all Your love to ourselves.
C/G
  We hide Your light under a basket
D
  So everyone stays in the dark.


                    C/G                                             D
We want to tear down that wall. We want to tear down that wall. (2x)
                      C/G                                                        D
Jesus help us tear down that wall. Cuz we’ve got to tear down that wall.
                          C/G                                              D
Yes, we need to tear down that wall. We want to tear down that wall.

Shear Delight

Now that we have moved back to California, I am using garden tools a bit more. The tools that seem to get the hardest use are those associated with pruning—some vegetation has gotten a bit out of hand in the 14 years we were away. It can be hard to find well made hand tools, but when I do find them, I like to hang onto them. As a result, I have some garden tools that have been around a while.

Not the oldest tools I have by any means, but still showing their age are my hand pruners. I'm fond of my Felco brand tools. The Felco #2, pictured on left, I bought when we lived in Haiti in the late 1980's. They had already had a good workout behind them when we moved to California, since a lot of of the work I did in Haiti was related to growing fruit trees and other trees. When we bought a house, and fruit tree pruning became a major winter activity, I bought the Felco #7 which has one handle that swivels that makes it easier on the hands to use. I have had the #7 over 20 years. We even brought that one to Thailand with us. The rubber hand grips are a bit weary, but otherwise they still cut fine—with a little maintenance, of course. Good tools don't necessarily cheap, however—the current price of these are $70 and $90 respectively.

Felco #2 and #7

Back in 2020 when we were stuck in California, I acquired and old set of Corona loppers that had belonged to a friend who had inherited them, I believe from a grandparent. I don't know all that they had been through, but I'm guessing they had had a hard life, as they were not in good shape—they were missing one handle and only had part of the other one. However, I went to Fresno Ag Hardware and got a new set of handles for about $35 and was pleased to find that Corona had not even changed the hole configuration in all the ensuing years since the loppers were made, which was probably before I was born. As a result, I didn't even have to drill holes in the handles to make them fit.

Corona Loppers

One reason that the pruning tools get such a good workout is that I don't just prune with them, I also use them to chop up what I prune, either for stuffing cuttings into the green waste bin, or making them a bit smaller for the compost pile.

The most recent addition to my trimming tools is the hedge shears. They were given to me by a friend (who is older than me) who probably inherited them. When I acquired them, the blades were painted green, which only served to cover over the rust. The handle on one side was split, and was held in place (somewhat) by a piece of steel wire—except the wire did not stay in place. I recently purchased a bench grinder with a wire brush wheel which I used to clean up the blades. This past week, I bound the split handle with some new wire and oiled the handles. The shears are well made, but they are heavy, and I'm not sure I will keep using them, because they are hard on the hands and shoulders. I think I would like a pair with thinner blades that sharpen at a lower angle. And maybe a rubber bumper to reduce the shock when cutting.

Hedge Shears - before fixing up the handle

After fixing up the handle

The tools take maintenance, especially sharpening. I have some diamond sharpening tools, but I still like to use an Arkansas stone to put on the final edge. You can read the story about one of those here: https://mekong-sunrise.blogspot.com/2018/11/longevity.html

Arkansas Sharpening Stone

For cleaning up old tools, I find a wire brush helpful. A standard tool I like to have around the shop is a bench grinder. I usually keep a wire brush on one side and a fine stone on the other, but switch them out as necessary.

Bench Grinder

The nice thing about having good, well-maintained tools, is that I look forward to pruning season. It seems less of a chore and more of a way of relaxing. (And having just written that, I have just researched some hedge shears that will make trimming less of a chore than using the old freebie I acquired.) Pruning uses a combination of horticultural skill and art to design what your future trees will look like. And I like my old-fashioned non-powered garden tools. While I do have a battery powered mower and weed whacker, I prefer to dig with a spade and garden fork and do cutting with shears, loppers and hand saws. Saves money on gym membership, too.

God placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden to tend to it and eat from its produce. (Genesis 2:15) He didn't need a lot of tools, because creation had not yet been corrupted by sin. (Genesis 2:9) I look forward to the day when Creation is restored and pests and weeds are no longer an issue, and all we have to do is harvest. (Romans 8:20, 21; Revelation 22:2,3) In the meantime, I'm grateful for some well-made tools.

Happy gardening!

-----------------------------------

Update: I did break down ad get some Felco 250-63 hedge shears. They are lighter, have a different style of cutting edge, and also have nice rubber bumpers, which my arms will appreciate. They even use similar hardware to the hand pruners.

Felco 250-63 hedge shears

When all that's left are memories

Last May we had the opportunity to make a trip to Jasper National Park with Ingrid's father. He had not been there since before his late wife went into a care facility back in 2019. We realized that this might also be his last trip to the Canadian Rockies. It was good that we went when we did.

This past week, a wildfire hit Jasper National Park, the worst fire in a National Park in Canada in over 100 years. About 1/3 of the structures in the town of Jasper were lost including, as far as we can tell from maps that have been released, the Bed and Breakfast place we stayed at last May. When we booked a night there, the owner said it was her only night not booked through the end of September. Now it is gone, and the park and town of Jasper remain closed until all the fires in town are out and it is no longer threatened by the still raging flames.

Many areas the fire burned through have yet to be inspected including bridges and campgrounds; even within the burn perimeter there are areas that haven't burned or are only partially burned.

Jasper National Park holds a lot of memories for us. We got engaged while visiting the park 41 years ago. On our honeymoon, we stayed at Whistlers Inn—which firefighters managed to save this past week, though  a building two doors down the road was lost. We have made many other visits to the park in the 40 years since we got married. Now, many of the places we have visited will be but charred remains. All that is left for us is photographs and memories of a different time. I can't imagine what it is like for those who lost their homes in the inferno.

So here are a few memories from from photos I have digital copies of.

View of Whistlers Peak from Austrian Haven Home B&B (which did not survive the fire)
So far the tram up to the top of Whistlers Peak is intact.

Athabasca Falls is within the perimeter of the burned area (May 2024)

The Moberly Bridge over the Athabasca River needs to be inspected before being open to the public
(May 2024)

The Athabasca River served as a firebreak in some areas (May 2024)
This is near the northern burn perimeter

Edith Lake is also within the burn perimeter (May 2024)

The Old Fort Point Bridge also needs to be inspected (photo from 2015)

Maligne Canyon (2013)
I don't think the fire went this far, but you have to drive through the 
burned area to get here

View from Whistlers Inn, October 1983.
All the buildings in the foreground appear to have survived the fire

View of Jasper Townsite from the top of Whistlers Peak, October 1983

Trail to Whistlers Peak, 2004
So far this area is intact

Pyramid Mountain is landmark to the North of Jasper
This photo is from 41 years ago

Pyramid Mountain last May. So far the fire has not reached this area.

The Savior Who Weeps

It was a tumultuous time.

In the movie Castaway, Tom Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a Fed Ex official from Atlanta whose plane goes down and he ends up stranded alone on an island. While Tom Hanks is a good actor, he does betray himself on one occasion during the film. At one point there is a storm, and a porta-potty washes up onto the island. The location of the company the porta-potty belongs to is written on it. As Hanks character reads the word Bakersfield, he says it with a touch of disdain, which only a Californian would know to do.

But I knew. Me—who never thought I would live in California. But we ended up in Bakersfield, where we went through one of the most difficult periods of our lives, which had nothing to do with that city—It just happened to be where we were at the time.

But the story begins a few years before that, in Haiti.

After we had been married a few years, we decided we would like to have some children. But Ingrid was not getting pregnant. We decided to seek medical help to try to figure out why. We started out by going to some doctors in Haiti, where we were living at the time. But we were not successful there.

Some Haitian people we knew suggested a different approach. They said we should each sleep with someone else. That way, either Ingrid would get pregnant with another man or I would father a child with another woman. That technique did not seem too appropriate to us.

Instead, we ended up consulting with a physician in Connecticut who had successfully helped my brother and sister-in-law with infertility issues. We made a few trips there and Ingrid ended up having two surgeries to try to correct some problems but, in the end, it was not successful. That was in 1988.

We thought about adopting. Being that we were in Haiti at the time, we figured if we did adopt, it would be a black, Haitian child. We contacted the pastor of the last church we had attended in Alabama, asking it this would be a problem if we were to do so (as many in that town did not approve of mixed race families) and eventually end up back in the church. He said it would be okay.

But neither Ingrid nor I would feel like adopting at the same time. I might feel like pursuing adoption at one point, but Ingrid would not. Or she would feel like adopting at one point, and I would not. Eventually we decided that children were just not going to be a part of our family, and we eventually grew comfortable with the idea.

Now for a bit how our theological journey fits into this. Before coming to Thailand we each had varied church experience. Ingrid's background was Lutheran, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a brief foray into Pentecostal. Mine was Conservative Baptist and Presbyterian. We had most recently been a part of a Southern Baptist church. These churches tended to follow either a Dispensationalist or Reformed/Calvinistic theology. But in my own Bible reading I became disillusioned with both of these. My Bible School was of the dispensationalist stream but I had also read theology texts of the Reform writers.

Both Dispensationalism and Calvinism/Reformed theologies are systematic theology systems. The problem I have with systematic theologies is that the systems end up becoming the end rather than the means to the end. They are meant to help us understand what God is like, but end up being used to define what God is like. If a particular scripture didn't seem to fit the system, it was taken out of context and/or its meaning twisted so that it would. I wrote more about that here. But I didn't know what to do with these thoughts. Was I alone in thinking like this? Was I a heretic in my brain?

In 1989, a woman had been part of our team the first time we had gone to Haiti in 1981 sent us a couple of books: Power Evangelism by John Wimber and Power Christianity by Charles Kraft. (Though I didn't get around to reading the latter until a couple of years later.) John Wimber espoused Kingdom Theology (beliefs that are also held in the Anabaptist churches we are now a part of) and he used a phrase that kind of pieced everything together for me: The kingdom of the already and not yet. Suddenly it all made sense to me—Wimber had summarized in a few words how I was coming to understand the Bible. John Wimber helped launch the Vineyard Movement in Anaheim, California which had grown into the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Churches. (Several years later joined about a dozen other people to learn more about this Theology in a Vineyard Bible Institute class taught by John Wimber.)

By 1993, we knew something needed to change—either we had to move someplace else in Haiti or we had to leave Haiti. I arranged to take an Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at UC Santa Cruz. It was a six-month program and it would give us time to process what we should do next. We arranged all our belongings, separating what we would not keep if we were to leave. During the time we were in California, we would make up our minds. In September, about a month before the apprenticeship program was over, it was clear to us that we should not continue to work in Haiti. After the program was over in October, we went back to Haiti to finish up things with the Baptist Haiti Mission and then moved on to California.

While I was taking the apprenticeship, Ingrid got a job in home health nursing out of Atherton. She was staying with my sister and family in that area while I camped out on the farm at UC Santa Cruz along with the other apprentices. In the meantime, we joined a Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church in Palo Alto because we wanted to explore more about what we read in the books while in Haiti. It was a time of healing and refreshing for us. After the apprenticeship was over, I got a job landscaping in the Bay Area.

In January, 1994, I contacted the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) in California about job opportunities to do work similar to what I did in Alabama in the early 1980's. I found out there were possible job openings in Bakersfield and possibly the Mojave Desert area. So I applied for a job with them.

The following month, there was a conference on Healing at the Vineyard Church in Anaheim. The keynote speakers were John Wimber and Francis Macnutt. We would take the opportunity to visit Bakersfield and also visit a cousin who lived in the area whom I had not seen in 18 years. (More about that here.)

On our drive through Kern County for the first time we saw Nicolls Peak
We decided then that we would climb it one day,
though it was several years before we found the way up.

We had an amazing time at the conference, and it is really hard to describe what was going on inside us spiritually. At one point, there was a prayer time for those struggling with infertility, and Ingrid decided to receive prayer for that. We were convinced that God was at work. I even had a name for our daughter to be.

A couple of weeks later we found out that if Ingrid was going to get pregnant, it wasn't yet.

That same week we got a phone call from a couple we used to work with in Haiti. They had left before us and settled in Alabama. They were calling to tell us that their teenage daughter was pregnant and their daughter was wondering if we would be willing to adopt the daughter when she was born in two months.

If they had called just a few weeks earlier, we would have said no without hesitation. But now we were thinking about children again. We said we would pray about it and get back to them soon.

Soon. We did not have a lot of time if we were going to process everything. We prayed and got others to pray. We consulted with others. In the end we felt led to go ahead with it.

About this same time, I got offered the job in Bakersfield, starting the beginning of April. The baby was due at the end of that month. When I told my coworker we were moving to Bakersfield he said to me incredulously, "Bakersfield!? You're moving to Bakersfield!?" I did not know it had the reputation as the armpit of California. When I saw the scene in Castaway several years later, it reminded me of this conversation.

Since this was to be an out of state adoption, we secured a lawyer in Alabama to help us. Bethany Christian Services was handling things on the California side. We had to do a home study that we began in Mountain View but finished in Bakersfield. We even had to take an infant first aid course.

We found an apartment in Bakersfield kitty-corner from my office. We connected with the Vineyard Christian Fellowship that met in the school across the street. I made the trip to find the apartment by myself, because Ingrid was busy working. It was a bit scary, making that kind of decision without my wife present, but she was happy with my choice.

We shared our apartment with some doves

About two weeks after I started work (thirty years ago, this month), we got the phone call that the mother was going into labor. We quickly made arrangements for Ingrid to travel, since I was not able to leave my new job. So Ingrid packed our baby carrier and flew to Birmingham, then rented a car and drove to the hospital. There, she was able to hold the baby. But in the end, the father refused to sign the adoption papers, even though he had previously said that he would. We were devastated.

Ingrid returned to California with no baby. She left the baby carrier with the birth mom. We were left with trying to make sense of something that made no sense. It's not like we had been looking for any of what had just happened. So why did our hopes have to get raised so high only to be struck down so low? It seemed like God was leading in all of this. Did we—and many others—mis-read it all? And if we weren't misreading it, what was God doing to us? It felt like God betrayed us. There was the temptation to quit God. But where else do we turn? When I think of my life before I met Jesus, I had no desire to go back to that.

So rather than use this occasion to give up on God, we used it as a time to get closer to Him. And while the pain did not immediately go away, the presence of Jesus was there in the pain.

One day, I was riding in the car and I heard this romantic song playing on the Christian radio station in Bakersfield, KAXL, called "I Still Do." I called the station to find out more about it and find out it is by a guy named Vince Wilcox. Somehow, I got hold of the CD it was on, which was entitled Reconciled. We didn't have internet in those days, so I am not sure where I ended up getting it—I'm guessing I must have ordered if from a music store or Christian bookstore. However, there was one song that we ended up listening to, and singing along to, even more than I Still Do. It was a song that really resonated with what we were going through. (Click the song title below to watch a You Tube video.)

The Savior Who Weeps

by Vince Wilcox and Don Pardoe

VERSE 1
“Our brother is gone,” her words cut like a knife
into the heart of the Lord.
“If You had been here, then he wouldn’t have died,”
she cried to the light of the world.
So they went to where Lazarus slept
And realized as Jesus wept… that

CHORUS
He shares every heartache.
He bears every grief.
He is there when your heart breaks
And you can’t find relief.
When the pain is relentless
The darkness so deep;
He is right there beside you—
The Savior who weeps.

VERSE 2
What can you say when the prayers have been prayed
And no miracle comes along?
How can you comfort a mother and dad
Now that their baby is gone?
But there in the darkest of hours
The tears of God mingle with ours… ’cause

CHORUS

BRIDGE
One day every tear shall be dried,
But till that day He cries when we cry, ‘cause…

CHORUS TAG
Crying beside you,
The Savior who weeps.

Recently, I read the book Echoing Hope: How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain. The author, Kurt Willems, went through significant suffering as a child, and the book is partly as result of his processing all of this. As I read the book, I was reminded of the adoption that didn't happen and other valleys we have walked through on our sojourn on this earth. In the book, Kurt writes:

Jesus is what it looks like when God shows us how to be human. Immunity to pain is something that cannot be claimed of God since in Jesus we have a God who experienced excruciating suffering. In Jesus, God suffers with us all.

And because of his presence, suffering doesn’t get the final word. Love does.

Kurt also shared a quote from author Sarah Bessey that I can relate to. After reading the quote, I acquired the book it came from and, once I started reading, I had a hard time putting it down. In Miracles and Other Reasonable Things, Bessy writes:

Like most of us, when I walked through my own valleys of darkness and suffering and loss, God was often revealed to me in the darkness rather than in the light. The valleys were where I became intimate with God, far more than the mountaintops.

I don't always understand why we go through all the messy stuff that life brings us. There are many occasions when I ask, "What was that all about?" or "Why did I have to go through that?" I may not get answers to those questions in this life. But when those hard times come, I seek refuge in the loving arms of Jesus, who suffered pain and sorrow far worse than I have and which He did not deserve. As the controversial Super Bowl spot this year stated: He gets us. Jesus has been there. Jesus has done that. And now Jesus is here for us when we go through tough times.

Notes:

Willems, Kurt. Echoing Hope: How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain (p. 209). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Bessey, Sarah. Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God (p. 132). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

This blog took a long time to come together. I first got the idea when I started reading Echoing Hope more than a year and a half ago. Somewhere in there I put a title on an empty blog for whenever I might get around to writing it. But then we were so busy with ministry and preparing to leave Thailand and all the stuff that goes with that, that I did not finish reading the book until last fall. After reading the book, I started writing the blog. But then I felt I should read Sarah Bessey's book first. After that I finished the draft. In January, I made most of the final edits, but I wasn't ready to publish the blog yet. But this month came along—the 30th anniversary of the failed adoption. So, I made the final edits and published the blog more than 1-1/2 years after I started.

A Call for the Return of Jesus

I'm not a great fan of San Francisco. I had been there twice in the 1990's and figured that was enough for one lifetime. But my niece had moved there with her husband, whom I'd never met, and she was also a new mom, so we braved the the streets that never seem to end up going the same direction they started. After dropping of my wife and brother at my niece's house I drove around...

...and around...

...and around... (you get the point)

...until I found a parking spot.

At least by that point, the rain had let up so I didn't get too wet walking to the apartment, which is located in the shadows of UCSF where my nephew is attending medical school.

My niece found us a hotel for the night that wasn't too far away with a Groupon that included parking—a $35 value just for that latter part. The hotel was in Berkley, a place I had perhaps driven through once in my life. I had not realized that Berkley went all the way to San Francisco Bay. The hotel was beautifully situated adjacent to the marina.

The next morning we went out looking for some affordable breakfast, a challenge in Berkley, but possible with the help of coupons and fast foot restaurants. Driving back to the hotel, we stopped at a small park that had a handful of parking spots and a short path along a spit reaching into the bay that afforded views of San Franciso, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other places I don't know the names of. There were a couple of park benches, the condition of which said that they had only been recently installed. But even more recent was the editorials scibbled in permanent marker. The message on the left side was in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. The message on the right side I interpreted as a prayer for the return of the Messiah...

Park Bench in Berkley

"FREE ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE" the writer exclaimed on the bench. The co-location of the message with the one mentioned earlier suggests that it implied that the Palestinians in Gaza were among them.

When I read these words, I immediately thought of Jesus words when He announced his public ministry. Jesus had gone into the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. On this occasion, he was invited to be the guest speaker. He was given a scroll to read, which just so happened to be some words from the prophet Isaiah, who was writing about the Messiah to come.

     “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
  because he has anointed me
  to proclaim good news to the poor.
     He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
  and recovering of sight to the blind,
  to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18, 19 (ESV) quoting Isaiah 61:1, 2

Jesus then inferred that these verses applied to Him. Jesus will begin proclaiming good news to the poor. Jesus will proclaim liberty to the captives. Jesus will give sight to the blind. Jesus will set at liberty those who are oppressed. These things are the marks of the Kingdom of God. But Jesus did not finish these things before He went to heaven. But He said that He will return and then He will finish establishing His Kingdom.

In the meantime, he charged those people who follow Him to continue to bring the Kingdom of God to the earth. We are to continue to proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives, bring sight to the blind and set at liberty those who are oppressed. We won't finish the task, but we should keep at it until such time as Jesus returns to do so.

So this bench in Berkley is a reminder that the church still has work to do as long as there are still oppressed people. It is also a prayer for Jesus to come back and finish what He started.

Maranatha.

Come, Lord Jesus!