Come Heal with Me; Week 11

(Blogger's Note: I apologize that it has been a few weeks since my last post... bear with me as I walk through my own Vally of the Shadow...)

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life..."

Notes from the book: Mary Martin (in South Pacific) sang, "I'm stuck like a dope, with a thing called hope, I can't get it out of my heart..."

David said the same with his word "surely..." when thinking about God's goodness and mercy.

Mother's Notes: Love and Grace

My Notes: I decided to look up the word "surely." David, in his native Hebrew, would have written 'ak.

An emphatic "indeed."

"Certainly."

"Without a doubt."

Notes from the book: Even with all the disasters of the world, when we walk with God long enough--as David did--we come to trust that God will get us through the darkest valleys.

Mother's Notes: See Psalm 37 for "young now old"

My Notes: Psalm 37:25 reads: I have been young and now I am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread.

Notes from the Book: Professor Endicott Peabody (1857-1944), headmaster of Groton School for Boys (Groton, Mass) and the Episcopal priest who founded the school said in chapel, "Remember things in life will not always run smoothly...the great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization is forever upward." One of his students went on to proclaim to a hopeless nation, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Stop thinking disaster into your life. Instead, say with the Psalmist, "This is the day the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24).

Mother's Notes: START

My Notes: Mother wrote "start" as a personal note where to begin her teaching of this small section of the book. But I thought it ironic that she wrote START right where Charles Allen (the author) wrote "QUIT."

I think this is all about perspective, then. Whatever is going on in your life...how do you look at it? Losing Mother, for me, was about extreme pain and loss. For her, it was about reaching Heaven's Gates, seeing her Savior, dancing on streets of gold. Seeing, for the first time in many, many years her own mother. Joy untold.

Untold joy.

So many disasters are upon us today. Even within the last two weeks... earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, dictators rising against people, people rising against government, war added to war added to war...

The earth quakes at the presence of God, I believe. Perhaps, then, what we see as disaster is God's move on his creation. It cannot help but shake when he comes near. I don't know... don't quote me on that. We all try to make sense of what we have seen.

Mothers fear their sons and daughters heading into another land in uprising. But the people who wait for foreign soldiers--wait in fear of their own government--beg us to hurry.

Perspective.

No matter what...surely...

Surely God's love and grace--his goodness and his mercy--will follow me...

I remember a teacher from high school, Jenny Jackson-Adams, who had two cats she named Goodness and Mercy. "They follow me everywhere," she told me.

She could see these little furry reminders of God's love as they scampered behind her. And so she named them...Goodness. And Mercy.

If I look behind me, what will I see? Will I see that God has always remained faithful (I've never seen the righteous forsaken...)? Will I see his hand directing my feet upon the path he laid for me? Of course I will.

Goodness and Mercy follow me... all the days of my life.