Bertha is no more. She is an ex-Bertha. She’s joined the choir ethereal. She pushing up the daisies. Bertha has ceased to be. Sorry, had to channel Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch for a moment there. But it was in a good cause. We are celebrating the demise of Bertha the boot. La Donna had her appointment with our orthopedic doctor (thanks Dr. Almdale) and he managed to follow the script and say she can get rid of the boot. So, Bertha is no more. (Actually, we’ve just put her away since the record of this family and injuries is not all that good, might as well save her for a resurrection day when we’ll need her support again.)
Whew, glad that’s over. Of course I’m not nearly as glad as La Donna is. She is the one who had to wear the boot. She is the one who had the broken foot in the first place. She is the one who suffered, so release is all that much more sweet for her, I am quite sure.
But then we all suffered, had to pick up extra jobs, had to pitch in and help out (not that we hadn’t before, just had to do more), the crazy dogs were deprived of their beloved mom’s company on their early morning walks (early, early morning walks - just sayin’), we all occasionally got stepped on or kicked. Yeah, we all suffered. And now we’re good.
Except, she still limps a bit. I’m still walking the crazy dogs. There is some swelling. And we are still puzzling over Dr Almdale’s quote “there is a difference between clinical healing and radiographic healing.” Um, what? Well, the x-ray still shows a break. A break that might or might not be there. It doesn’t hurt, clinical healing - but it still looks broken radiographic healing. “If I was just going by the x-ray, you’d be back in that boot.” What?
There’s healing and there’s healing, apparently. Just like there is suffering and there is suffering. Some suffering never really ends, and some healing isn’t as complete or definitive as we would like it to be. Sometimes when we are healed we still limp. Sometimes when we suffer we can still sing praise.
Lamentations 3:21-26 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." 25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Lamentations. Not big on anyone’s bible hit parade, I suspect. In fact I kinda cheated here and dug around and found just about the only positive verses in the whole book to focus on for this Sunday. Not really fair of me, I admit. And, frankly, it kinda dulls the meaning of the verses when you take them out of the context they are in. Don’t get me wrong, these are great verses and we love them. Even get to sing them. I quoted the chorus to “Great is Thy Faithfulness” in last week’s late night bible study. The steadfast love of the lord never ceases. I mean, who could argue with that? Who would want to? God’s mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. And then Jeremiah, or whoever it was that wrote the book of Lamentations (I know, those biblical scholars have to question everything, fo heaven’s sake) says I’m sticking with God! No matter what!! OK, he said it better: The Lord is my portion (my inheritance, my choice, my will, my choosing, my peeps, my homie - never mind), therefore I will hope in him. I’ve cast my lot in with God, I’m not bailing now, he says.
Good stuff, right? Of course it is good stuff. But out of context it is just good stuff. Just nice to know, thanks for that word, gotta run and get back to my life stuff. Out of context it is comforting, assuring, nice ... yeah nice. But since when have you ever known a prophet to be going for nice?
Back up a few verses. Verse 1: I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God’s wrath. Verse 4: He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones. Verse 11: he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate. Verse 17: my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is.
All right, all right, we get the point! Most of us reading this today don’t know suffering. Lamentations was written to express the deep despair and pain from the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the first Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE (Before Common Era), which was then followed by the fifty year Babylonian captivity. The brokenness of the people is hard for us to fathom. The suffering endured seems almost incomprehensible for us.
And yet not really. Not if we open our eyes. Not if we look deep within our own soul. We have felt abandoned by God. We have felt punished, cast out, broken by choices or circumstance. And we have walked alongside those who’s suffering makes us weep in empathy and despair. The young widow who’s husband went on a mission of rescue and never returned. The family whose child was killed by a drunk driver. The widow whose husband succumbed to an agonizing bout with a cancer that ate him away to nothing. The marriages wrapped in abuse. The children who never measure up to a parental ideal. The young mother who can’t seem to get over the strain of giving birth. The lonely widower who is afraid of an empty house. The family stressed to breaking points by caring for a parent who has become someone unrecognizable to themselves let alone anyone else. Need we go on? Have we touched on your story? Your pain? And don’t demur saying mine is nothing compared to all these. Pain is pain, suffering is suffering. Your wounds are unique to you, even as we are all wounded. The question is do those wounds define you?
But this I call to mind. Jeremiah, who had wounds aplenty, reminds us that to get beyond our lament requires an effort of mind and will. It takes a step of faith, first and foremost. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Is this the same Lord that shoots all the arrows of the divine quiver into your vitals (v.13)? And is it really God who is directing all this pain, breaking all these bones, tearing us to pieces, walling us in? Or is that just our experience, someone to blame, kind of thing. Or is it that if God isn’t causing all this bad to happen to us then who is in charge anyway? Are we alone in the universe? Are we on our own? Is there no one on our side after all; it’s us against the elements and the elements have the upper hand most of the time?
But this I call to mind. It takes an act of will to turn from the kind of thinking that breaks us down. It takes a coming to worship and letting the faith of the community wash over us. It is surrendering of solutions, and simply choosing to put one foot in front of another. It is saying, I don’t have all the answers, heck, I don’t think I have any of the answers. But I choose to live in faithfulness anyway. It is the admission that crawling into a hole and pulling it in after us sounds like a real option many days. But instead we go on. Baby steps, perhaps. Limping perhaps. But we go on. And we go on believing that God’s mercy never ends. And that we have made our choice and so we will live that choice even when it doesn’t seem to make any sense or get us anywhere. We will make that choice, again and again.
How often? Every morning. Every morning, we renew our faith. Every morning we grab hold of God’s mercy. Every morning we climb up into God’s lap and we weep and laugh and catch our breath to go on. Every morning we go on, because we believe that one day we find our way home. God isn’t new every morning, we are. Our faith is. God’s mercies are newly caught, newly felt, newly embraced. Every morning.
I’m glad she’s better. Glad she’s boot free and walking - limping. But will also continue to serve and love and help and heal. And walk the dang dogs as long as I need to. For her. Faithfully. With joy. Sort of. Not really. But definitely faithfully. Count on it. Every morning.
Shalom,
Derek
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