Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Note: I've been really busy with doctors' appointments and some other things and haven't had time to post anything the past few days. So, here's one from several months ago that I liked a lot then and still do. With the latest problems that have arisen (which I've not talked about here), it seems appropriate. Hope you'll consider it and really think about it because I think it's very important for all of us.

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Our friend, Dorothy, posed that question (the title) in an email she sent upon hearing of my emergency appendectomy last January on top of a long litany of other health problems over the past two years and it struck me as being rather profound.

In her note, she said:

Dear Dee, We were so sorry to hear about your latest troubles and surgery, and are glad to hear you are doing better now. Hopefully, that will be it for health problems for a long, long time. You have really had more than your share lately. Guess that is a weird thing to say. What is our share anyway? Anyway, we'll pray for your speedy and complete recovery.

You know - I think she's hit on something there. I know it struck a note with me and that I've been thinking a lot about it. At the time I was very down in the dumps (okay - deeply depressed) regarding my health as things weren't looking too well.

So, when I read her words, "Hopefully, that will be it for health problems for a long, long time. You have really had more than your share lately," I was thinking to myself that this friend really gets it. She understands exactly how things are and how awful my life really is and how much God needs to change it for the better.

But, the "woe is me" bubble burst rather quickly when I got to her very next sentence. How quickly I came back down to earth about how life is and what life is all about.

I immediately thought of how her words echoed what the wisest man who ever lived had to say in the book of Ecclesiastes, one of my favorite books of the Bible.

King Solomon said in Chapter 9:11-12 (NIV):

11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. 12 Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

As we go through this life, we are all "trapped" by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon us sooner or later. Have you been? If you haven't, you can be sure you will.

Oh, I know that some of us seem to do extraordinarily better than others in this life health wise. Wealth wise. Opportunity wise, and every "other wise."

I have one friend I've known for a good many years now from law school who is close to my age and was, as I was, an "older" student there. While we both graduated from law shool near the top of our class, I had a hard time finding a good job in the area and finally settled on one in New Orleans.

But, Paul, on the other hand, had no trouble finding a great job. He and his family moved to Atlanta where he went to work making really big bucks, but wasn't satisfied with that.

So, he went out on his own and did even better. Much better. His business thrived, his marriage thrived, his children thrived. They bought a humongous home, 60 foot house boat, big fancy cars, etc. This man has everything that one could possibly hope for and want in this world, even in this country, which is probably the wealthiest and best country in the whole world to live in.

My career, on the other hand, came to a sudden halt about five years ago and now, due to progressively worsening health problems, is non-existent.

My friend, Dorothy, lost a younger brother a few months ago due to a tragic accident that was compounded by his life long disabilities with cerebral palsy. That was in addition to other complicated situations she and her husband experienced within their immediate family, some of which are still ongoing .

Dorothy and I sat in her brother's hospital room the afternoon before he died and had a long discussion about spiritual things and how much we both relied upon God in all things, and especially when life brought us to a place where most people would be down and out. I thought that she, of all people, had certainly had "more than her share."

But, she was full of faith, knowing that God provides in the end. Because she is God's child all is not lost when "bad things happen to good people."

Paul, on the other hand, hasn't faced any of those "bad" things. Even worse - he's not prepared to handle them, despite all of his abilities and talents and wealth. He says that he doesn't believe in God or that God has ever done a thing for him, except maybe bad things to him in the past, when he didn't get his way. He believes that everything he has is of his own hands.

I have tried and tried, many a time, to talk with him about God and about spiritual things, but to no avail. At one point, I was going to send him a Bible, but he said not to bother because he wouldn't read it, anyway. So, I didn't.

I haven't talked with Paul in quite a long time now. It got to where it was too depressing for me to do so. But, I do pray for him every time I think of him. How can I not?

What is our share, anyway? Do any of us get what we really deserve?

Probably not, in either a good way or bad way. But, that's how life is. Time and chance happen to us all, Solomon says.

The Apostle Paul says, too, though, in Romans 8, that nothing at all in this world can separate us from God's love. Neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor heights, nor depths, or any other thing.

I just want to make sure I'll be one ready to accept it, as I believe my friend Dorothy is. My friend, Paul, I'm not so sure about.

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