Many Are the Afflictions of the Righteous

“…18The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. 19Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all. 20He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken.…” (Psalm 34:18-20 – New American Standard Bible)

All these many afflictions do in time is add to my strong testimony that God is able, and he is a rewarder of those who diligently serve him, because in my capacity of being a humble servant in his garden of Creation, I have nothing to offer the world, except that which he has given to me. Yet, even as he giveth seed to the sower, water to the thirsty spirit, bread to the hungry, and desecration to the lazy soul, he gives grace to the humble and reduces the proud to shame.

My question is what is there that we – as human beings – have to be proud of? We have never accomplished anything in our own strength, except to the degree that God permits, yet we become boastful, puffed up, and hearty in spirit, taking credit for making and managing that which we are simply his stewards of and casting shade on those who appear to be less fortunate.  The sedentary state of our affairs without his guidance, intellect, constant pruning, and sustenance would be abominable.  Yet, we digress from that truth to take a bow on the great stage of life and masquerade as the Grand Poobah of our own parade.

Yet, we rise…We rise, as the lonely pilgrims of our time, because “…7Some boast in chariots and some in horses, But we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God. 8They have bowed down and fallen, But we have risen and stood upright.“ (Psalm 20:7 & 8 – New American Standard Bible)

I visited a relative’s grave today and met with a man stooping at his mother’s gravesite, cutting the grass with a pair of scissors; a man, who by his own admission, and that of another family member with whom we visited the grave, has “Been doing that every day.” I waved at him from a distance, because I didn’t know whether it was appropriate for me to go over to him, and he came over to mine…stretched out his hand, and said, “Thank you.”  I said, “You’re welcome…I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I was admiring your faithfulness from a distance and it felt awkward to just pass you by.”  He said to me that “It is Jesus who said that we should say hello and greet everyone that we meet.”  He floored me with that statement, because in all honesty, I didn’t peg him for a Christian, I would have thought he was more of a Jew, then again, he might just be a Jew for Jesus.  He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.  He did say, however, that he was “thankful to be able to come here every day and find a quiet space to meet up” with his mother, and that is one reason why he didn’t practice the Indian religion, “because they burn their dead and scatter the ashes all over, but that’s their religious belief, not God’s word.”  He went on to say that he realize that his “mother is not there…at least the part of her that made her who she was, and that’s just the remains of the body that God created for her,” but he “still believe that we should return to God that which is God and we don’t have the right to change that, because burial is as old as time, and even though they didn’t have caskets in the old days, they would wrap the body and bury it with dignity.  It’s only in modern times people get the idea to cremate the body and scatter ashes, but I don’t know where that comes from.  One thing I know, though, is that no matter what we do with the body that remains, it’s the soul that matters most to God, and it is good to know that my mother’s soul is at rest.  I hope that’s true for everybody buried here, but that we would never know…but I like to think that my mother is at rest here.”  I asked him how long since she passed.  He said, “Two years, two hundred and eighty-four days.”  I said, “Wow, you even know the days.”  He said, “She had a birthday last week on the 14^th of September, and she died in December, 2015…and I’ve come here every day since her funeral…and spend the entire day with her.”  I was tempted to ask him whether he had a job, which is doubtful from his statement, but I did ask him if he was an only child, and he said, “Yes.”  I said, “Ok.  That explains a lot.”  He also told me that “she’s been here for two winters now, and even though I come here during the winter and stay outside the fence because the cemetery gates are closed, I never caught a cold, never so much as a (sneeze-my word, forgot his), and this is my feeling…you can take it anyway that you like, but this is my feeling…that my mother is protecting me.  She’s watching over me and protecting me.”  He also told me that he brought in his “own soil and grass seeds with fertilizer, and planted them on her grave, because they soil here is not very good…it has stones and stones are not good for grass.  They give you sod, but that’s not good either, because it’s mixed with twigs and other stuff and after a while everything turns brown, but my seeds they grow green and stay green.  It’s a big difference between what they give you for free and what you pay for, but it’s my mother and I want her grave to look good…so I buy the seeds and I care for them, which is a lot of work, because you have to trim them (hence the scissors) and fertilize them, and when the soil gets low, you have to add more to it.  It’s a lot of work, which is why I come here every day, which might not work for everybody, but that’s not a problem for me…because I chose to do that.”

That little narrative of the conversation with this man in the middle of a cemetery challenged me — in mind and spirit — to get a new understanding of how we view life in Christ, and even our transition into death. It forced me to rethink my orders of priority…and get a new level of understanding.  Many people have a lessor hardship laboring in life for the things they want … rather than the people they love … but in death they would abandon life and go to the ends of the earth to metaphorically meet them in death.  In that moment, it called my senses to attention when I realized that was what God did in Christ Jesus…Seven days did he labor, and on the seventh day he rested, and he never labored again.  At least that’s what most (if not all) ministers preach from the pulpit.  Yet scripture never told us that.  Scripture said he rested, but it also says that he never slumbers nor sleep.  As a mother, and even as a wife, and in every other capacity of my functional life, I can truly understand and appreciate that. Yet, it never dawned on me until this man who put his tenacity to his purpose took time away long enough to enlighten my mind.  Yet, it is without regard that we do the same thing for ourselves and our loved ones—even total strangers, because he (God) giveth seed to the sower, and we go about each and every day sowing those seeds into other people’s garden of joy and misery, yet we never stay around long enough to nurture them through the trying times and see them come into their glory, but God does, because he is the master gardener of our lives, and sometimes he as to bring in fresh soil, add new seed, fertilize and even trim us, to present us to the world with grandeur.  Yet, we miss the mark of our glory by taking credit for his labor of love and that of those people he put in our lives to nurture, encourage, and establish us for no other purpose than to reflect the glory of his love.