I Deserve?

It's rough still. The kids are growing, and I feel outnumbered. But they love to climb, and run, and snuggle, and often try to climb on me. (Penny!) It's a joy, but it is also very hard to climb out of the very deep pit of weariness.

Anyway. God shows his goodness in times like these. I've been listening to the Bible (The Message, in fact) a lot. I accidentally skipped Numbers while on-purpose skipping Leviticus, although perhaps that's just as well, but this story of redemption and love and faithfulness even in the early years of God's (often faithless) people is a deep encouragement that quite honestly i didn't expect. We NEED to hear these stories, just like the children of Israel did.

I've also rediscovered Third Day. Not the Third Day of the last decade or so. The beautifully gritty Third Day of Conspiracy No. 5, which includes lyrics like "He deserves the very best. But he loves her none the less" ("Gomer's Theme"). It's actually one of my all-time favorite albums, even if i forgot about it for so long. Is it bad to feel like they were sell-outs in reverse? Because they nailed the rock-n-roll and songs about life and guilt and forgiveness and hope.

The real reason i'm finally spurred on to writing a real blog post, though, is that Jason and I watched The Free State of Jones tonight. It was so, so good in a heartbreaking and humbling way. I'd read enough American history to expect a lot of what was coming, but seeing it is different. I knew a certain character would meet a horrible death, based on countless others who met similar horrible and unjust deaths in history, and i looked away for a long time from the screen. I wish i had cried then, too, but what actually brought the tears was free black men voting - attempting to vote - for the first time. Our country is and has been seriously f***ed up, and this made me realize how deeply merciful God has actually been to us. Americans, not so long ago at all, deemed it illegal for a white man to marry a black woman, or vice versa. They didn't believe this: "A man can own a mule. A man can own a horse. A man cannot own a child of God." I'm afraid of what our country could look like for my kids; but how many mothers still fear for their children on daily basis, because of hundreds of years of history up to the present? Dear God, please don't visit the sins of the parents onto the children. (At least not for more than four years, because our judgement may indeed be arriving.)

But tying this back to Third Day and Deuteronomy, The Free State of Jones points to humility and repentance and that as a child of God there is a freedom that cannot be taken. And i would add that even in the face of threats and tribulations, I pray I would not back down, would not brush evil under the rug just so things could be easy. That scares me, but much less than saying and doing nothing does. And...I got the Holy Spirit. He who is in us is greater than he that is in the world -- and the gates of hell (which might look a lot like the South in its sins against humanity. Or ISIS in its atrocities) WILL NOT PREVAIL.