The Scriptures allow us to watch what makes a grown man cry.

2 Samuel 1: 19"The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen! 20 Tell it not in Gath, Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon-- Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 21 "O mountains of Gilboa, Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, Nor fields of offerings. For the shield of the mighty is cast away there! The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. 22 From the blood of the slain, From the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan did not turn back, And the sword of Saul did not return empty. 23 "Saul and Jonathan were beloved and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided; They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions. 24 "O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, Who clothed you in scarlet, with luxury; Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. 25 "How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan was slain in your high places. 26 I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me; Your love to me was wonderful, Surpassing the love of women. 27 "How the mighty have fallen, And the weapons of war perished!"

I do love the faith that makes David weep aloud and yet with hope in the most High God that comforts will come. God allows us a peek into the heart of a man with humble love for God and those around him. In a large family, our hearts can become calloused to love and aloof from real relationships. Like riches, family has a way of insulating you from outside and real relationships. The fact that we do not read of David's grief for other family members, in scripture and that God allows us to see the love that penned this lament makes me try to translate some of the sentiments that I see in him to my own mind.
Perhaps they are jaded with my own experiences of loss, and being a woman, but it helps me to think that God is teaching us to continue to love, in spite of loss.

David's lament for Jonathan.

Can I say how I have loved my brother? My heart is broken, broken. The world must know. The sky is dark and the streets are empty for my beloved brother has left this earth. We laughed and cried and hoped together. It does seem too soon, I cry. I loved my brother, I cannot think of anything that I loved better than that. To see that father and son team in extravagant embraces, was beyond the reach of my earthly relationships. I loved Jonathan as a brother and he loved me as well. He is gone and my heart weeps aloud for the loss, from this earth. My heart would leap when I would see your face. There was little delight on earth but the safety of your friendship. Others have had ulterior motives and mocking glances, but never Jonathan. Others have been fans or onlookers, but, never Jonathan. He saw through the facades. He loved in the realm of earth. Where it cost him dearly. He loved me whether the earth approved or not. I loved him whether life allowed or not. I had thought that we would see these days together and dandle our children and affect Israel together. I had thought that one more time, I would be comforted in the glance and embrace of my brother. I had thought that war would have spared me my one treasure. The love and delight of my heart. I am broken at the thought of going on into the future, without that love to comfort me. Father and mother aside and apart, God has given me the comfort of one true friend. One true love, one true brother and I will ever remember that God was faithful to delight my soul with this. Everyone should be crying because the world was a more royal and beautiful place, with the regal and magnificence that Saul allowed us to enjoy. Everyone should be mourning for we have all lost heroes and mighty ones in the battle. But I above all. I lost hero and king. I lost friend and enemy and family. But more, I have lost the closest brother and friend that I had in the world. I have known that God would comfort me in all of my distresses. I have known that the darkest valleys, God embraces and comforts me. Comfort me, in this dark valley, Lord. God, give hope and help and restore my heart from the pieces that it collapses from, this day. My dearest one is gone. My brother is lost. My love feels bereft.

an imaginary letter from Jonathan to David, found after his passing


(Aug 11, 2005)
The death of Jonathan, eternally the loving friend of David!

My dearest David,

The battle has been especially fierce lately and although my courage is high, fear is just under the surface, lately. I so long for those days when we were fighting shoulder to shoulder and fear seemed so far away. I had never before seen a man with such an abandonment to the will of God as you were in our youth. Golliath was immense and fierce and you were a little squirt and didn’t even flinch from fear as the rest of us.
I must confess that I never thought you’d succeed but when you did, you gained my unfailing devotion.
As a man, I thought there could never be one who would impress me in this life. In the freedom of faith and the love of God, you hurled the stone that callapsed 2 giants in my life, Golliath,one and my father, the other. I honor my father, but lived under the shame of my never living up to his expectations. His stinging and crushing dissappointment in me had become the giant of my life and with the blow of Golliath to the ground and the songs that spread of your fame, you helped me to see him as fallible and human. I will never be able to thank you enough for that.

I wanted you to become king! I love the spirit of God that empowered you in everything that you do. I know that it was God because of how it freed me! When we die in one of these battles, whether today or tomorrow, know that I had to stand next to you for just a moment of my life in order to feel strong. David has truly killed his 10,000’s and my support has always been for you. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my life and I am grateful to God to have had the privilege of loving you. I simply could never tell you how healing to my soul your love has been. Thank you!
Jon


Remember the day that you came into our house and we became close friends. I never imagined that we would live to see the day that my father would agree with me that you were golden. He really does agree with me now. When we were fighting today he said to me that this is the kind of battle you wish you had a Dave at your right hand. And I know that he meant that. We both love you. I wish that I could’ve lived to see your kingdom prosper and flourish as I am sure it will, but it is enough for me to have loved you. I hope that I have encouraged you a little in this life as you have me. You are a genuine friend. A man among men who introduced me to prayer and praise. I am still repeating that one that you showed me about Jehovah being my shepherd. Only you could have written that one. I didn’t mean to laugh when I read it, but it seemed funny that a poor little fellow could see Jehovah as being so very big in his life. I have had every luxury and my vision of Jehovah had been clouded by this sense of inadequacy and hopelessness. You made me see Jehovah as larger than my father and my love of Him has grown as my love of you has grown. Truly, I am like the little sheep that were in your care as a child and Jehovah has shepherded my soul in many valleys. My grief for your continued distance from our family has taken a toll on my body and soul and some days I cry from morning to night desiring some hymn of comfort, to which I had grown so accustomed. Jehovah comes, in spirit, to comfort me.
I do remember what a knack you have for rejoicing. I need some of that mirth right now. I wish you were here to tell me a joke. Gloom seems to be as thick as peanut butter. Why do the nations rage? You would say. These things don’t seem like they will pass. I long for peace. The losses are mounting and sometimes it gets to me. Knowing that Jehovah will collect our souls to the fathers is something that I learned from you. I still sing that little song in the morning that you sent for my birthday. Where shall we indeed go from His spirit? He is even here in the darkness of the sheol of war. With His hand he will indeed save me! I can find some comfort in that.
It seemed my greatest comfort to have had a hope to do my duty and die next to you in the battle. Jehovah has denied me that, but as I look into eternity with the hopes of the comforts of Abrahamic covenant, it seems that I will miss you even there. Earth has no sorrow, that heaven cannot cure. I do pray that God would be merciful to me, as you have… My soul trusts in the shadow of his wings and I know that He is the most high… I am looking to Him,to come from Heaven to save me; but it is very hard when the battle rages as it is. My soul also is among lions and those very ravenous and rejoicing, already over our souls. My heart is fixed, O God… I too, am trying to awaken my praise because the mercy of God is so great He is to be exalted above all the earth and even over the shame of this kind of a death…

I pray that you would find this with my belongings and know that we thought of you, even here.

The Star Spangled

The Star Spangled Banner
Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What, so proudly we hail, at the twilights last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
Through the barrenest night,
O’er the ramparts we watch, were so gallantly streaming,
And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there.
Oh say, does that star spangled banner, yet wave?
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

Oh Say, Does that Star Spangled Banner Yet Wave?

Is it still there? Are we still, the land of the free and the home of the brave?
There are 2 questions there. One, is the question of the banner waving. That is the easy part of the question. We can buy a flag. We can wave it high. We can dress in red white and blue and the flag is waving. We can be the flag, if we like and celebrate the independence of our nation.
But, is it waving over the land of the free and the home of the brave? That, indeed is a harder question.
That is a harder thing to impose and fight for in our nation. The land of the free and the home of the brave, means more than wearing red, white and blue. It means being and supporting the things, the ideals and considerations principles and lifestyles that produce and multiply our freedoms and bravery.
Is the land still there? Is the flag still there? Are we still here?
When we stand and hold hand to heart believing and fighting to defend and give our children the rights and love for the land from which we hail, let us commit again to the biblical principles that God blesses with life and liberty. When we fall away from supporting those principles we are dulling the colors. We are defacing the nation and we are the graffiti on the landscape of freedom and liberty, when we do. We don’t want to be graffiti, do we?
Happy 4th of July

And the rockets red glare…
The bombs bursting in air…

The Sorority of Maternity, has its own initiations.

We seemed to take it upon ourselves in the matter of course. It was like a blooming garden as the bellies which were once the youthful feminine shape became distorted and went from oval to round and sometimes several times. It is beautiful to observe, from the outside, now. The beauty that God has placed in the human reproductive cycles. Even that was directed, by "Mr. Conductor", so to speak. You families are waiting and waiting, he said one day to us all. Look at dear Carol Hoffmaier, who is now providentially hindered from having any more children. Will you wait, till your bodies can't have anymore? We shuddered to think of this. We were waiting until...the nests were just so. They could or couldn't be just so for long. We learned to trust the Lord and God used our dear Elders there at Trinity to guide us through the fecundity of our precious childbearing years.
Blest Be the Tie that Binds...Our hearts in Christian Love.

So we sat as yearning Ewe Lambs...

Looking to our undershepherd for direction for our youthful lives. What do we do, now that we are young Christian wives? I will tell you what my mother did, was the answer Pastor Martin gave us. She prayed on the floor for the salvation of this soul. She gave hospitality to strangers and my wife did also. We were yearning to be that kind of woman. Fellowship and right service to husband and the church were the longing of our hearts. We committed that we would make his preaching come alive in our homes. So, we respected our husbands. All of our training had taught us to be self assured and determined feminists.
I still remember the message about the woman with the alabaster box of ointment. I was sitting in the back of the church and I felt the Lord call us to go outside of our comfort zone again. We couldn't live in Christian huddle, it was time to envision and live to God's glory where we were planted, as hard as this was. It was time to leave Trinity.
Laboring to anoint the feet of Jesus was the motivation. Laboring to give service in an uncomfortable set of circumstances. Englewood was where we lived and we would lend our praise and prayers there.

I have had occasion to remember the breaths of motivation that got us to this point.

I do remember, with fondness the slights of influence that were inspirational to us, when we were in our early married days. We had elders in our lives, who were positively directive to help us hone our desires in marriage into one. What we want to be as individuals did not eclipse what we wanted to be as a family. What is a family that fears the Lord? What are the investments of time and attention to look like? First thing, praying and seeking the Lord to help you to love and care for eachother. Second preparing to care for children and the aging parents that God has given you. You will want to be ready to care for them when they get older. That is why you want the woman to be at home, so that she can be that care taker to children and the elderly in a humane way.
Pastor Martin did this, by telling stories of the struggles of he and his wife in the care of their parents. The struggles of having different scruples than the older generation. He laid out the conflicts of carrying children and parents on his family's back and we yearned to be that kind of a family to our siblings and parents.
What should you be yearning for, young praying women? You should want to be godly and growing in grace and wisdom, so that your fruitfulness will be useful to God. Yearn to use your beauty in hospitality. Yearn to use your knowledge to serve the brethren. Yearn to see the prayers of your hearts enfleshed in the world around you. Yearn to pour out yourselves for the education of the next generation and the comforts of the older generation. We followed like little lambs and we loved to do this. For her (the church) our tears were spent. For her our hearts were enlivened and enlightened. He directed our loves and our lights. I see you lighting up, my daughters. Let the word of God direct that light.
It is not by accident, that we were homeschooling and trying to direct the generation after us. We were instructed and directed to do this. We had calculating elders send us out, as it were, two by two.

There were wolves and they vanquished the flock in their self-serving. Took and did not give. Wow, what gullible sheep, you are?
God knows!
He knows our hearts and he knows the people who are self serving and ate of the flock.

God allowed us to care some for parents.
Anyway, it is the older generation to make the beds of the future generations. We are the ones who teach them to pray and to serve in this nation. We are the ones who make them desire to serve Him, or not, as the case may be. Thank God for the elders at Trinity, who gave us a sight for past our own noses.

So Blessed to learn to cast my care...

I do imagine the devil going to God daily, carrying our complaints before God. As it shows him in the book of Job. God says to the devil, where have you been. He answers the Lord. I just imagine, he brings up to God the complainers. This person is accusing You of this and that and Your goodness is questioned in this or that way. I haven't heard that Job was among the complainers, it seems to illude to, in the passage. Almost, as though that is the measure of godliness on earth. Jesus carries our griefs and pleads on our behalf before the Father, but the devil is pleading against us.
How many of us are among the people that God hears murmering and complaining, though we are blessed with sooo much? It is good to give thanks to the Lord on high. We make elaborate excuses, why this or that kind of expression of praise is not to our liking and I am a very picky musical listener.
I know what it is to complain about a sour note or a mis-hit note in a song. Far worse than a sour note, is complaining. AHHHHHHH! Do, re, mi!
God is merciful and he listens to every petition, but, murmuring is accusing God of unjustness, in His providences. Too often we are the ones who the devil is carrying the gossip, to God to tell on our murmuring. Jesus paid for these sins too. But, how sad to grieve our good God's heart, by our unbelief. Unbelief, wrought from griefs and sins and sour complaining, is ugly and blinding. God's Word has the remedies and we can grow in faith to look to the God of His Word, when our hearts condemn and accuse the good God, who has cared so well for His people.
God seemed to say, I never hear you accuse Job of unbelief. He is careful to praise me. How many people on the earth were richer or poorer than Job, but one man was on the earth at that time whose praise to God had made him a monument of righteous love of God. The ungrateful rest of the world. Shameful that we are accepting the gifts of God and complaining about them with the breath that He lends. God help us to glorify God in our bodies.

Happy Memorial Day!

America The Beautiful
MATERNA


Author: Katharine Lee Bates, 1859-1929

Musician: Samuel A. Ward, 1847-1903

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

The fact that Memorial Day was designed to honor our fallen heroes and to comfort the mothers and widow and daughters and brethren of those fallen.
I am interested that the first line of this song points to the sky. Seeming to say, look up, dear grieving women. We live in a country of beautiful skies, mountains and plains. Take your eyes off the grave, dear grieving ones, look at the country that they died to save.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thorough-fare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And ev'ry gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,

Lord we have broken our alabaster cities on Your feet, to fight for a land of freedom and honor to Your Word. By lending our loved ones into the fight for freedom, we have believed that You will maintain our freedoms and help us to be and keep the children's eyes on Christ and Him crucified. See our sacrifices and see the honor of the things that we have poured upon You. Help us not to grieve as those who have no hope.
Bless our sacrifice and preserve our hopes in You, Amen!