Feces Occurs

Saturday 1/26/2013 7:45 AM

Depression courses through the sapwood of my family tree.  I have observed its debilitating effects upon others but I have not experienced them myself.  According to others, whom I love and know me well, I do have a tendency to look at the dark side of life rather than the sunny side.  However, the events of this past week are not merely the conjuring of my negative imagination; they are real and devastating.

Tuesday night a forty-seven year old colleague of mine in the math department at Cerritos College died, shocking the entire school community and devastating his students.  Thursday a friend told me that a young woman from my church congregation has been diagnosed with liver cancer.  She is married with a son in elementary school.  Thursday evening I also discovered that my mom had been the victim of a scam and, were it not for the quick actions of my brother, would have lost thousands of dollars.  Then yesterday I discovered that another young woman I know found a lump on her breast.  Further testing is needed but the initial results seem to indicate there is a 70-80% chance that it is cancer.

I am healthy and well with the exception of an occasional cold or bout with the flu.  My wife and I have a healthy, loving relationship.  If an unbiased person looked at my life they would think I lead a charmed life and, from my perspective, they would be right.  I am very thankful for my health and for the healthy relationships I have with my wife, my children, their spouses and my grandchildren.  But last night I found myself weeping as I sat in my bathroom, overwhelmed with the events of the week and overcome with emotion as I considered the sadness, pain, disappointment and darkness that are being experienced by those I love.

For my devotions this week I have been reading Psalm 139.  This morning verses 7-12 were meaningful for me.  “Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”  It is easy to experience God’s presence and blessing when one leads a charmed life but when one enters the depths and the darkness it seems as if God is absent and his blessing nonexistent.  This verse reminds me that God enters the depth and the darkness with me; bringing light and hope.

As I consider my grieving friends and family I want to reach out with encouraging words.  But too often words seem trite and insincere, especially when coming from someone who, from outward appearances, is not in a similar place.  But I do want them to experience the love and presence of God referred to in Psalm 139.  Another part of my assigned reading today is Ephesians 3.  The familiar words of verses 16-19 is my prayer for them today.  “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”